The Masa project

I'd always been a fan of Sleepwalker, for me they always stood head and shoulders above the meleé of nu-jazz pretenders, they were a proper band with a unique chemistry, and with Hajime Yoshizawa they had a supreme talent, a gifted pianist and a great composer. In fact as the sole source of material, and musical director in many ways Sleepwalker was Hajime Yoshizawa. Of course I'm biased, they were managed and produced by my friend Shuya Okino and I'd known Hajime and larger than life sax player Masa since their days in Mondo Grosso, and my first dj trips to Japan. However when Sleepwalker dropped their first release the monstrous Ai-No-Kawa, I was genuinely blown away, even more so by their incendiary live performance and the reaction they were getting from young Japanese clubbers. I was lucky enough to have seen Sleepwalker play a number of times, and they never ceased to enthral me, it was just a special balance, Hajime's tunes and passionate piano, Masa's gutsy spiritual saxophone, Nobu's fluid groove behind the kit, so good in fact they had no problem in persuading the legendary Pharoah Sanders to record with them, on a tune that would prove to be their swansong, "The Journey". So when Shuya mentioned the idea of me producing their next album, I naturally relished the the proposal, but I should have known it was a little too good to be true, indeed why would Shuya want to pass on such a great job? Well, all was not sweetness and light inside the Sleepwalker camp, the inevtable fights and wrangles, Hajime and Nobu have deep history that goes back to their early days paying dues and cutting their teeth as jazz musicians in New York, and Hajime and Masa's relationship always had the potential for serious ructions! So Sleepwalker had become too hot to handle for Shuya, and then Sleepwalker were no more.

So the plot changes, and I miss out on my dream gig and the chance to work with Hajime, but in the wake of Sleepwalker's demise Shuya procures a solo deal for Masa, and with their relationship being somewhat strained he asks me to produce. Now, Masa is a maverick, a hard drinking, sax toting rebel whose personality runs thoroughly against the grain in Japan; yet despite his idiosyncrasies and drunken antics, he has presence and charisma, and when he digs deep, the resonance of a life lived on the edge is expressed in playing that is powerful and transcendent. Masa is for real. So it's a big challenge for me, even more so considering the concept for the album that Shuya has concocted. For his debut as a leader Masa will record versions of tunes suggested by various djs and musical luminaries, so Gilles Peterson, Jurgen from Jazzanova, and the one and only Demus have all come up with tunes along with Shuya , his brother and KJM partner Yoshi, and myself.

So let's begin with the tunes. Jazz artists have always borrowed repertoire from their peers and the past, and it's not uncommon for a band leader to not be a composer, but the notion of djs choosing the material is a cute twist on how to make a jazz album. For the producer it has potential to both delight and upset, other peoples selections might be total inspiration or pure desperation. So what did I get? Gilles Peterson came up with Yusef Lateef's "Before Dawn", which I love, but isn't it more of a mood than a tune, and is everybody going to suggest tunes by other sax players? But it's a good choice and a good vehicle for the mellower side of Masa's playing. Jurgen gives us Paulo Moura's "Nem Precisou Mais Um Sol" which immediately takes me back to the dancers sessions at Dingwalls, it's a full blooded, high tempo, latin fusion piece with an amazing horn line that reminds me of a spaghetti western! Demus (from Two Banks Of Four and producer/engineer of tremendous pedigree) proposes Julius Hemphill's "The Hard Blues" which I'm not familiar with but turns out to be a free-ish blues in 6/8, or an amazing saxophone quartet work-out depending on which version you check. (Funnily enough whilst I was working on the album in Tokyo I went to see the Brand New Heavies, backstage after the show I was talking to Finn Peters who was in the horn section and it transpires that he turned Demus on to "The Hard Blues" whilst they were working on Finn's beautiful "Butterflies" album, thanks Finn!) . Yoshi's selection is the title track from an eminently collectable, independently released album by Jothan Collins "Winds Of Change", it's a 6/8 vibe but a little crazy, but there again so is Masa, whilst his brother comes up with the totally appropriate but nonetheless daunting prospect of recording a version of Albert Ayler's monumental "Music Is The Healing Force Of The Universe", thanks Shuya! I decide to choose Lesette Wilson's "Look Into Tomorrow" for the simple reasons that at least it's not by a sax player, and I want there to be a couple of vocal tunes on the record. For the final selection we cheat a bit, and agree the brothers should have another choice collectively as KJM, so I decide we'll do Shamek Farrah's "Waiting For Marvin"!!

