London Brew | |
---|---|
Studio album by London Brew | |
Released | 31 March 2023 |
Recorded | 6–9 December 2020 |
Studio | The Church Studios, Crouch End, North London |
Genre | Jazz fusion [1] |
Length | 88:15 |
Label | Concord Jazz |
Producer | Martin Terefe |
Singles from London Brew | |
|
London Brew is the debut album by London Brew, a band consisting of a dozen British jazz musicians including Nubya Garcia, BBC Radio 1 presenter Benji B, and multiple members of Sons of Kemet and the Invisible. [2] The album was released on 31 March 2023.
The band was assembled by producer and guitarist Martin Terefe and executive producer Bruce Lampcov for a series of concerts in major cities across Europe, [3] starting with one at the Barbican Centre [4] celebrating the 50th anniversary of Miles Davis' Bitches Brew which was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. [5]
In place of the concert, the group assembled at the Church Studios in North London in December 2020, starting five days after the end of the UK's second COVID-19 lockdown, to record the album, an improvised set inspired by Bitches Brew. The recording took place over three days. The process started with pre-production work by Terefe and the Invisible's Dave Okumu, which Okumu described as Terefe sharing "a vision rooted in inspiration and celebration rather than faithful recreation". Benji B was brought in to feed Terefe's and Okumu's initial sketches to the ensemble. Okumu said the recording process was full of "so many special moments" such as "Shabaka and Nubya speaking to each other through their horns or Theon Cross dropping the heaviest bass line this side of lockdown." [3]
Terefe, left with over 12 hours of material from the sessions, said he mixed them "like a non-jazz record" with "no editing at all, except deciding where to start and end a song", a decision he considered "the least conventional thing to do". Terefe called the results a "new piece of music that taps into Miles's mindset at the time and our emotion of having been through the pandemic", and said "calling the album 'Inspired by Bitches Brew' comes the closest" to explaining it. [3]
The album was announced 19 January 2023 along with the release of lead single "Miles Chases New Voodoo in the Church", an interpretation of Davis' Jimi Hendrix-inspired "Miles Runs the Voodoo Down", [6] and was released by Concord Jazz on 31 March. [4] [5] The second single, "Raven Flies Low", was released 9 March. It is said to match "rugged funk aspects in the beat to glorious melodies wrought from the effects-laden violin of Raven Bush." [7] Terefe said that in mixing the track, he "fell into focusing on the continuous flow [of] Raven's violin melodies and electronic pedal orchestrations. His mini compositions moved so brilliantly under the radar and this one blew my mind. I chose the title inspired by the track 'John McLaughlin' on Bitches Brew. Simply a hats off to a maestro at work." [8]
Aggregate scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
Metacritic | 84/100 [9] |
Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [10] |
Mojo | [11] |
Sputnikmusic | 3.5/5 [1] |
Uncut | [12] |
According to the review aggregator Metacritic , London Brew received "universal acclaim" based on a weighted average score of 84 out of 100 from 6 critic scores. [9]
Publication | # | Ref. |
---|---|---|
BrooklynVegan (Jazz Albums) | — | [13] |
Uncut | 51 | [14] |
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "London Brew" | 23:34 |
2. | "London Brew Pt.2 – Trainlines" | 15:47 |
3. | "Miles Chases New Voodoo in the Church" | 7:27 |
4. | "Nu Sha Ni Sha Nu Oss Ra" | 8:54 |
5. | "It's One of These" | 6:54 |
6. | "Bassics" | 2:50 |
7. | "Mor Ning Prayers" | 9:52 |
8. | "Raven Flies Low" | 12:57 |
Total length: | 88:15 |
Chart (2023) | Peak position |
---|---|
Scottish Albums (OCC) [16] | 42 |
UK Jazz & Blues Albums (OCC) [17] | 2 |
Bitches Brew is a studio album by American jazz trumpeter, composer, and bandleader Miles Davis. It was recorded from August 19 to 21, 1969, at Columbia's Studio B in New York City and released on March 30, 1970 by Columbia Records. It marked his continuing experimentation with electric instruments that he had featured on his previous record, the critically acclaimed In a Silent Way (1969). With these instruments, such as the electric piano and guitar, Davis departed from traditional jazz rhythms in favor of loose, rock-influenced arrangements based on improvisation. The final tracks were edited and pieced together by producer Teo Macero.
Attilio Joseph "Teo" Macero was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and record producer. He was a producer at Columbia Records for twenty years. Macero produced Miles Davis' Bitches Brew and Dave Brubeck's Time Out, two of the best-selling and most influential jazz albums of all time. Macero was known for his innovative use of editing and tape manipulation unprecedented in jazz and proving influential on subsequent fusion, experimental rock, electronica, post-punk, no wave, and acid jazz.
Leonard "Lenny" White III is an American jazz fusion drummer who was a member of the band Return to Forever led by Chick Corea in the 1970s. White has been called "one of the founding fathers of jazz fusion". He has won three Grammy awards, two nominations and one Latin Grammy.
