The Listening Guide
🎶 The listening guide: five albums, released during the past twelve months, chosen around a weekly theme 🎶
This week, we explore a range of music for and from film, released during the past twelve months. Some of it may be categorised as jazz, but other scores are in the classical vein, ranging from traditional orchestration to more experimental and ambient contemporary classical works. Tamar-kali’s extraordinary music for the film Shirley combines her ability to use the voice as an instrument and to write for piano and string quartet. Meanwhile, trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard’s Academy Award-winning original score for Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods is a grand and richly orchestrated classical set, created to compliment the use of Marvin Gaye’s music in the film. If Music and BBE Music unite to bring us the score to Lucky Man, a film in which the late jazz violin player and Vietnam war veteran Billy Bang returns to Vietnam to travel, open dialogues, and engage in musical collaboration with local players. The resultant field recordings have been ‘lovingly polished’ at The Carvery studio in London. Glenn Ballard, Christian Scott, and Randy Kerber’s music for The Netflix original series The Eddy was created with a remarkable band, including Jowee Omicil on saxophone, Ludovic Louis on trumpet, Joanna Kulig on vocals, Lada Obradović on drums, and Damian Nueva Cortes on bass. Finally, David Allred and Peter Broderick’s What The Fog was originally composed for #monalisa, an 11-hour film by Jennifer Anderson & Vernon Lott exploring people’s interactions with the Louvre’s most famous painting. The music has been edited and expanded upon for an album release for Ghent’s dauw label. We could have included far more in this list: from Jon Batiste’s work on Disney/Pixar film Soul to B Dolan’s Vault soundtrack, there’s a wide world of beautiful new film music to explore. Support Billy Bang’s Lucky Man and the Allred & Broderick projects on Bandcamp, find Tamar-kali’s Shirley via Milan Records, The Eddy Band soundtrack on QoBuz, streaming and other platforms, and find Mr Blanchard’s OMPS on Amazon!
Tamar-kali – Shirley (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
The Eddy Band – The Eddy (From The Netflix Original Series)
Terence Blanchard – Da 5 Bloods (Original Motion Picture Score)
Album of the Week
Our NQ Jazz album of the week is a short and sweet offering from the London-based quartet Ruby Rushton. Packed with memorable licks from the flute of Ed Cawthorne and the horn of Nick Walters, underpinned with grooves and synth bass from the sticks and fingers of Tim Carnegie and Aidan Shepherd respectively, it’s yet another brilliant record in Tenderlonious’ ever-expanding oeuvre. You can support the project on Bandcamp, with digital copies out now and vinyl copies available shortly!
Classic Album
This week’s classic album is a jazz-funk masterpiece from keys player and vocalist Patrice Rushen, featuring Bill Summers of Headhunters fame on percussion, Charles Meeks on bass, Al McKay on guitar and James Gadson on drums. From the featherlight flute of Stepping Stones to the funk bass trills of Roll With The Punches, this LP is packed with cool vocal refrains, grooves, and a fine palette of electric keyboard and synth sounds.