The next hurdle was deciding on the line-up, Masa had already expressed his desire to continue working with Nobu and Kyoshi on drums and bass so there will be some continuity with Sleepwalker. The next crucial choice was pianist, however it was a bit of a no-brainer, Shota Hishiyama had already deputised for Hajime on Sleepwalker dates, and was a player I'd heard and admired both with Sleepwalker and in the KJM live band. Even better his Stateside jazz schooling meant he spoke great English which was essential for me unless the whole process was going to be conducted in tortuous pidgen English and my extremely scant Japanese. So we started rehearsing (in The Room Shuya's pocket-sized club in the heart of Shibuya) with this quartet at the tail end of last year. The first rehearsal I remember as being encouraging but I was plagued with the feeling that it all sounded a bit like Sleepwalker but with something obviously missing, ie. Hajime. Some of the tunes were fairly straightforward and whilst I was keen to put some original twists into the arrangements I didn't want to stray too far from the source. So "Waiting For Marvin" and "Nem Precisou Mais Um Sol" fell into this category, "Look Into Tomorrow" I'd imagined from the start as being a jazz-bossa treatment of the slow boogie/ jazz-funk of the original; "The Hard Blues","Before Dawn" and "Winds Of Change" all posed greater problems, and "Music Is The Healing Force Of the Universe" I didn't even want to think about!

Before I go any further I'd like to point out that any challenges the project presented were thoroughly relished by myself, being stuck in a room (The Room!) with some fine jazz players with a remit to make music is my idea of heaven. I felt lucky and privileged to have the opportunity to work on the album and even though there were some tricky issues to negotiate I was hardly stuck for ideas.

After a couple of rehearsals it became obvious that what was needed was to augment the quartet with at least one more horn, along with percussion which would take the sound away from the inevitable Sleepwalker comparisons. Without having to look beyond the coterie of musicians that orbit around Shuya's scene in Tokyo, I was able to recruit Takao Hirose on trombone, who's demos with his own band had been impressive as had been his enthusiasm on the dance-floor whenever I played at The Room. Finally to complete the sextet percussionist Hiderow is not only one of the best in Japan he also plays some fine trumpet. From the first rehearsal with the extended line-up it all started to make sense, in fact it started to sound really exciting.

So with all the pieces in place it was time to make sense of the arrangements, and with invaluable assistance from Shota and his interpreting skills we started to nail the material. Leaving aside the two vocal tunes we aimed at rehearsing the other five to a sufficient standard in order to record them in a single session at Studio Dedé in Tokyo. Our version of "Nem Precisou Mais Um Sol" sticks fairly closely to Paulo Moura's original apart from the the last part of "the head" which we shifted until after the first solo to act as a bridge and we inserted a percussion break for a bit jazz-dance fizz. Similarly "Waiting For Marvin" is built around it's joyful horn lines and bright chord changes, and with the potential to voice sax, bone and trumpet there was no point in messing around with it too much, though the groove on our version leans more towards a samba swing. However I was conscious of Masa's passion for "free" jazz, and saw that with "Waiting For Marvin" I could create some space for him to blow without harmonic constraint, so our version begins with a conga/ sax dialogue which resolves into a big spread chord crashing down from which the theme emerges, Masa's solo rolls out with piano and bass dropping out leaving him to free up over just the drums before reprising the intro's sax/conga thing. With "The Hard Blues" my basic idea was to take the tune in a kind of Afro 6/8 direction, and the theme really started to make sense in that way with Hidero's Chekere laying the foundation, we also took the liberty of adding a little more harmonic structure behind the trombone solo, before the whole things breaks into a 4/4 afro-beat(ish) work-out behind Masa's tenor (thanks Shota for that nugget of inspiration) returning to 6/8 for the head/outro. As I mentioned Yusef Lateef's "Before Dawn" is big on mood and atmosphere and whilst there is a theme, like "The Hard Blues" there's no chord changes or harmonic structure to work with. After trying a few different vibes rhythmically we eventually settled on taking the piece deeper, slower and even moodier, Hirose came up with some great trombone textures and Shota was very much in hi element with the Rhodes adding colour and but staying spacey. Having established the order of solos there was no need to over-rehearse a piece that was best left open ended, as every performance seemed to yield a it's own special magic. Jothan Collins "Winds Of Change" is a fairly aggressive sounding tune in 6/8 with a heavy militant feel, however I wanted there to be a prettier, more rolling waltz-time tune on the album which was never going to be wrought from the Collins tune. All the players thought I was mad and were fairly baffled when I tried explain that I wanted to insert part of Oliver Nelson's "Patterns" into "Winds Of Change", much to everyone's surprise, my own included, the ploy really came off, and a new tune was born of the two that had all the elements needed to create the kind of 6/8 swing and harmonic lushness I was looking for. So, five tunes which came together in rehearsal and we recorded in one fairly manic, but enjoyable day at Studio Dedé, a great space with a suitable collection of analogue gear, vintage mics etc.