Jack Johnson is a studio album and soundtrack by American jazz trumpeter, composer, and bandleader Miles Davis. It was released on February 24, 1971, by Columbia Records.
Nick Ramm is an English, London-based, pianist and composer.
It is in the Brewing Luminous is a live album by Cecil Taylor recorded at Fat Tuesdays, NYC, on February 8 & 9, 1980 and released on the Hat Hut label. The album features performances by Taylor with Jimmy Lyons, Ramsey Ameen, Alan Silva, Jerome Cooper and Sunny Murray. The album was originally released as a double LP then rereleased as a single CD.
Bitches Brew Live is a live album by Miles Davis. The album was released in February 2011 and contains material compiled from two concert performances. Most of the songs on the album originally appeared on Bitches Brew. The first three tracks were recorded at the Newport Jazz Festival in July 1969, nine months before the release of Bitches Brew, while the rest of the album was recorded at 1970 Isle of Wight Festival. The three cuts from Newport—"Miles Runs the Voodoo Down", "Sanctuary", and "It's About That Time/The Theme"—were previously unreleased at the time and have since been reissued on Miles Davis at Newport 1955–1975: The Bootleg Series Vol. 4. This recording marks the first known time that "Miles Runs the Voodoo Down" was professionally recorded. The final six cuts appeared on the "Miles Electric" DVD in video form and the audio portion was included in the box set Miles Davis: The Complete Columbia Album Collection. A seventeen-minute segment appeared under the title "Call It Anything" on the First Great Rock Festivals of the Seventies: Isle of Wight/Atlanta Pop Festival compilation album in 1971.
Martin Terefe is a Swedish record producer and songwriter, now living and working in London, who has produced Grammy, Brit and Juno award -winning albums with artists like Jason Mraz, James Morrison and KT Tunstall. He is also a member of the group Apparatjik.
David Jairus Ochieng Okumu is a singer, songwriter, producer and guitarist, best known for fronting the band the Invisible. His debut album, released in March 2009, was nominated for a Mercury Prize (2009) and selected as iTunes Album of the Year.
Sons of Kemet was a British jazz group formed by Shabaka Hutchings, Oren Marshall, Seb Rochford, and Tom Skinner. Theon Cross replaced Marshall on tuba after the first album, and Eddie Hick replaced Rochford on drums after the third. The band disbanded in 2022.
Tomorrow's Warriors (TW) is a jazz music education and artist development organisation that was co-founded in 1991 by Janine Irons and Gary Crosby, committed to championing diversity, inclusion and equality across the arts through jazz, with a special focus on "Black musicians, female musicians and those whose financial or other circumstances might lock them out of opportunities to pursue a career in the music industry". Crosby drew inspiration from having been a member of the Jazz Warriors, a London-based group of musicians that in the 1980s showcased many young Black British musicians who went on to achieve international success.
Your Queen Is a Reptile is the third album by British jazz group Sons of Kemet, released in March 2018 on Impulse! Records. Band leader Shabaka Hutchings wrote and plays saxophone on all tracks, Theon Cross plays tuba, and Seb Rochford and Tom Skinner play drums. It also features toaster Congo Natty and performance poet Josh Idehen.
Shabaka Hutchings is a British jazz musician, composer and bandleader. He leads the band Shabaka and the Ancestors, and used to lead Sons of Kemet before its dissolution in 2022. He is also a member of The Comet Is Coming, performing under the stage name King Shabaka. Hutchings has played saxophone and other wind instruments with the Sun Ra Arkestra, Andre 3000, Floating Points, Mulatu Astatke, Polar Bear, Melt Yourself Down, Heliocentrics, London Brew and Zed-U.
Jazz Refreshed is a contemporary jazz record label in London whose roster includes Shabaka Hutchings, SEED Ensemble, Nubya Garcia, and Rosie Turton.
Tom Skinner is an English drummer, percussionist and record producer. He co-founded the jazz band Sons of Kemet and the rock band the Smile. He has released two albums under the name Hello Skinny. His first album under his own name, Voices of Bishara, was released in November 2022.
Nubya Nyasha Garcia is an English jazz musician, saxophonist, composer and bandleader.
Source is the second studio album by British jazz tenor saxophonist Nubya Garcia. It was released on 21 August 2020, by Concord Jazz. Described by Garcia as "a definite ode to musical history", the record expands on her jazz roots while incorporating dubstep, reggae, Colombian cumbia, calypso, hip-hop, soul, and African-diasporic sounds.
This is a timeline documenting events of jazz in the year 2021.
Nala Sinephro is a Caribbean-Belgian experimental jazz musician, currently based in London. She is best known for her ambient jazz compositions, where she predominantly plays the pedal harp, modular synthesiser, keyboards and piano.
Voices of Bishara is a studio album by the English drummer Tom Skinner, released on 4 November 2022 by via Nonesuch Records, International Anthem Recording Company, and Brownswood Recordings. It was ranked among the best jazz albums of 2022 by multiple critics.