Funky Fashion!
There was a time not so long ago when artists were as concerned about their performance, their persona, and their outfits, in addition to the funky grooves that they were sending out into the airwaves. The Revivalist shares with you our favorite images of funk fashion royalty, artists who have carried trends over the decades, and pioneered aesthetic choices and started trends, while simultaneously audaciously declaring their identity through their choice of clothing.
Mark de Clive Lowe Presents Church Vol. 3 Mixtape (Free Streaming)
Mark De Clive Lowe celebrates the 1 year anniversary of his monthly LA party CHURCH, an innovative night of live jazz music elevated to the next level with improvised beat sessions. In the spirit of LA open jams, any variety of producers, musicians, singers, and lyricists come through to collaborate. Cats like Robert Glasper, Chris Daddy Dave or Ohmega Watts have sat in.
New 14-CD Sun Ra Boxset to be Released in September
For all of you die-hard Sun Ra fans out there, Transparency Records plan to release a 14 disc boxset for September entitled Sun Ra–The Eternal Myth Revealed Vol.1: 1914-1959.
The Revivalist | Transatlantic Jazz: Africa Issue Round Up!
For this weeks Friday round up we decided to do it a little different: this is a roundup of our whole Transatlantic Jazz issue. As we come to a close on this issue and embark on a new theme, we thought we would pick some of our favourite features that encompass the past African theme. Enjoy your weekend!
Wendell Harrison It’s About Damn Time
Wendell Harrison, a mainstay of the Detroit jazz, rhythm and blues, and funk scene has released his first album in 7 years. He is best known for both playing clarinet and tenor sax with legends such as Sun Ra, Aretha Franklin, and Marvin Gaye, as well as co-founding Tribe Records out of Detroit which housed artists that played with everyone from Bird and Mingus to Marvin Gaye and the Supremes. Check out some footage of the recording below and be sure to check the album.
Salah Ragab’s Egyptian Jazz
The stories of music visionaries are very rarely in our culture the product of rigid government directives, but in the case of the rise of Jazz music in Egypt, the greatest pioneer was also a political dignitary who made it part of the national agenda. Salah Ragab was born in Egypt in 1936. By the 1960s, the multi-instrumentalist would be responsible for introducing jazz music to the Afro-Arab world, aligning himself with the compelling currents of American jazz music and to later be revered as the Godfather and pioneer of Egyptian jazz music. Strangely, very little has been written about his upbringing and the factors leading to this very important historical phenomenon.
Best Of: Transatlantic Jazz Africa Issue
Happy 4th of July to all of our Revivalist readers! Before you go out to the beach or to that backyard or rooftop barbeque, take a listen to the top interviews and music selections of our current issue “Transatlantic Jazz: Africa” in collaboration with Strut Records. You pretty much have a great playlist here for whatever gathering you are going to today, already hand selected for you by Revivalist staff. This has been our most kick-ass issue thus far, so ENJOY!
Sun Ra in Egypt
The story of Sun Ra in Egypt begins with the journeys of three men from three geographical origins and three disparate cultures. Their first unification in Egypt in 1971 carries a level of mystery four decades later that still holds significance in the world history and power of the transnational exchange of jazz music. Very little has been documented about it, but it demonstrates a synthesize of ideas years before its time, a self-fulfilling prophesy of Sun Ra’s Afrofuturism movement, which married Afrocentrism with science fiction and ancient spirituality.
Technology Killed The Instrument?
A trombonist masters an instrument and is considered a musician. A music lover masters a beat machine and is considered a producer. Both individuals become adept at their craft and produce amazing sounds after years of practice. What, then, qualifies one tool as a musical instrument and the other as a piece of equipment?
Joe Zawinul: The Electric Piano and Popular Jazz
It’s important to gain an understanding about the role of the electric piano and how it made its way into the jazz world in the 1960s. Although Ray Charles and Sun Ra both recorded on electric pianos in the 1950s, Zawinul was one of the first to bring the instrument to the forefront of popular music.
The Brothers from Another Planet: A Newbie Discovers Sun Ra Arkestra
Believe it or not, before I went to see the Sun Ra Arkestra at the Nublu Jazz Festival last week, I’d never heard the group’s or Sun Ra’s music. Here and there, I knew a few things about them: my godmother once played in a church band with a former member of the Arkestra, and of course, there was the “weirdness” factor—everything I knew about the man and his music related to him legitimately believing he was from a different planet, and the sometimes untraceable free-ness of his compositions. I’d also heard that he was a serious pianist—both seriously talented and seriously underrated.