So having recorded these five tunes back in February there was a long hiatus before getting round to the two vocal tunes, eventually these came together over a few crazy days at the beginning of July, after a period when it seemed like it was never going to happen. The story behind the vocal tracks goes way back to conversations I had with Shuya at the beginning, and it was always my opinion that if we were going to do a version of "Music is The Healing Force of the Universe" then it would have to be sung by Bembé Segué, apart from the fact that she'd previously worked with Sleepwalker, there really was no other singer I could imagine taking it on. As for "Look Into Tomorrow", well that was fairly straightforward and though Bembé wasn't necessarily the obvious choice for the tune I thought she'd probably make a great job of that too, and of course it made sense to feature just one guest vocalist. So back in February when we were working on the other tracks I e-mailed Bembé to see if she would be interested, and the reply came back with an emphatic yes, so it became part of the plan to bring her over to Tokyo to record. This plan seemed to work on many levels, Bembé was thrilled with the idea of returning to Tokyo to see old friends, and as far as "Music is..." was concerned it meant that I could wait for us all to be in a rehearsal situation with the added inspirational factor of her musical strength, and somehow our interpretation would emerge organically.(If you get the impression that I was shying away from how to deal with Ayler's epic tune then you'd be completely right!!) However, this plan turned out to be a non-starter, on my return to London in May/June, Bembé proved to be unusually elusive and when I did reach her it turned out that events in her personal life were conspiring against the possibility of her being able to come to Tokyo. To cut a long story short, I had to resort to plan B and find a way to record her vocals in London before returning to Tokyo to finish the tracks with the band, as the studio and rehearsals were already booked, and as is normally the case these days with musicians who have to hustle like crazy for work, it's difficult to get everyone together in the same place at the same time. So with time running preciously short, I eventually managed to organise a session the day before I was due to fly back to Tokyo, and it seemed quite a tall order to be able to prepare two backing tracks for Bembé to sing to and record her in the space of a single session. Still the question of how to deal with "Music is..." remained unsolved though of course over the intervening months some kind of notion of how to approach it had formed in my mind, I knew it wouldn't be as "free" as the original and I wanted the music to have more of a healing vibe in complete contrast to the storming tumult of Ayler's original. But how was I going to create an adequate backing track along those lines? I needed to create a template for the band to work with and something that would give Bembé sufficient inspiration to sing to; step up Mike Patto. The ex Reel People songwriter/main-man has been a close friend and associate in recent years as I've been lending him a hand, (but mainly my ears) as he pieces together the epic of Vanessa Freeman's album. Though it was a somewhat knackered Patto that stepped into the studio that day, he very quickly was able to lay down piano, bass and midi horns that captured the very essence of what I was hoping for, something modal, Trane-ish and epic that worked around the simple pulsing groove we'd laid down earlier, perfect. As far as "Look Into Tomorrow" was concerned, was it really possible that Bembé could record her vocals to a ropey rehearsal version I'd recorded on my i-phone? Well with a bit of editing the answer was yes. When Bembé arrived at the studio that evening, having already done a full day's work in her day-job, she quickly despatched "Look Into Tomorrow" with consummate and professional ease, (though she confessed to me later she'd been nervous about doing the tune), and then we sat down to run through "Music Is.." before recording. As soon as she heard Mike's backing track she was excited, and as she sat next to me on the studio sofa and started to sing all I could do was hold my head (to stop it exploding!), after a few lines I stopped her and said we should record. The resulting twelve minutes in the vocal booth were as awe inspiring and magical as any I've experienced in music, there was Bembé, eyes closed, a woman in her element, singing a lyric she may well have been born to sing.

