My Playlist #51_part2

New York - Addis - London: The Story of Ethio Jazz 1965-1975

Yègellé Tezeta

Out now on Crosstown Rebels: lnk.to/denniscruzroots

Longstanding Spanish talent Dennis Cruz achieves a career milestone this October with the release of his debut album, Roots. The ten-track LP draws inspiration from Cruz’s life experiences, resulting in a body of work that encapsulates the sounds and musical styles that have led him to where he is today.

Dennis spoke on what this moment represents, stating: "I wanted to work on a broader project, the cornerstone of my artist career, and this is what Roots is. The album is a convergence of influences taken from music that I've been listening to all my life, from funk, salsa, and flamenco to house and disco. I am so happy this project could finally come to life. I want to thank the several friends and artists that worked on it with me; Damian Lazarus for believing in it from the beginning and helping it reach the world on Crosstown Rebels." - Dennis Cruz

The journey begins with La Ratonera, a Spanish-themed cut that sets the tone with a warm underlying groove and P. Rivas’ enchanting vocal hooks. Los Tamales soon arrives, released as a July single ahead of the album, before Good Old Days completes proceedings on the A Side. A collaboration with minimal-maestro Ian Ludvig, the result is a stripped-back dancefloor number that feels ripe for the late night hours.

Ecua takes charge on the B Side, upping the tempo with resonant kick-hat combos and plenty of flamenco-inspired swing. What U Doing comes next, as Leo Wood’s harmonic vocal tones perfectly complement Cruz’s hard-edged, groove-led bassline, opening neatly into Bend. The three-minute piece showcases the Spaniard’s love of jazz and salsa throughout.

We’re treated to another piece of teamwork on Go Down, with iconic Jamaican singer Lee Scratch Perry featuring on top of a low-slung, rhythmic backbone, paving the way for Ahora Todo Va (Dub). Josh Butler’s influence can be felt right from the get go, as four-four drum patterns converge on spicy, latin-fuelled lyrical samples.

Te Quiero Cantar acts as the penultimate track, bringing us more funky, house-driven flavours before Back Again brings things to an ebullient close. The final collaborative offering with Iuliano Mambo takes us on a journey through punchy percussion and swinging synth build ups, rounding off an eclectic body of work that looks set to light up dancefloors across the world this year.

Roots showcases the many facets of Dennis Cruz’s production capabilities. The album embodies the life experiences that have defined his career; the moments of progression and elation, from fresh-faced up-and-comer to established musical presence. At the heart of the LP lies an inherent Spanish theme - a nod to the country and culture that Dennis calls home. It’s playful, joyful and built to make people dance, three traits personify this talented producer today.

MÜSE co-founder Dennis Cruz has cemented his reputation as one of global dance music’s most-esteemed talents, in a career that spans decades. Regular industry awards and nominations (including Beatport, RA, Vicious Magazine, and DJ Awards: Best Tech House 2018, Best Deep Tech 2019 and winner of Best Producer in 2017), showcase the skill with which Dennis has become a tastemaker for quality house music, whilst consistent appearances across the worldwide festival circuit have brought his sound to international audiences. BPM, Tomorrowland, ADE, Kappa Futur and WMC are just a few examples, a testament to Dennis’ esteemed presence in the scene.

Dennis Cruz

Los Tamales

Dennis Cruz - Los Tamales

From its humble beginnings in 2001, the Brooklyn label Bastard Jazz Recordings has trailblazed a unique path in the world of independent record labels. Appealing to both DJs and music fans from all walks of life, BJR has become known for its eclectic sound & community of global artists from Mumbai to Napoli, New York to Kinshasha, who touch on everything from funk to hip-hop, house music to forward thinking beats, soul to jazz and international sounds, along with its unrelenting commitment to the vinyl medium. This November, the label will be celebrating 20 years of operation in various incarnations and are releasing a special compilation and a DJ friendly 4xLP titled ’20 Years of Bastard Jazz’ filled with brand new cuts from its current roster, plus a selection of catalog material, some of it classic, some of it overlooked, and some of it unpressed. 

