For anyone who frequents their local record store, the term “cheap heat” is likely a familiar one. Often its own section, the cheap heat bin usually contains copies of iconic records in dubious condition, lesser-known titles by major artists, and maybe most importantly, overlooked records that either never fully caught on, or for one reason or another, never found their audience. The problem with some of these titles is that while the cheap part is generally accurate, the ‘heat’ is sometimes over-promised. Not the case with Ramsey Lewis’ 1970 funky soul jazz gem Them Changes, a record we’ve never seen priced higher than $10 that burns hot.
Category: Jazz
Door of the Cosmos: Sun Ra’s On Jupiter and Sleeping Beauty
Between 1978 and 1982 Sun Ra parked his roving musical spacecraft at New York’s Variety Arts Studios for a series of rigorous and inspired marathon sessions between frequent gigs in the city. On the heels of their stellar Lanquidity reissue, Strut continues their deep dive into this phase of Ra’s career with the twin 1979 masterpieces On Jupiter and Sleeping Beauty, offering a fresh glimpse at some of the most revered and beautifully spacious music the Arkestra ever cut.
Mal Waldron :: Candy Girl
A rare 1975 Mal Waldron session with the Lafayette Afro Rock Band finally gets a proper reissue, clarifying some of the album’s many mysteries and deepening its still-ambiguous message. Playing electric piano, the always laconic Waldron gives lots of space to the funk band, space that’s not taken up in the traditional sense. Instead, the songs explore relentless repetition and intense stasis, forming ruts so deep they become portals to different worlds, or at least altered frames of reference.
Chicago Underground Duo :: Hyperglyph
The throughline of their vast body of work is Rob Mazurek and Chad Taylor’s commitment to the Chicago Underground project, the origins of which date back to 1998. Sometimes morphing into Chicago Underground Trio, or most recently as Chicago Underground Quartet with guitar player Jeff Parker and saxophonist Josh Johnson on 2020’s jazz-centric Good Days, Mazurek and Taylor inevitably return to each other as simply Chicago Underground Duo with Hyperglyph.
Smoke on the Skyline: Bohren & der Club of Gore’s Sunset Mission and the Art of Doom Jazz
Some albums don’t so much arrive as materialise – like a wisp of cigarette smoke caught in a streetlamp’s beam after rain. Bohren & der Club of Gore’s Sunset Mission (2000) is one of them, unfolding at a pace that leaves room for the scent of petrichor to linger in the air. There’s a European lineage here, from the melancholy of Tomasz Stańko’s Polish jazz to the urban fog of Miles Davis’ Ascenseur pour l’échafaud soundtrack. But the pacing belongs to Bohren alone – glacial, immersive, and attentive to the silence between notes. Like David Lynch’s best work, the music makes beauty and menace share the same room; a brushed cymbal could be a velvet curtain’s hush or rain on a car roof while you wait for someone who might never come.
Johnny Hartman :: I Just Dropped by to Say Hello (1964)
It’s near impossible to discuss midcentury crooners without mentioning Johnny Hartman. His tender approach to balladeer vocals epitomizes the post-war era of American jazz singers; his rich baritone is the sonic wallpaper to smoky lounges and amber-hued clubs, where night owls relax on the axis of the wheel of life, “to get the feel of life from jazz and cocktails.”
Smoke :: Everything
In this day and age, very few albums are truly lost. Some just get misplaced. Take Bay area jazz band Smoke’s 1973 album Everything, an album that should be universally acknowledged as a stone-cold classic of groove music and proto-acid jazz and yet seldom gets mentioned. A half-century later, it still sounds fresh. Spacey, funky and ambient in turn, Everything managed to anticipate so much of where twenty-first century jazz has recently wound up.