So I was able to return to Tokyo and finish the record. Suffice to say we had alot of fun recording those two tunes with Bembé's voice despite the inhibitions of having to work with a click, with Shota letting loose on the studio's Steinway and Masa delivering some of his best playing. Having now mixed the album in London the Masa project (M.A.S.A) is ready to roll and all I can say is a massive thank you to everyone involved for making it such an enjoyable and exciting journey.

Peace.

INSPIRATION INFORMATION

It hasn't really sunk in yet, but after thirteen years of sharing the decks with Phil Asher, our partnership at Inspiration Information has drawn to a close. Heavy heart? For sure, but I'm just truly grateful to have had the opportunity to work with such a soulful and inspirational force within the London music scene, it's been thirteen years of the greatest camaraderie, laughs, thrills, spills, plenty highs, a few lows, but mainly great all-consuming passion for the music. There's not even a trace of acrimony in this parting of the ways; rightly so, Phil is committing his energies to his work as an artist and producer and label boss, pushing restless soul ever higher as he continues to delight and astound us with a stream of quality music. During the time I was based in Okinawa and after our session re-located to East Village, Phil took on the entire workload of organisation and promotion, booking djs, arranging flights, flyers etc etc. So I reckon we should all be grateful he'll now have more time to focus on production where his energies are definitely best spent! However I have to extend my deepest gratitude for his endeavours, which allowed me to keep a toe-hold in the London scene on my frequent returns.

Phil's personality was an enormous part of what Inspiration information was about, his humour, his belief, his bonhomie, his gregariousness, his whole musical credo; things that can't be replaced, and Inspiration Information will be very different without him. Perhaps the times I will always cherish hark back to our original days at NHAC, when we started at 8pm ( before we introduced the earlier start, The Ladies 1st team and live acts, and before the smoking ban!!); we'd both arrive early and whilst the club started to fill up there was free reign to play whatever we wanted. Those early sessions not only set the tone for the night ahead, they dug the foundations of what Inspiration Information became. Of course we were there to entertain, but also to educate, sometimes just each other, playing music that had depth, resonance and soul across the genres both old and new. The music that united us was classic boogie and disco, and at the time of it's inception Inspiration Information gave us both the chance to relieve our frustration that we had nowhere to play that sound. Indeed back in those days there was nowhere to hear that music.

However as much as Inspiration Information represented those classic NY and London traditions there was always a twist, with Jazz and Latin broadening the flavours and new music providing a contemporary edge. We were the first club to truly champion the broken beat sound, and Dilla beats and the soulful vanguard were always a big part of what we were about. We were bangin' Amerie's "1 Thing" long, long before it came out, in fact there's a long list of classic tunes that had there first club plays at our session. After the transfer to East Village the musical focus shifted towards the classic repertoire if only for the reason that there was a surfeit of good new music that fitted the bill, and, we were able to book a stream of stellar guests who could all bring a unique interpretation of that classic sound.

Now the session is looking forward to a new era, a fresh start, and a new interpretation of the Inspiration Information concept. Of course the spirit of the session won't be compromised, but the balance of the music will change with a no holds barred approach to music from across the soulful spectrum, from classics to the cutting edge. I'm proud to say that I'll be joining forces with Jimbo, the man behind one of London's most wicked dance nights, Groove Sanctuary. Running for over 10 years at Madame Jo Jo's, it's always been a great session with a healthy representation of serious dancers. However recently the influx of a new generation of young House dancers has added a whole new dimension to the night. As co-resident and promoter Jimbo will be drawing on his experience with Groove Sanctuary to reach out to a new network of dancers, djs, and artists to bring a fresh dimension to Inspiration Information. We'll be giving over the upstairs room at East Village to the next generation, with many different styles and flavours and a few surprises and special features. Downstairs will be hosted by the residents with some serious guests ready to throw down for Inspiration Information.

The new chapter begins on Friday 10th September with an exclusive dj set from Jurgen from Jazzanova, in the upstairs room Renegade and Demi bring a dancing crowd for an 80s/90s Hip Hop selection, and D-Lo hosts a Beat Box battle!