Highlights from the compilation include Australian outfit The Goods, who team up with Steve Spacek (famously of the eponymous British band) on the spacey future soul banger, “FEELS 4 U,” while label stalwarts Potatohead People (who recently teamed up with both De La Soul, Jazzy Jeff, and Kaidi Tatham as well as a host of others on their new album) deliver “Bonzai View,” with its live instrumentation & technical prowess fused with a head-nodding boom-bap beat the group has become known for. Pittsburgh producer Buscrates delivers “Spotlight,” a slinky modern funk / boogie production, while brand new signing POSY gives us “Amai,” a delicate beat construction with gorgeous strings, horns and live bass weaving in and out. 

Notable past catalog on the compilation include LA producer Captain Planet’s classic “Un Poquito Mas” featuring Chico Mann (Antibalas, Here Lies Man) which is still being sung along to in clubs worldwide from Mexico City to Berlin 7 years later, and the airy, indie dance vibes of Manatee Commune’s “Majestic Diver.” Los Angeles producer and talkbox wizard B. Bravo’s “Can’t Keep My Hands Off You” featuring Reva Devito goes into more sultry territory, while Rumtum’s “Tropic Air” gives us a fresh splash of wobbly tape synth and relaxed lo-fi drums. Of course, the club is not left out and the catalog includes dancefloor ready remixes from friends of the label like Jimpster, DJ Spinna, Jacques Renault, and the red hot up & coming Brooklyn duo musclecars. 

Bastard Jazz started early as so many nascent DJ-oriented imprints come into existence, as founder & president Aaron Schultz just barely out of his teenage years was beginning to find his footing as a DJ in Brooklyn, New York. Culling together a small group of artists early on, the label ran as a side project for many years, releasing a handful of records per year. Following a reorganization & renewed commitment in 2014, the label has experienced exponential growth while moving from a DJ oriented standpoint to an artist focused organization that thrives on signing and nurturing new talent and new sounds, while maintaining a concurrent sonic thread in its music. POC owned with a majority POC artist stable, Bastard Jazz’s story is the slow build of a real indie label with a diverse sound & roster from the ground up, through trial and error, listening, learning, and adapting to the times without becoming jaded or losing its original vision. 20 years on, it’s still here & stronger than ever.

Bad Colours - Evers' Jam

PALENQUE, PALENQUE: CHAMPETA CRIOLLA AND AFRO ROOTS IN COASTAL COLOMBIA 1975-1985

On 7th June, Soundway Records release ‘Palenque Palenque! Champeta Criolla & Afro Roots in Colombia 1975-91’. Boasting twenty one pulsating tracks drawn from the northern coasts of Colombia, ‘Palenque Palenque!’ reveals a unique and fascinating story of how Afro Colombian music developed from the 1970s onwards and how the local sound-systems  in Cartagena and Barranquilla played such an important role in shaping the sound of the Colombian champeta.

Co-compiled by Lucas Silva (resident of Bogota and owner of Palenque Records) and Soundway Records’ Miles Cleret, the album highlights the long relationship that the Caribbean coast of Colombia has with Africa stretching back to the 17th century. Specifically, the rise of the percussion heavy champeta sound, born out of a wave of popularity for psychedelic Afro, Latin & Caribbean music inspired by the DJs of the time.

The influence of the sound-systems spread to local artists as well as re-energising traditional African folk songs and rhythms that had survived since the days of slavery. Record labels recognized the major change in direction from the days when cumbia and porro ruled the hearts of the ghettoes and began employing bands that began experimenting and tapping into these new cultural and musical movements. Disco Fuentes were one of the first labels to recognize this sudden swing and duly signed Wganda Kenya who went onto record some of the first Afrobeat records in Colombia. The trend in recording African music continued at pace with labels like Machuca, Discos Tropical, Orbe & Costeño quickly adapting to the newly adopted sound of the Palenques and bands like Son Palenque, Cumbia Siglo XX and La Cumbia Moderna de Soledad went onto readapt Afrobeat rhythms with a Caribbean slant.

