Column

THE SNOWBOY COLUMN

Ah, the beautiful weather is upon us – and that means it’s nearly festival time! If any company wants their festival plugging please get it to me for the end of this month and I’ll try and make a nice feature out of it.

I’m afraid it’s just a short column this month as I’m just about to go off to Japan for three weeks. As most of my readers know, my book on the UK Jazz Dance history From Jazz Funk And Fusion To Acid Jazz has just been published and it has also been translated into Japanese, so I’m going over to promote that book and also tour with my band to promote my last CD Communication which has also just been released there. It’s a hard life! So expect lots of reviews of Japanese imports next month.

REVIEW

Blue Note 70 Years

Expect a lot of celebration events this year surrounding the 70th birthday of the world’s greatest Jazz label. To mark the celebration the label have released the most incredible CD package. It is, of course an elaborate ‘Best Of…..’ if you like, and so it should be. It starts with the very first Blue Note release back in 1939 – Boogie Woogie Stomp by Albert Ammons and goes straight through the eras taking in seminal tracks such as Blue Trane by John Coltrane and Canteloupe Island by Herbie Hancock along the way and touching on Jazz/Rap experimentation and the Cuban Jazz of Gonzalo Rubacala right up to Norah Jones. All that in 50 tracks!

The great thing about this box-set is that of course it contains the classics that we hope are going to be included but also the modern artists have been given equal representation too, which is only right. Infact it brings home to me how strong and consistent the label has remained throughout and I just know that there will be some massive surprises on here for the listener that are just (rightly) buying the set for the classics of the Bop and Soul Jazz eras (with all the great newer post-90 recordings).

This box-set comes with a classy booklet with sleeve notes by the mighty Michael Cascuna, and I particularly like the explanation after every song title giving the reason for it’s inclusion. To purchase this set is a no-brainer really – essential!

Please feel free to contact SNOWBOY at B&S with any Jazz news that you feel would benefit others - Thank you.

To order your copy of From Jazz Funk and Fusion to Acid Jazz CLICK HERE