Between the Beats

It has finally been released, the debut album A Strange Arrangement by US-soulmusic-sensation Mayer Hawthorne. The white wunderkind from suburban Detroit/Michigan is presenting an album full of unbelievably superb soul music, in fine tradition of Isaac Hayes, Leroy Hutson and Curtis Mayfield. Exactly these artists plus Smokey Robinson and Lamont Dozier were named by the 29-year-old as his biggest influences.

The Album has been released by the underground-label Stones Throw, founded in 1996, which is better known for its HipHop and Funk releases and artists like Madlib, Breakestra, Dudley Perkins or James Pants. The label’s huge repertoire includes many more great artists, musicians and bands.

The most remarkable issues concerning Mayer Hawthorne’s album are perhaps the facts that he recorded, arranged and produced it all by himself as well as our belief that he really made the spirit of soul-music of the late 1960s and early 1970s his own.

After listening to no more than two of Mayer Hawthorne’s songs, he wanted to sign the very talented American, head of “Stones Throw” Peanut Butter Wolf explained. Famous interceders and fans are for example Gilles Peterson, Mark Ronson and Justin Timberlake. Definitely a candidate for the “album of the year”.

Here you find some soundfiles from his songs and please check youtube for the lovely “Just ain’t gonna work out” and several other videos.

Tags: Detroit, Isaac Hayes, Madlib, Mayer Hawthorne, Soul, Stones Throw

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The legendary  “Soul Train” was especially in the 1970ies one of the most popular shows on television for outweighing African American people. For more than 35 years and at least 1000 episodes, “Soul Train” had them all: James Brown, The Jackson 5, Marvin Gaye, Al Green or Aretha Franklin, to name just a few, they all appeared on this show. Hosted by Don Cornelius, “Soul Train” presented every week the newest in Soul, Funk and Rhythm and Blues.

And now, three years after its last episode, an own channel on Youtube has been launched. Here you can find many old interviews, videos, live appearances and remember the gold old days of soulful and handmade music! Enjoy!!

Tags: Al Green, Aretha Franklin, Don Cornelius, Jackson 5, James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Soul, Soul Train

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We feel very sorry for the loss of one of Americas greatest Jazz composers and producers of all time. With his work, George Russell was next to Rudy van Gelder and Teo Macero one of the most influential producers who was involved into Jazz music.

In all the years he worked with several great artists like Max Roach, Dizzy Gillespie, Don Cherry, Gil Evans and Jan Garbarek. In 1953 he published the well-acclaimed book “The Lydian Chromatic Concept Of  Tonal Organization“, that inspired Miles Davis while his recordings for his infamous “Kind Of Blue” album.

In 1985 his album “The African Game” earned Russell two Grammy nominations.

To get some more information on his work, please check out this video.

Russell died of complications from Alzheimer’s disease at the age of 86 in Boston / Massachusetts last Monday.

Tags: Dizzy Gillespie, George Russell, jazz composer, Miles Davis, Rudy van Gelder, Teo Macero

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This year’s program of the Montreux Jazz Festival once again is fantastic. Every year Claude Nobs seems to surpass himself with his festival. Nowhere in the world, you can see and listen to so much high quality music in such a great setting.

I was lucky to spend two unforgettable concert nights in Montreux last week. On July 6th, I saw SMV, which are Über-Bass-Players Stanley Clarke, Marcus Miller and Victor Wooten and on July 9th the wonderful Raphael Saadiq, both at the Miles Davis Hall.

My expectations were very high, when SMV published their album “Thunder” last year. I asked myself, how can three of the very best Jazz Bass players show their individual class and at the same time harmonise as a “rhythm trio”. Listen to the CD and you will see, only geniuses like them can do that.

Live on stage SMV is even better. Their Montreux performance gave all three of them a lot of room for breathtaking solos, each of them in their typical style. Stanley Clarke plays a very smooth guitar like style, like we know him back from his time with Return to Forever, the Fusion supergroup from the 70s. The great Marcus Miller’s Bass is groovy and funky as always and Victor Wooten’s technique  sometimes sounds as not from this world. The concert highlights for me were a minimum 15 minutes version of the Miles Davis classic “Tutu” and “Beat it”, SMV’s hommage to the great Michael Jackson. It was an unforgettable, very intensive concert.

Also Raphael Saadiq’s concert on July 9th was an unforgettable experience. Last year he published his album “The Way I See It”, which is a tribute to the “good old times” of the Motown/Stax era, however it never sounds as just a copy. Saadiq is able to give this music a modern touch without loosing the roots. The band was very tight and Raphael Saadiq in top form. I particularly liked the slow tempo tracks “Oh Girl” and “Sometimes”. Very moving was Raphael Saadiq’s performance of the Jackson Five’s “ABC” “for his brother Michael”. The concert was a wonderful soulnight at its best.