THE PICOS
Soundsystems (picos) would be in full swing for days, DJs spinning African records from Ghana, Nigeria & Benin, alongside all varieties of experimental and psychedelic sounds from the vallenato of Valledupar to Nigeria´s Prince Nico Mbarga. The desire for keeping the ghettoes feet moving led to producers of the record labels traveling to France, Carribean and Africa sourcing hard to find highlife, soukous, compas and Afrobeat and feeding back to the DJs. The DJs were leaders of this musical revolution and their reputation as ambassadors for their chosen system preceded them all over La Costa. The most famous of these were the Cartagena based systems ‘El Ciclon’ and the `El Conde’ who would hold parties in and outside the ghettoes. El Conde’s legendary DJ Victor Conde recounts: “When I arrived in in Palenque it was if a president had arrived, damn! One kilometer before getting into town people would greet the pico, kids would run after the truck singing the songs I had to play that night”.

The histories of reggae sound-systems in Jamaica are very similar to the systems on the Colombian coasts – the culture of the exclusive record guarded in utter secrecy a key feature of both. So much so that DJs were renowned for throwing away record sleeves, scratching off labels and often not revealing track titles for up to 20 years!

L A MUSICA
Many of the artists featured on ‘Palenque Palenque’ only recorded one or two songs and then disappeared into obscurity or disbanded. Thanks to some of the collectors in La Costa, treasures like ‘El Burumbumbum’ recorded by Casimbas Negras, survived. Featuring Palenque singer Dionisio Miranda, the track ‘s eccentricity is immediate with its incessant percussion, madcap call and answer wails and bubbling horns – a common mix that pervades many of these tracks.

Around 1981 several groups were recording Afrobeat in Baranquilla including Alberto Carbono who features with his ode, ‘Quiero a mi Gente’. A true proponent of the avant-garde he can still be heard playing in Anibal Velasquez’s orchestra.  Son Palenque were considered pioneers of the crossover sound of Africa and the Caribbean and are featured three times including the title track of this album. Fela Kuti’s ‘Shakara’ is reworked by Lisandro Meza entitled ‘Shacalao’ whilst Fela’s influence is further felt through Wganda Kenya’s contributions especially on the shuffling cut that of ‘Pim Pom’.

In the 1990s the musical wave changed, a new era of unpredictability took hold and the styles on this compilation drifted into obscurity. Soundway have unearthed a magical era, exposed a radical movement and have, in the process, found some of the world’s most eccentric and highly addictive modern dance music.

PICÓS – Record collectors and producers would import records for soundsystems (picós – from p¨ick up in English) playing at ‘fiestas’ in Cartagena and Barranquilla. Local bands began recording new tracks inspired by these imported African Caribbean and psychdelic records.

CHAMPETA – The people in the poor neighbourhoods who danced to African music at the picós had champetas (big knives).  Champeta was born out of the notion of freedom for the black slaves and the emergence of a new musical rhythm – the cutting in two of the history of coastal Colombia.

PALENQUE – 500 years ago the first slaves were brought to Cartagena from Africa who went on to create cumbia music. Benkos Bioho led 100 slaves, from Bantu, Yoruba and Mandiga descent, to emancipation at the first ‘free town’ (Palenque) where they formed a sort of free society. There are plenty of Palenques thriving to this day.


La Tromba - Calaba Calabao

Always cool to participate in @cosmic-ratzzz funkin' with his guitar friend Torben Schmitt !
My part is the Sax - I love Hendrik's "angry" organ in this hot track !
Image by Hannibal Height from Pixabay

Coconut

Manu Dibango

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