« February 2020 | Main | April 2020 »
A former winner of Blues & Soul magazine’s best newcomer of the year award Hilary Mwelwa was born in Lusaka Zambia and at the age of five relocated with her family to London, England. Growing up, hers was a home filled with the iconic sounds of Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder to name but a few so it was no surprise that as a vocation she chose music. Hilary’s breakthrough came in 2000 when, partnered with Victor Redwood-Sawyerr and recording under the name of Hil St Soul, she announced her arrival with the album ‘Soul Organic’ which was followed four years later by ‘Copasetik & Cool’. Garnering a top 20 placing on the Urban Adult Contemporary Charts with the song ‘Pieces’ it paved the way for more of the silky same, first with the runaway hit CD ‘Soulidified’ that Blues & Soul described as being “as good as it gets” and then in 2008 with ‘Black Rose’ which included classics in the making such as ‘Wash Away’ and ‘Gravity’.
It also cemented what had evolved into a long term relationship with the Shanachie label, an association that endures to this day and which has been responsible for the launch of her brand new single, the sumptuously mid tempo, soul drenched, ‘One Life’.
All in all, with underground soul hits like ‘Smile’, ‘Pieces’ and ‘Strictly A Vibe Thing’ to more commercial numbers such as cool reworking’s of Aretha’s ‘Until You Come Back To Me’ and the Isley Brother’s ‘For The Love Of You’, Hil St Soul continues to be a shining beacon of the UK urban scene.
There are only a few established artists who are capable of reinventing themselves and jazz guitarist and Billboard chart-topper U-Nam is certainly one of them. As if to prove it he will release the genre busting ‘U-Nam Goes Big Band’, March 27, 2020, on the Skytown Records label.
Coming off the back of a scintillating 2019 that saw him enjoy huge chart success with his sensational ‘Future Love Parts 1 and 2’ (that reached #20 on the Top 25 Billboard Jazz Best Selling Album chart and #8 in the Contemporary Jazz category) this is an exciting new direction for U-Nam to take but, with nine top 30 Billboard hits already to his name and an approach recognised as always innovative and often daring, his reputation for shaking the musical world to its core is already firmly in place.
‘U-Nam Goes Big Band’, a sumptuous eleven track rendering of sophisticated mood jazz, is made even more enticing by the amazing back-story that first put it on U-Nam’s radar. A phone call to his Los Angeles studio from Estonian producer Mikk Targo is all it took. Targo, CEO and Founder of the Estonian Author Society EAU had, for the past several years, been working with a panel of music industry experts to select from what was generally regarded as the best one hundred songs Estonia has ever produced. As they did so a body of work emerged that was not only a glimpse into the nation’s musical heritage but also an outstanding showcase for the renowned Lutz Krajenski Big Band.
‘Night Groove’ from keyboard player Gino Rosaria was one of the smooth jazz surprises of 2019. Taken from his album, ‘Still Waters Run Deep’, it made it onto the top 30 chart of most played on contemporary jazz radio. Now he is going for more of the same with the latest single ‘Road Trip’ that features funky flautist Althea Rene.
Excellent track
Contemporary jazz collective Under The Lake is the brainchild of multi-instrumentalist Jayson Tipp and after a stop start, evolving line-up, kind of existence the band is back with ‘Your Horizon Too’ that will be released April 3 on the Mind In Overdrive label.
For Under The Lake it all got started in San Diego with the 1993 debut recording ‘Dive In’ and ‘Up For Air’ that followed three years later. A ten-year hiatus, during which Tipp took time out to raise a family, ensued before the critically acclaimed ‘People Together’ hit the streets. At the time I described it as being an amalgam of upbeat, joyful melodies and grooving hooks yet when Tipp returned to the studio in 2018 with ‘Jazz Groove & Attitude’ he did so with completely different personnel.
For ‘Your Horizon Too’ Tipp has reconnected with long time collaborators Richard Sellers on drums and Nathan Brown on bass while adding ‘new boy’ guitarist Patrick Yandall to the mix. Steeped in the laid back musical confines of San Diego, Yandall is a player that has rhythm and melody pumping through every vein of his body and completing the quartet is another Smooth Jazz Therapy favorite, sax man Quintin Gerard W.
Lifted from the 2018 album ‘The Story Of Jaz’ by sax starlet Jazmin Ghent ‘Funk Junk’ is the sort of streetwise swaggering cut that we have come to associate with the rapidly emerging Ms Ghent. Emerging is certainly the word as it was back in 2014 when sheboarded the Smooth Jazz Cruise in 2014 as a paying customer and left as a star in the making. By winning the star search ‘Opening Act’ she not only came to the attention of some of the biggest names in the genre but also demonstrated a talent that is agile enough to connect with a whole range of jazz styles from smooth all the way to ‘straight ahead’.
Yet this virtuosity didn’t happen by accident. Raised in a home where the likes of Kirk Whalum, Bob James and Gerald Albright were constants on the sound system, practice and commitment led to two scholarships and a Masters Degree in music.
Good track
Arguably England’s most successful smooth jazz export, Chris Standring has, with a succession of attention grabbing releases, carved out a unique place in the annals of contemporary jazz. Often soulful, always compelling and disposed from time to time to weave orchestral tapestries into his guitar driven melodies he is a performer who never disappoints. Consequently it should be no surprise that ‘Real Life’, even at this early stage, seems destined to become one of the best recordings of 2020.