Black Jazz Records #5 CALVIN KEYS 'Shawn-Neeq'

From the very first majestic wave of sound on 'Shawn-Neeq', it's clear guitarist Calvin Keys is setting off on an inspired, mystical trip. Rarely is instrumental music so perfectly conceived and executed with such fire and precision that it creates its own torsioned universe. The molten interplay and interlocking dynamics of the band display a command of an unspoken, bottomless musical language part funk-jazz, part Coltrane-ian modalism and unfailingly grooves hard throughout. The title track ranks as one of the top experiences in funky/spiritual jazz, glowing with a warm, burnished hue for its full 6 minutes as Keys' guitar and Larry Nash's Rhodes electric piano meld into a lovely, drifting wash of organic sound. The second side contains only two long tracks, 'Gee-Gee' and 'BK', both of which take jazz guitar into the stellar regions of  the wonderful. Without doubt every track here is a classic of the genre. I can not recommend this LP enough. One of my favorite albums perhaps topped only by Keys' other Black Jazz release 'Proceed With Caution' (reviewed elsewhere in this blog).

Black Jazz Records #4 - RUDOLPH JOHNSON 'Spring Rain'

                                                                                                                                                                                              Perhaps one of the most straight-up jazz releases of the Black Jazz Records catalog, the little-known saxophonist's first of two LPs on the label finds him in a swinging hard-bop mood, although not above a killer breakbeat or two in the stone classic 'Diswa' or downtown jazz-funk dance moves in 'Devon Jean'. Tightly floating tenor sonorities ricochet off boundless open space in this great 1972 acoustic recording, basically presaging the German mid-70s ECM Records sound with a deep-focus soundstage, judicious use of reverbed room echo and a great 'out-front' horn tone. Late night mellow gold.

Black Jazz Records #3 - DOUG CARN 'Infant Eyes'

After recording a rather straight Hammond B-3 organ trio LP for Savoy Records in the mid-1960s, Doug Carn's music became informed with his new-found Muslim spiritual beliefs on 'Infant Eyes', his 1971 LP and first of four released on Black Jazz Records. Joined by wife Jean Carn on operatic space-soul vocals, this is music infused with call-to-prayer incantations that soars freely and echoes within its own still spaces. Amid stately Fender Rhodes washes and sustained B-3 minor chords, complex harmonic snake-charming from flute, tenor sax, trombone and trumpet underpin Jean's righteous jazz vocals which are indebted to June Tyson's tough grit and welded to a sweet-singing Dinah Washington-like sense of phrase. Inventive, sensitive re-imaginings of John Coltrane's 'Welcome', 'Acknowledgement' and 'Peace' make plain the lineage of this music back to classic modern jazz but with a new fresh take via early 1970s revolutionary culture. A fantastic, quietly funky listening experience.