Soul Jazz Records presents this new collection featuring the heavy 70s roots reggae of Bunny Lee - a living legend, one of the last of the great Jamaican record producers who helped shape and define reggae music in the 1970s from a small island sound into an internationally successful musical genre.
Notes: This book celebrates over 100 years of photography in the Caribbean. From calypso kings to Vodou priests, revolutionaries to dictators, colonialism to independence, slave trade to tourist paradise - the many uses and abuses of the Caribbean are vividly captured here. The image of the Caribbean is as much a creation of the outsider as it is the complex identity of its people, a melting pot of races created out of the participants of the 400 year slave trade - enforced Africans, indigenous Caribbeans and their colonisers - French, Spanish, Dutch, English.
From luscious and beautiful backdrop of tourism and hedonist retreat, to colonial outpost and revolutionary threat within North America's backyard, the complex identity of the Caribbean stands at the intersection of tourism, the detritus of the slave trade, the decline of colonialism and the region's tropicality. The regions politics span an almost constantly changing path of ideas, radicalism and revolutionaries - from Castro's Cuba and Michael Manley's Jamaica, to the violent right-wing dictatorships of Haiti's Francois 'Papa Doc' Duvalier and the Dominican Republic's Rafael Trujillo. The hundreds of fascinating and unique photographs featured here illustrate more than one hundred years of Caribbean history, culture and industry as well as the subsequent diaspora of its people to America, England, Canada and elsewhere. Introduction by Paul Gilroy.
Edited by Stuart Baker. Paul Gilroy is the author of There Ain't No Black in the Union Jack: The Cultural Politics of Race and Nation (1987), The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (1993), Black Britain - A Photographic History (2004) amongst others. Stuart Baker is the editor of a number of photography and design books all of which deal with culture and identity including Punk 45 (with Jon Savage), Dancehall (with Beth Lesser), Kanaval: Vodou, Politics and Revolution on the Streets of Haiti (with Leah Gordon), Voguing (with Chantal Regnault), Bossa Nova, Freedom, Rhythm & Sound (both with Gilles Peterson) and more. He is also the founder of Soul Jazz Records.collection. Notes: New 10th anniversary edition on Soul Jazz Books/Soul Jazz Records of this now classic large format deluxe book - the definitive photography book and essential guide to Jamaican Dancehall in the 1980s featuring 100s and 100s of amazing photographs - all with accompanying text, interviews and biographies. 'Dancehall' is an essential reference book for anyone interested in Reggae and captures a previously unseen era of musical culture, fashion and lifestyle in stunning, vibrant colour. Dancehall is a culture that encompasses music, fashion, drugs, guns, art, community, technology, and more.
Born in the 1950s out of the neighbourhood soundsystems of Kingston, Dancehall grew to its height in the 1980s before a massive influx of drugs and guns made the scene too dangerous for many. Today Dancehall remains at the centre of Jamaican musical and cultural life.
From its roots in Kingston in the 1950s to its heyday in the 1980s, Dancehall conquered the globe spreading to the USA, UK, Canada, Japan, Europe and beyond. In the early 1980s Jamaica was in the throws of political and gang violence - photographer Beth Lesser ventured where few other dared and this book is a never-before-seen record of the exciting, dangerous and vibrant world of Dancehall. Living in Jamaica in the late 70s and early 80s she photographed and documented a cultural explosion as producers, singers, DJs and soundsystems who all made a living out of the slums of Kingston.
With unprecedented access to the incredibly vibrant music scene during this period, Beth Lesser's photographs are a unique way into a previously hidden part of Jamaican culture. Notes: Massive new 360 page deluxe 12' x 12' hardback book Disco - An Encyclopedic Guide To The Cover Art of Disco, featuring over 2,000 album cover designs as well as over 700 12' sleeves, including sections on roller disco, disco instruction albums and more. As well as being a comprehensive visual document on the era, the book comes complete with interviews of a number of important disco figures, histories, biographies and discographies of all the major disco record companies. Sections on Roller Disco sleeves, Disco Instruction albums, 12' sleeves and a scrapbook of disco ads are all brought together in one stunning and stylish package. Forewards by Tom Moulton and Nicky Siano (The Gallery), also interviews with Mel Cheren (West End Records), Ken Cayre (Salsoul), Marvin Schlachter (Prelude), label features and more. The book is compiled by Disco Patrick and Patrick Vogt, introduction by Claes Widlund.