Tags: Marcus Miller, Michael Jackson, Montreux Jazz Festival, Raphael Saadiq, Return to Forever, Stanley Clarke, Stax, Victor Wooten

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Some time ago, my girlfriend discovered the great website www.hardformat.org, a blog about music and design. On this page you can find great picture galleries about record covers from music genres like Jazz and others and much information on the photografers and designers of these pieces. Hardformat exists since two years and was founded by the two London based guys Colin Buttimer and Justin Amphlett.

Aim is, to direct the readers attention to the worth of physical music media. A mp3 will never be able to replace a beautiful stylish record cover. It’s not Hardfomat’s intention to only show dusty designs from the old and glory days of Jazz, they also want to highlight the modern designs that are produced these days, like Radiohead and Factory Records (New Order, Joy Division and Roxy Music, all designed by Peter Saville).

It is the concept of Hardformat,to honour and present designs that always have been unnoticed but reflect the content of the album much better and formidable. There are already way too many books about a lot of well-known music covers like e.g. The Beatles’ “Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band” out there.

One designer you should draw your attention to is Reid Miles. He designed many covers for the great Blue Note label, one of them is “Free Form” of Donald Byrd, an album we once raffled on our blog.

Tags: Beatles, Blue Note, Colin Buttimer, Design, Factory Records, hardformat, Justin Amphlett, Peter Saville, Reid Miles

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Last Friday the long waiting came to an end. After six years of silence they finally stood together on one stage again. It’s the band that in the 1990ies like no other band influenced especially the british pop and rock music for ever. I’m talking about Blur. And there could not have been a better setting for this reunion than the beautiful Hyde Park in London.

None of the members have really been away in all these years, they just preferred to take care of their own projects. It’s Damon Albarn, the lead singer, who was always on the go. With his side projects Gorillaz, The Good, The Bad & The Queen, a soloalbum, co-founder of a label and the composition of music for movie soundtracks he was definitely busy all the time. Graham Coxon, guitar, has been responisble for two solo albums and Alex James, bass, supported and produced up-and-coming new bands and talents. Only Dave Rowntree, drums, has been working in a regular job.

The concert was announced quite unexpectedly in December 2008. The 50.000 tickets were sold out in nearly ten minutes. An extra concert has been organized very quickly and it took not long until appearances at Glastonbury, T In The Park and some smaller club venues have been announced as well. The most surprising gig took place a few weeks ago at Londons most famous record store “Rough Trade“. It was a secret concert and the store burst at the seams.

The weather on this beautiful afternoon at Hyde Park for this small festival could not have been any better. Blue sky and sun just everywhere! There were four support bands that performed before Blur: Deerhoof, Florence & The Machine, Amadou & Mariam and Vampire Weekend. The music reached from strange to easy nice pop music and very danceable worldmusic to some melancholic and independent pop and folk. It was a perfect introduction to the long awaited headliner.

At 8.20 pm the waiting finally came to an end: the audience went totally crazy and was screaming while the first guitar chords of “She’s So High” from their debut album “Leisure” shook the ground of the whole Park. I got totally overwhelmed by my feelings and got goose pimples until the end of the concert. Blur sounded better than ever, it was as if there has never been a break and they all four looked so enormously happy on stage. And for the next two and a half hours, the whole audience went with them. The stage appearance of Damon Albarn is still impressive and really everybody eats out of the palm of his hands. The whole concert felt like it lasted five minutes, i felt like being in some sort of trance.
Of course Blur played all their great hits from their seven albums: “Girls & Boys“, “Tender”, “Park Life”, “Country House”, “End Of A Century”, “Beetlebum”, “To The End” and “Coffee & TV”. But even some rather unexpected songs like “Death Of A Party” and “Trimm Trabb” have been performed and delighted me even more than all the other songs. Through several big screens and a lot of P.A. all over the field, the sound and the view was just great for everybody.

During their encore there was one song that just had to be played. It’s their best seeling single, “Song 2“. I have never been a big fan of this song, but at this moment with this certain atmosphere at this location it just blew me away like everybody else. To cap the event off they played the amazing “The Universal” that made us all feel like one and finally sent us away into the warm night of London. This was a concert I won’t forget in my whole life.

Finally there is one thing that really impressed me on Blur: even after six years of a break they were able to show just everybody, who came out there to Hyde Park, that they are still the Kings of Britpop. Blur stand for a very creative, manifold and unique sound, that always has a recognition value without repeating itself or being boring. This is a fact, that I miss with nearly all new hyped British bands like for example Arctic Monkeys, Bloc Party, Maximo Park and so on and on and on.

Tags: Amadou & Mariam, Bloc Party, Blur, concert, Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon, Hyde Park, London, Vampire Weekend

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The Between the Beats team are very excited to reveal a new piece of our finished website…click on the top corners of the wrapping paper and see for yourself! We’d love to hear your feedback.