Spontaneous Mellow

So about time too, the first podcast from this website, with a very mellow excursion into the vinyl vault, horizontal,chilled, and just the tonic for the over-stressed. Just prior to my imminent trip back to London, I'm enjoying the Okinawan "young summer' as they call it, 27c today! So maybe that accounts for the mellow selection.

I seem to recall playing the first two tunes back to back on The Cosmic Jam way, way back in the first year or two of my days there, when Kiss FM was still a pirate; Larry Willis with a very nice take on a Bacharach/ David tune, and Eddie Harris' later recording of the tune his good friend Charles Stepney wrote for him. As this was recorded after Stepney passed away I feel it has something of the lament about it. "Peaceful" is the title track from an album by Dick McGarvin I discovered in an Osaka record store last year, the Gabor Szabo track is from "Dreams" abeguilingly beautiful record that is very dear to me. "Wine Dark Lullaby" comes from "Greek Variations" one of those stupidly rare British jazz albums with compositions from Neil Ardley, Don Rendell and in this case Ian Carr. Following this Steve Grossman's "Libra Rising" borrows much of it's form and bass-line from Pharoah's "The Creator Has A Masterplan", a classic Trane disciple, Grossman's blowing is emotive throughout. Cullen Knight's A'keem has a lovely theme and a classic loose," independent" feel to the playing, big thanks to Nick The Record for turning me on to this some time ago. Steve Kuhn's "Trance' does exactly what it should, again a fantastic album with a couple of killer jazz-dance cuts as well as this ethereal masterpiece. "The Peacemaker" is the title track from Harold Land's awesome album for Cadet with Bobby Hutcherson shining through with some lovely vibes, Chico Freeman's "Peaceful Heart, Gentle Spirit" is testament to the fact there was some good jazz made in the eighties! Ahmad Jamal is just a pure genius of the piano, with an amazing string arrangement, "Death And Resurrection" never fails to live up to it's title. Finally Jack McDuff, with a subtly funky version of Trane's "Naima" proves that it's impossible to make a duff (scuse the pun) version of this legendary tune.

http://patrickforge.podomatic.com/entry/2010-03-06T05_22_16-08_00

Free Music!!!

Free music? For many this is the reality they've grown up with, it's only the older generations who still remember the concept of paying for what they listen to, and even some who did previously have embraced file sharing wholeheartedly. Today's reality is one where virtually anything and everything is available to download for nix if you know where to look. From sneakily uploaded tracks of yet to be released material from major artists to the most obscure of rare and collectable old gems, it's all out there.

I recently had a conversation with someone who proudly announced he had 40,000 tracks on his hard drives, a not uncommon amount in this day and age, the kind of quantity it might have taken an old school vinyl collector a lifetime to accrue. However the vinyl buyer would have spent considerable time and money, if not blood, sweat and tears to gather that music into one place, whereas for the digital age music lover this can be achieved easily, painlessly and often with little regard for what he's collecting. The first question I usually ask someone like that is what format they have that music in, and the answer is invariably as mp3s, and often of the lowest quality. It seems that quantity not quality is the order of the day for many. So we all have a ton of music, which we listen to on our modern systems, be they computers with external speakers or surround sound systems for our multi-media, whatever, as long as it sounds loud and big we tend not to notice the difference and the fact that our listening experience has been enormously degraded by the source and means of reproduction of those sounds is something that is rarely questioned by the majority. In an age when even cd releases are deliberately mastered in a way that eliminates the natural dynamics of the music, it begs the question why anyone would bother to make and record music of real hi-fidelity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ

Let's face it though, who is bothering to make music in that way? Even major record companies are quite happy for their artists to record in a digital home studio, not surprising when you consider how they'll master the cd and how the vast majority will listen to that music. And in a world where music is free and we all have lots of it, which we'll probably listening to with the wonderful dj shuffle at the controls, where does that leave the place of music in our lives? Unloved and taken for granted are two expressions that immediately come to mind. Another experience I had recently, and again doubtless very common, was at someone's house where indeed their laptop (through some meaty speakers with a hefty sub) was spilling out a reckless selection of tunes in the background. During a lull in the conversation I heard something unfamiliar which really caught my ear, when I asked my host what it was he of course had to go and consult his i-tunes for the artist and title. We live in an age of excess, and music is now definitely another commodity that's suffering from over-consumption, podcasts galore, file sharing, whole digital collections passed from one to another, and even in the death throes of the music industry there's no shortage of new releases.