Kenny Barron :: Lucifer
Word that pianist Kenny Barron’s 1973 debut as leader Sunset to Dawn was getting a welcome reissue this year sent us back to some of his other releases from that period. Most intriguing among them is his ultra-rare, never-reissued 1975 fusion experiment Lucifer, an album that mixes acid funk, sensitive balladeering, synthesizer experiments and queasy psychedelia. Practically impossible to acquire but eminently worth hearing, Barron never sounded as freaky as he does here.
You’re Future’s In Space: Eddie Harris on Atlantic (A Mixtape)
From the late 60s through the mid-70s, Eddie Harris indulged in a string of progressively freakier, beautifully executed records that smeared boundaries, blew minds and sold poorly. This mixtape collects two and a half hours of the most adventurous moments from those heady Atlantic days.
Jimmy Rowles Trio :: Rare-But Well Done (1954)
At a time when the musical acrobatics of hard-bop jazz were in full swing on the East Coast, Rowles showed little interest in the dazzling technical feats or subversion of form that many of his contemporaries were partaking in. Instead, the unfettered Rowles chose to color within the lines, forming elegant arrangements that drift along like blue smoke curling around an after-hours lounge. On his first solo release, Rare, But Well Done (1954), Rowles’ approach is warm and classy, containing the understated sophistication of a well-tailored black suit: no loud colors, garish patterns, or ostentatious branding — just impeccable fit, fine stitching, and classic style.
Charles Tolliver’s Music Inc. :: Live at Slugs’ Vol. 1 & 2
The resurrection of Strata-East is nothing short of monumental, and that’s a fact. While each album on the legendary jazz label is a masterpiece in its own right, there is perhaps no clearer line to the heart of the Strata-East psyche than Charles Tolliver and Music Inc.’s Live at Slugs’ Vol. 1 & 2. Originally issued in 1972 as two separate albums, Live at Slugs’ is finally presented in all its majesty as a proper double album, transferring the full impact of this tour-de-force scorcher that occupies the intersection of heady post-bop, modal elegance, and spiritual fervor.
Nate Mercereau, Josh Johnson, Carlos Niño :: Openness Trio
Openness Trio marks the first major release for the small group of L.A. musicians Nate Mercereau, Josh Johnson and Carlos Niño, as well as a significant milepost for the drifty, electronics-infused style of jazz they favor, appearing on the storied Blue Note label, once a haven of the old guard. Meditative, vibrant and lush, Openness Trio reenvisions the crystalline perfume of West Coast New Age not as daffy escapism but as the transcendental successor to avant-garde spiritual jazz. Equal parts incense and neon, it’s a testament to a place and a sound that sees the geographic and sonic realms as eternally impermanent and always incomplete.
Max Roach :: M’Boom
Max Roach’s deep vision of the drums as a communicator of limitless expression permeates every corner of his pathways. Starting in 1970, his M’Boom percussion ensemble was a collective that brought together an array of African, Latin and all sorts of global rhythms. On this 1979 record, the ensemble explores all sorts of polyrhythms with original compositions from all of the expanded octet, as well as abstractly paying tribute to the likes of Charles Mingus and Thelonious Monk.
Bill Evans :: Waltz for Debby (1962)
Waltz For Debby captures the symbiosis of the Bill Evans Trio beautifully — a live documentation of three musicians whose relationship with each other eclipses being bandmates for something far more powerful and cosmic. It’s the kind of confluence that happens once in a lifetime for most musicians, and that’s if they’re lucky. It’s the sound of stars aligning; it’s the sound of capturing lightning in a bottle.
Pharoah Sanders :: Izipho Zam (My Gifts)
From the moment Lonnie Liston Smith’s tantalizing piano chords are joined by the unmistakable vocals of Leon Thomas on “Prince Of Peace” it’s clear that Izipho Zam is going to be a very special recording. Liston Smith is on fire and the yodelling strains of Leon Thomas backed by a host of percussionists elevate the material to the spiritual jazz equivalent of an apex predator. It nearly swallows you whole. While Karma and Thembi get a disproportionate amount of attention in the Pharoah Sanders canon, the alchemical Izipho Zam is right up there with the very best of his work.