Review: For the first time since 2016, Jamal Moss has pitched up on Soul Jazz with a typically eccentric and mind-altering full-length excursion. As you'd expect, The Red Room is another triumph - an inspirational collection of otherworldly and melodious cuts that effortlessly combine elements from Moss's many major inspirations. One minute, you're wigging out to his jacking, piano-heavy fusion of gospel house and synth-jazz ('The Seduction Syndrome'), the next he's laying down a chunk of deep space ambient with Terry Riley synthesizer cycles ('Awake and Energize'). And so it goes on, breathlessly joining the dots between Sun Ra, Juan Atkins, Adonis, Steve Reich, L.I.E.S and Jeff Mills while sounding thoroughly different to all of them. Review: For the first time since 2016, Jamal Moss has pitched up on Soul Jazz with a typically eccentric and mind-altering full-length excursion. As you'd expect, The Red Room is another triumph - an inspirational collection of otherworldly and melodious cuts that effortlessly combine elements from Moss's many major inspirations. One minute, you're wigging out to his jacking, piano-heavy fusion of gospel house and synth-jazz ('The Seduction Syndrome'), the next he's laying down a chunk of deep space ambient with Terry Riley synthesizer cycles ('Awake and Energize').
And so it goes on, breathlessly joining the dots between Sun Ra, Juan Atkins, Adonis, Steve Reich, L.I.E.S and Jeff Mills while sounding thoroughly different to all of them. Review: Way back in 1976, now legendary U.S jazz drummer Steve Reid and his band, The Legendary Master Brotherhood, headed into Studio WE in NYC to record what would become 'Nova' - a near-legendary debut album that has since become a cult classic. Featuring a mix of punchy free jazz and free funk, the set is still regarded by many jazz-heads as Reid's defining work. Here it gets a fresh reissue on limited orange vinyl, with Soul Jazz Records doing their usual bang-up job on the mastering and packaging.
There's much to admire throughout, from the fizzing dueling trumpet and sax solos of breezy opener 'Nova', to the spiraling spiritual jazz intensity of 'Free Spirits - Unknown' and the free-jazz epic 'Sixth House'. Review: Way back in 1976, now legendary U.S jazz drummer Steve Reid and his band, The Legendary Master Brotherhood, headed into Studio WE in NYC to record what would become 'Nova' - a near-legendary debut album that has since become a cult classic. Featuring a mix of punchy free jazz and free funk, the set is still regarded by many jazz-heads as Reid's defining work. Here it gets a fresh reissue on limited orange vinyl, with Soul Jazz Records doing their usual bang-up job on the mastering and packaging.
There's much to admire throughout, from the fizzing dueling trumpet and sax solos of breezy opener 'Nova', to the spiraling spiritual jazz intensity of 'Free Spirits - Unknown' and the free-jazz epic 'Sixth House'. Review: Last year's Delta Swamp Rock collection was one of Soul Jazz's best for some time, offering a rare glimpse into the rock, soul, country, funk and blues fusions that trickled out of the Southern US states in the late '60s and early '70s. This follow-up offers more little known highlights from the swamp rock scene, showcasing a thrilling array of little-known artists.
In truth, it's the funk and soul-tinged tracks that most resonate (see Bobby Gentry's 'Touch 'Em With Love' and Area Code 615's sweaty, banjo-laden 'Ruby'), but there are plenty of other killer tunes that take a more sedate approach. Accompanied, as ever, by exhaustive sleeve notes, it's another essential selection from Soul Jazz.