The fall-out? Well already the enormous changes in the music industry have taken their toll. Rewind back a decade or more and there were still healthy sales possible for a welter of less mainstream artists, which in turn supported a gamut of independent labels and distributors, and lots of djs were still playing vinyl so the twelve inch market was thriving. Remixers were paid healthy fees, major labels craved the kudos of having hip dance producers remixing their artists and even for independents it made economic sense to pay the right remixer a healthy fee to give their release more legs. People still owned cd players and turntables and listened to their music in an entirely different way from today's i-pod, i-tunes, mp3 modus operandi. With the economic state of play today the fact of the matter is that a whole strata of the music industry has been obliterated. Musicians hustle to pay the rent, studios close down or lie idle, and worst of all there's all the music which just isn't even getting made. Of course for those who are happy to make tracks entirely digitally, or have the facility to play and record everything themselves there's still some leeway, but in age where independent labels continue to struggle, and sales of cds continue to decline whilst downloads both legit and illegal represent the bulk of the market, it's tough to make any money from releasing music, and that's an understatement.

The album, the long playing record, the wonder product of the late twentieth century for music is dying alongside the changes in patterns of consumption. It never ceased to amaze me when I bought my Sunday Observer and once a month the music supplement would tail it's album reviews with the pithy recommendation to "download this", with the implied notion that you might even not have to pay for it. An artist strives to amass a body of work that binds together in some kind of cohesive way, running orders are stressed about, some tracks never make the grade, artwork is considered, credits compiled, sleeve notes may be written. Historically the album format has been the yardstick whereby an artist's progress, their intentions, their direction, their soul and their value has been measured, only for someone to download the essential cuts to sit anonymously in a list of thousands of others. Of course the history of music making is riddled with examples where this might be considered a healthy response, an album might be a bunch of fillers and just one killer. Where does that leave the true classics? Maybe those records just aren't getting made, but I never read a review that said download the whole album, in the age of shuffle who's going to listen from to bottom even if it is Kind Of Blue or Astral Weeks? Our short attention spans, our overloaded ears just aren't up to that kind of absorption in the music, and anyway the chances are we're not really hearing it properly anyway.

I grew up in Ipswich and my teenage years were often spent listening to vinyl albums sitting on someone's floor whilst the music came tumbling out of big old speakers, invariably these were Celestion Ditton 22s or 44s, as the factory was in town and everybody seemed to have a route to a cheap or knocked-off pair. That was how I remember music sounding, big old Japanese amplifiers, turntables that were either Dual if you were on a budget, or Thorens or something even more esoteric if you weren't. The music sounded warm and was full of depth and colour. A few years ago I realised that my life as dj had taken my listening experience down to a level where that magic I remembered was no longer what I was hearing, the speakers were big and rugged, there was a budget power amplifier doing the driving and my Technics were routed through a Pioneer mixer that had all the toys, but where was the sound? So off I went on a quest to rediscover the joys of my youth, and the best speakers I'd ever heard were made by Rogers. I'd passed an amazing looking hi-fi shop ( http://www.audiogold.co.uk/ ) in North London many times and noticed it seemed to sell alot of vintage gear, so when I went in with a bundle of cash (cos inevitably these things don't come cheap) , and I was introduced to the joys of the Rogers LS3/5A, a pint sized speaker originally designed for the BBC's outside broadcast vans but now the stuff of hi-fi legend. http://www.ls35a.com/ On that day I took as my sample cd a Japanese issue of one of my favourite recordings Donald Byrd's Places And Spaces, coming out of the Rogers I heard a whole new dimension to that familiar Mizell Brothers sound that had never blessed my ears before! A long winded way of getting back to my point about the way we listen to (and the way we consume) our music. You may think that the sound emanating from your modern system is big and fat, there may well be a sub that makes even the weediest mp3 sound like it's got balls, but depth and detail it won't have. Musicality? Funny word I know, but when you hear a great analogue recording through the right equipment there's no other word that is more appropriate.

