Pure Fire! - A Gilles Peterson Impulse! Collection (Impulse! - 2006)

Making a jazz label compilation is pointless. I don't know much about jazz but I do know that it definitely the ultimate album format. Single tracks, as good as they are, never sound as good as put in their overall album context. Releasing a jazz compilation give consequently headaches to label manager, especially with cult status label like Impulse! Like in journalism, you must always find an angle to be reliable and keep it real. Paying a DJ to make the compilation is an easy way to find your angle: his or her name gives credibility to the project, you can always say that he has chosen the tracks that insipired his work and that he's still spinning some of the songs he selected. Chosing Gilles Peterson was a good choice for Impulse! marketing execs: the guy made himself a name by playing jazz records, has acquired a near legendary status and is famous to make incredibly brilliant compilation. Gilles Peterson selected tracks from the Impulse! 60's ad 70's catalogue that go well together and sequenced them all, making the listening experience very coherent. The biggest names are here of course (Milt Jackson, Max Roach, Art Blakey, Archie Shepp, John Coltrane, Yusef Lateef, Pharoah Sanders) but the record has Gilles Peterson written all over it. It's a bit like listening a Worlwide special show dedicated to Impulse! After every track, you just think that you gonna hear Gilles voice. Well done mate!















Download => Pure Fire! - A Gilles Peterson Impulse! Collection

Kid Loco presents French Funk Experience (Nascente - 2010)

Ex-indie kid and trip hop French producer Kid Loco digged deep in his 70's library music records collection to gather this brilliant volume of the Funk Experience serie. This is an excellent opportunity to discover funky pieces composed for specialized labels like Tele Music, Sonorama or Pema by unknown studio or session musicians called Bernard Estardy, Guy Pedersen or André Ceccarelli. Two tracks on the records cannot to my sense be linked to library music: Course De Ten, by Alain Goraguer, an extract from La Planète Sauvage OST and Africadelic by Manu Dibango. For the rest, you'll find what you can expect: groovy shit clearly inspired by blaxploitation soundtracks with plenty breaks to sample. Don't miss especially Basse Duettino by Raymond Guiot.

























Download => Kid Loco presents French Funk Experience

Roy Ayers - Lots Of Love (Uno Melodic Records - 1983)

Reedited recently on Soul Jazz, Lots Of Love is a really strange album, Roy Ayers switching style on each song. It starts with an afrobeat number, Black Family, clearly inspired by Fela Kuti with whom Roy Ayers signed the album Music Of many Colours 3 years before. But the track, after a vibraphones solo, ventures into hip hop territory with the introduction of an MC. The second track, Fast Money, is clearly inspired by electro funk with its drumbox beat and its robotic voice on the chorus. The tracks Lots Of Love and And Then We Were One are a bit cheesy, mixing post disco boogie beats with jazzy elevator melodies. On D.C. City, Roy Ayers produces what he does the best: sultry vocals with uplifting soul music. The strongest cut on the album is probably the last one, Chicago, a seminal hypnotic track that clearly inspired Chicago and Detroit house music masters a few years later (Moodyman, Theo Parrish and co).



















Download => Roy Ayers - Lots Of Love