Various
The Greatest Recordings Of The Big Band Era (Archive Collection) 1-100

This is a superb Hawaiian fusion album released in 1979 by trombonist Ira Nepus. He graduated from the University of Hawaii and worked as a trombonist there. This album was produced by Kirk Thompson, known for his work with bands such as Kalapana and Lemuria, using the same techniques as Lemuria, and has a funky sound with a mix of soul, jazz and AOR. The dancelike 'Trombone Feeling', with it's wonderful background chorus, and the mellow fusion 'Trickey Mickey' are Hawaiian masterpieces that recall the atmosphere of those days! The debut album by this beloved musician, who was the first director of the marching band at Tokyo Disneyland and has frequently visited Japan with the Clayton-Hamilton Orchestra, is now available again on vinyl record for the first time in 43 years!

IF Music owner Jean-Claude turns his attention to Dutch record shop Klinkhamer Records for the latest in his “An Introduction To…” series on BBE Music, inviting owner Michel Veenstra to compile a special selection of music to represent the store.Located in the city of Groningen, Klinkhamer Records began in the year 2000 as an offshoot of the already-established ‘Klinkhamer Antiek en Curiosa’ shop. Having made a success of the record trade, Michel Veenstra and his brother Stephan purchased the business from founder Martin Klinkhamer in 2005. “We kept the name” says Michel “since we both loved it, and it was already well-known in our town.”Starting out as a record dealer in the late 90s, Veenstra soon found himself a regular at the World-famous Utrecht Record Fair, and has been trading records and antiques full-time ever since. Enjoying privileged access to rare and forgotten jazz music from the Netherlands and beyond, creating his own compilation was an idea Michel had been toying with for several years, but it wasn’t until meeting Jean-Claude that plans became concrete. A list of rare, never-before reissued records was submitted to BBE and the painstaking work of licensing the music began.Featuring mostly cuts from the late 70s and early to mid 80s, ‘An Introduction To… Klinkhamer Records’ explores some true ‘holy grail’ records, mainly from across Holland, but also roaming as far as Chicago and Italy in search of sublime jazz, blues and even gospel sounds.“When it comes to records” says Jean-Claude, “this guy knows his onions on a whole other level; his commitment to the cause is unwavering at a time when it is getting increasingly harder to run an indie shop. So, if you find yourself in Holland for whatever reason and are a vinyl freak, do yourself the biggest favour and pay a visit to Klinkhamer Records.”

Sowaka, recorded in 1984, displayed an innovative sound that went beyond genre – mixing dub, world, jazz, electro, hip-hop and avant-garde. A perfect match of some of the most experimental artists of that time resulting in an extremely sought after and singular piece of music of the golden Japanese era. A talented crossover.In 1984, working with Bill Laswell, Michael Beinhorn and Midori Takada would be unlike working with anyone else Genji Sawai had before, pulling him out of the J-jazz experimental scene he was based on. Rather than work off written music, they’d build songs like cooks. Genji might supply the ingredients, perhaps the tonal choices – sax, FM synths, drum machines, and Bill would task himself to do the “cooking”, creating the overall image of the song. It’s the use of imagery to have a conversation with each other, musically, that just felt so different to Genji.Unlike the other musicians who contributed to Sowaka, musicians of impressive, rarefied technique like Midori Takada, Shuichi “Ponta” Murakami, and Kazuhiko Shibayama, notation or sheet music wasn’t a part of Genji’s vocabulary with Bill. With him, drawings were how songs were built from the ether. Whatever image a demo conjured up – that’s where the song had to go.You hear it on songs like “Hikobae” that predicted the chopped and screwed sound that would revolutionize hip-hop years later. On this track what started with a mental picture, of some kind of tree shoot, metastasizes a vision full of no-wave sax skronk dosed with pointillistic dub affectations. Although, Sowaka wasn’t tied inherently to it’s original meaning – the final utterance from the Buddhist Heart Sūtra – it’s philosophical meaning wasn’t too divorced from the true meaning (or at least, his truest meaning) Genji placed on it here: getting things done. Simply put, all his high-minded ideas wouldn’t have come to fruition unless all involved put some serious work into getting the project over the finish line. In five cracking days the album was put on tape and was then jettisoned off to NYC for Bill to put its final touches.