A well-designed lyric video surfaced for Camae Ayewa's (a.k.a. Moor Mother) "We Got The Jazz," a new single featured in her upcoming release  Jazz Codes Deluxe , which is an enhanced digital version of 2022's excellent Jazz Codes .  From the desk of Stereo Sanctity: “‘ We Got The Jazz ’ is me thinking about how mediocre a lot of popular music is, about its capitalistic structures and how those placements are bought and paid for,”  Ayewa said of the song’s meaning.  “I'm speaking about the whitewashing of who's allowed to participate in jazz, who is allowed to participate in poetry, and asking where the room for innovation is, now and in the future. It’s also me thinking about my jazz band, Irreversible Entanglements, and how we’ve toured the world destroying stages, uplifting audiences, and inspiring everyone on the jazz scene with or without recognition. I'm also speaking about my own influence on the culture.” Jazz Codes Deluxe will be released 5/19/23 ...

"Life got us confused? Where are we going?"  Speaking from personal line of sight, I find myself continually enamored with and challenged by the work of Camae Ayewa (Moor Mother). Following 2021's entrancing Black Encyclopedia of Air ,  Jazz Codes , Ayewa's 2nd LP for Anti-, has been announced with the lead single and video, "WOODY SHAW".  Following sprays of sonorous howls and a lovely red herring R&B set-up, "WOODY SHAW" takes a pause before shifting into a turbulent free jazz backdrop, a cyclical stand-up bass riff anchoring the otherwise discordant sax, drums, and vibraphone.  "Woody Shaw elevator outta town!" Ayewa speaks, "Life got us going up and down. Who's coming? Who's coming for our ratios?"  The video premiered on June 8th. Jazz Codes can be pre-ordered at ANTI- . Official release date is July 1st. All info and links were provided by Stereo Sanctity.  “It’s poetry that drives this album. The stories o...

The first time I heard Nighthawks at the Diner , I was immediately a Tom Waits fan.  My dad recorded that album on a cassette along with three or four cuts from 1980's Heartattack & Vine to fill the available room left on the b-side.  I was just in love with its mood, more or less aching to be in that crowd, hearing Waits offer tribute to the "bachelors and the bowery bums" not to the mention the "gyspy hacks, the insomniacs."  I could almost the smell the secondhand smoke from that performance as surely as I could hear its content via playback.  This album is probably the reason I like diners as much as I do.  Needless to say, with Nighthawks acting as precipice, I willfully dove into Waits's extensive canon armed with more blank cassettes, beginning with his earliest work, hitting 1999's Mule Variations when it was a new release and then eventually looking back to the Island years.  My pattern of Waits discovery was more of a zigzag in t...