Dave Guy’s “Still Standing” captures the last days of summer with the warm brass of his horn situated in both jazz and funk worlds. The trumpeter is usually busy playing with The Roots on The Tonight Show and tours. “Still Standing” is from his debut album, Ruby, and it follows the previously shared soulful panache of “Footwork” and “Pinky Ring,” the Donald Byrd-esque “7th Heaven,” and the swinging “Morning Glory.” Guy’s love for footprints of jazz from the past is not nostalgia but inspired playing of the present. The Brooklyn-based Big Crown label releases Ruby on September 20th digitally, on vinyl, cassette, and CD.
Louis Cole Announces nothing Album Collaboration With The Metropole Orkest
Louis Cole’s fifth album is called nothing and it is a collaboration with the Dutch Metropole Orkest directed by Jules Buckley. Cole is a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist who is normally thought of as only a drummer. The new album showcases a fuller picture of his creative impulses with inspiration from big band horns. The Los Angeles-based musician wanted to use his appreciation for classical music gleaned from his father to compose new songs not beholden to one genre. The Metropole Orkest was a good fit for Cole’s vision because they have a history of working with jazz artists with an eclectic scope of music including Ella Fitzgerald, Herbie Hancock, and Pat Metheny.
“Things Fall Apart” is from nothing and in the video Cole’s funk influences are expressed with him, the orchestra, and the singers performing while wearing skeleton outfits. The video is taken from one of their shows in Germany during their tour of Europe. Cole will return to Germany in the fall to perform nothing with the Orkest and Buckley. He has shared the tracklisting for nothing, including the Grammy-nominated “Let It Happen” on his 2023 album, Some Unused Songs. Flying Lotus’ Brainfeeder imprint will release nothing on August 9th. The album will be available in two vinyl prints.
Standard (above) and limited edition (below) LP pressings.
nothing Tracklisting
Ludovici Cole Est Frigus
Things Will Fall Apart
Life
It All Passes
Cruisin’ for P
A Pill in the Sea
nothing
Who Cares 1
Who Cares 2
Wizard Funk
Weird Moments
High Five
These Dreams are Killing Me
Shallow Laughter : Bitches (orchestral version)
Let it Happen (orchestral version)
Doesn’t Matter
You Belonged
Meshell Ndegecello’s Red Hot & Ra: The Magic City Album Stream
Meshell Ndegeocello’s curated Red, Hot & Ra: The Magic City is a tribute to the work of the late Afro-jazz futurist Sun Ra. The album is the latest in the Red Hot Organization’s series of projects started three decades ago to raise awareness and money for A.I.D.S. Ndegeocello uses Sun Ra as a muse to produce abstract sketches of his work instead of cover songs. Every composition is original and reflects Sun Ra’s visionary status by tapping the creativity of contemporary voices. In some places, Sun Ra actually appears when he is sampled recanting the band’s travels and his philosophy on “Solipsistic Panacea (Black Antique)” and “Departure Of The Seven Sisters.” Ndegecello delves into the spirit of Sun Ra’s expression with a variety of collaborators including Marshall Allen who is the leader of the late musician’s Arkestra. Hip-Hop/punk rocker Pink Siifu provides ethereal poetry and scraggly-whispered rap on “El-soul The Companion, Traveler” and “Yet Differently Not- Mars Hall (in).”
“#9 Venus The Living Myth” pays homage to Sun Ra’s respect for other planets and his avant-garde jazz with a cacophony of saxophones, percussion eruptions, choral-like chants, and quotes from the master himself. The Justin Hicks-penned “Reproductive Manatees” has Sun Ra’s early proto-funk keyboard experimentation and parts that sound like sung prayers. Ndegeocello’s creative decisions encapsulate Sun Ra’s sonic and philosophical creed of jazz-based musical freedom and respect for other life forms and planets.The Magic City presents all the spookiness, improvisation, mystery, and elusiveness of Sun Ra and his Arkestra who were waiting on aliens decades before George Clinton’s mothership landed in D.C.
Throwback: Billie Holiday-Strange Fruit
Billie Holiday recorded “Strange Fruit” in 1939 and performed it at New York’s first integrated nightclub, Café Society. Abel Meeropol wrote “Strange Fruit” as a poem in 1937 under the name Lewis Allan in response to a photograph taken by Lawrence Beitler of African-American boys J. Thomas Shipp and Abraham S. Smith hanging from trees on August 7, 1930, in Marion, Indiana. Holiday was signed to Columbia Records and they would not let her record “Strange Fruit” for fear of a southern backlash. Holiday’s friend, Milt Gabler, the owner of Commodore Records, agreed to release it on his label so Columbia gave Holiday a one-session release. She re-recorded the song in 1944 but the 1939 recording sold one million copies and became her best-selling single. Holiday was initially concerned about retaliation for recording “Strange Fruit” but she did it anyway because it reminded her of the life-saving medical treatment her father was denied because of racism. The poetic description of Black bodies, blood, and trees was haunting and her performance of it made audiences stand still. When she sang it at Café Society the lights were dimmed and you could only see her face. At the end of the performance, the audience looked up and she was gone before the stage lights were restored. Holiday’s unique way of phrasing and improvisation is one of the reasons why her version of “Strange Fruit” is still the most popular after decades of new covers.
“Strange Fruit” has been called the “song of the century” and “the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement.” Emmett Till’s lynching has always been credited as the real start of the movement but “Strange Fruit”‘s release two years before his birth was the most egregious artistic statement about Jim Crow America.
Holiday died in 1959 after a tumultuous career as a jazz and pop vocalist innovator. Diana Ross received an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Holiday in the 1972 film Lady Sings The Blues. Andra Day starred as the singer in Lee Daniels’ 2021 film The United States vs. Billie Holiday.