Tags: Feedback, Logo, Screendesign, wrapping paper

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Tags: Ebay, Gemm, mp3, Musicstack, recording medium

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Jazzahead has taught me something very interesting: all of the participants appear to belong to one big family and support each other as much as possible. I find this remarkable, especially nowadays when it is not easy for all of the jazz musicians out there to get gigs and for the myriad event organizers to fill their venues with people.

When I arrived at jazzahead I felt like a newbie - comparable to changing school classes in the middle of the school year. Everybody seems to know each other and looks very curiously at the ‘new guy’. Fortunately this feeling didn’t last long - nearly everyone I met was very friendly and interested in what we are up to, and I established some good new relations very easily.  I was also introduced to lots of new artists and labels and got tons of promotion CDs that I look forward to listening to over the next couple of weeks. I will try to present you with some of the most notable ones during the next few months on this blog.

The live concerts at jazzahead were fantastic. Besides popular artists like Fredrika Stahl, Norma Winstone or John Abercrombie, the fair also offered many new musicians a platform to introduce themselves to the audience. There were a lot of performances throughout the day at “Borgward Saal” and “Hall 4.1″ which continued into the evening, in a much more informal atmosphere at “Schlachthof” right next to the fair building. The “Schlachthof” is a very established location in Bremen’s cultural scene. For many years lots of concerts, parties and readings have taken place here.

On Friday night I really enjoyed the live performances of two German bands: “Oktoposse” and the “Mischa Schumann Trio“.  Attendees could listen over a few beers, chatting to label bosses, booking agents, musicians and event organizers on a more private basis, whilst the performance of both of the groups completely filled the room with enthusiasm. Especially “Oktoposse”, whose mixture of new and old, classical and modern, calm and rocking, mixed with some improvised parts really impressed me. Their trademark is the sweatsuit and in the past they have won several talent awards. This part of the event was a great idea and was very well-attended by around 250 people.

Unfortunately I had to leave on Saturday afternoon and so missed out on Saturday night’s concerts.  I will definitely be back with more time next year, collecting more interesting facts, inspirations and impressions, and continuing to build an even stronger connection with the international jazz scene.  It was a very worthwhile trip both for participants in the industry as well as private jazz enthusiasts.

Tags: Bremen, jazz concerts, jazzahead, John Abercrombie, Mischa Schumann Trio, Oktoposse

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Around three weeks ago, the jazz fair “jazzahead” took place in Bremen / Germany for the fourth time.

Over three days more than 250 exhibitors from many different countries including Spain, Canada and Finland, promoted their music, artists, agencies and events. Nearly all of the important cultural institutions from the field of jazz music attended the fair. Many labels, booking agencies, festivals, musicians and magazines (like “Jazzwise“) and also the “Bureau Export” which deals with the cultural exchange between French and German artists sent their representatives to meet with more than 5,000 visitors.

In addition, there were lots of very interesting workshops, conferences and panel discussions including two conferences that I attended which are really worth talking about.

The first was “Tourism meets jazz” and was hosted by Claude Nobs, founder of the Mountreux Jazz Festival, and representatives of the Jazz Festivals from Saalfelden and Suedtirol. All three of these hosts have succeeded in ensuring their festivals are famous around the globe. Through a close collaboration with regional tourism branches, the exclusivity of certain artists performing only at their festivals and various other extraordinary accomplishments, their festivals are now all highly respected across the world’s music scene. “Be unique” and “create something special” were just two slogans Nobs used to explain his formidable success. I couldn’t help but feel that it was really unfortunate that only 40 people attended this very interesting conference.

Secondly, the panel discussion “The future of jazz radio - Is radio becoming Myspace?” was hosted by David Francis of “Sound & Music London”. The guest speakers were Oliver Poche (Myspace Germany), Alex Webb (Barbican Center UK, formerly worked for BBC Radio 1) and Markus Partanen (journalist and radiohost from Finland). After a brief introduction into the phenomena that is Myspace, and in particular Myspace Radio, the three guests discussed the possibilities that Myspace Radio offers to small independent internet radioshows, as well as the potential dangers involved. They also discussed the various online marketing tools used by small radiostations to attract listeners,  although this part of the discussion did not really give me any new information. One clear message to the attendees of this discussion panel (around 20 in total) is that there are now way too many online radio stations out there for all of them to be a success, and that these stations need to cooperate with each other and really have to do something very special to get noticed.

After all the talking we had the opportunity to enjoy lots of live concerts. In part 2 of this report (which will be online within a few days) you can read about my personal experiences of the artists I heard live in concert and what else I learned from this fair.

Tags: Barbican Center, Bremen, Bureau Export, Claude Nobs, jazz festivals, jazzahead, MySpace, Saalfelden

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