Joe Armon-Jones "Icy Roads (Stacked)"

I've been touting UK jazz for a while now and singing the praise of key player Joe Armon-Jones for some time as well. So it should be no surprise that the A-side to his new 10" ends up on here.

Particularly when he enlists the talents of bassist Mutali Chashi of KOKOROKO, who provides such a wide-tire firm-grip bassline for Armon-Jones to drive these icy roads on.

As the info on the Bandcamp page notes, the release has " killer artwork nodding to Thrust-era Herbie Hancock" so you have a good sense of what this sounds like before you ever press play. This is some funky soulful jazz right here. Very curious to hear the B-side "Aquarius" when the physical drops at the end of June.

Teotima - "Cracks"

Due out next Friday (May 24th) the new album from UK soul-jazz collective Teotima, Weightless, has some serious heft. Which makes sense considering the group is 14 members strong and "Cracks" clocks in at over 7 minutes.

The great thing about a lengthy track like this is it provides room for all the players to contribute and have their moment. The crisp horn section gets particular shine around the 5 minute mark after subtle contributions up to that point.

If you're a fan of the likes of Nostalgia 77 (whose Ben Lamdin engineered this "as-live to tape" recording") and big soul-jazz ensembles, then mark your iCal to check out the full-length when the always-on-point First Word Records releases it on the 24th.

Time Grove - "Sir Blunt"

So last summer, I mentioned in a post about Nitai Hershkovits that Wah Wah 45s were teasing a forthcoming album from jazz act Time Grove.

Well, that forthcoming album is much more imminent. Mark your calendar for January 25 because that's the day More Than One Thing is set to drop.

There are only two tracks streaming on the Bandcamp in advance of the release including "Sir Blunt" below but if this and "Roy the King" aren't enough to whet your appetite and get you excited then I'm not sure how you landed on this post. Folks who follow RR know I'm big into the UK jazz scene and potent combos and this makes a circle of the venn diagram.

There's a nice fat synthy bass-line supporting "Sir Blunt" that undergirds some great keyboard work from Hershkovits here.

Joe Armon-Jones & Maxwell Owin - Idiom

Gilles Peterson is in NYC right now for a Winter jazz fest and did a special ep. of Brownswood Basement spotlighting UK jazz where he brought in a bunch of folks including Yazz Ahmed (who was responsible for one of my Top 10 albums of last year). But one name he featured that was unfamiliar to me was Joe Armon-Jones.

Did a little dig and discovered this release from last fall with Maxwell Owin and it is a tight mix of jazz and beats. "Idiom" featuring Oscar Jerome is a particular stunner.