I really don't mind setting myself up as grumpy old man/boring old fart if this is how you want to read it, but something is dying and if you're really a music lover, think about it. How you acquire and how you listen to the music you love is crucial to the future survival of great sound and great music being made. Don't get me wrong I'm a big fan of alot of new school sounds that are mashed together in home studios, creativity is ultimately the true key, but even that kind of music sounds a whole lot better on a good system and whoever made it stands a much better chance of carrying on doing so if you've paid for it.

Tokyo times.

Update!!!

It's been a while! I'm currently staying in Tokyo as the guest of my good friend and collaborator Shuya Okino, and whilst here I have the pleasure of spinning at my favourite (micro) club, pint-sized but thoroughly enjoyable: it's The Room!! http://www.theroom.jp/ Anyway should you happen to be a fellow gaijin living in Tokyo or happen to be passing through, drop us an e-mail and we may be able to sort you out on the guest list! I'll be @ The Room on February 20th for Shuya's birthday bash alongside my old buddy Alex from Tokyo, and then again the following Friday (26th) for the 8th anniversary of Champ, the funk and rare groove party with a young and vibrant crowd. Should be an "anniversaire extraordinaire" and has got be digging for some tunes I haven't played for a long time!! Finally I'll be back again the following night (27th) for my last session at The Room for a while.

However the main purpose for my stay in Tokyo is to work on the debut solo album from Masa Nakamura (project name as yet undecided) which I'm producing, and we're currently rehearsing material and will have our first studio session whilst I'm here. The concept for this project is all cover versions chosen by various djs and luminaries of the scene including myself, KJM, Jurgen from Jazzanova, Demus and Gilles P. There are some interesting choices, and hopefully we can do justice to them and still add some original twists!

I'll be returning to London on March 10th just in time for the first Inspiration Information (memories http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVvHTD5szeY )session of 2010 on the 12th which has now moved to a Friday night but will continue on a bi-monthly basis. Looking forward to hooking up with Phil Asher once again for our boogie inspired but thoroughly eclectic session of righteous grooves.

Just to catch up with past events here are some photos from the TCJF session which was a real highlight for me last year and probably the biggest crowd I've played to in a while, it was a pleasure and privilege to play in the main arena as the only foreign dj in the line-up.

Sacho from Soil and Pimp, Kiccio, Hiromi, and Sato from The Room
Ken from Root Soul, Toshio Matsura, Rob Gallagher, Ryota Nozaki (Jazztronik), andShige

DJ Kawasaki and Shuya Okino

It's been well over a year since the last Cosmic Jam http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx1q385-jyw and even I'm beginning to get nostalgic. I'm well aware that I haven't actually been that forthcoming with podcasts and mixes for those wanting to wrap their ears around some Cosmic Jam type of selections, and i know I've said this before, but soon come!! So if you're interested, sign up to the mailing list and you'll soon be receiving exclusive links to music selected and mixed by myself.

For those of you with a fascination for the Brazilian groove you may remember the Brazilian Funk Experience compilation I put together for Nascente, well if all goes to plan, volume 2 should be dropping later this year!

It's been a difficult time for the music business, just to state the obvious, and I was saddened to hear that Domu, an artist whose music I've loved and supported since his earliest drum and bass excursions for Reinforced, has hung up his headphones and stopped producing music. As it says when you try to log on to his Treble O website "this really is the end". Well I can only wish him luck and happiness for the future whatever course he chooses to pursue. For the rest of us there is no choice but to carry on! Music is a healthy addiction we can't give up. There's plenty of reasons to be cheerful and much to be excited about for the future, great projects in the pipeline, wonderful music being made. For the moment here's a little chart of things to check! (Mostly either available or soon come plus a couple of sneakies)

1.Silhouette Brown - Silhouette Brown 2 (2000 black)

2. Zara Mcfarlane - Captured (jazz version) (?)

3.Kuniyuki Takahashi - Walking In The Naked City (Mule Musiq)

4. The Souljazz Orchestra - Rising Sun (Strut)

5.Fanfair Odyssey/Playtime - V.A. (Capricorn Rising)

6.Tribe - Rebirth ( Planet e)

7.Blak n Spanish - No Compromise (restless soul)

8.Makoto and Kez YM - Chameleon (Mukatsuku)

9. Mark de Clive Lowe ft. Lady Alma - Believe (?)

10.José James - Black Magic (Brownswood)

Peace love and Music - Patrick.