Real Gone

The jazz world lost a true legend when bassist Cleveland Eaton passed away in the Summer of 2020. This 1975 album, one of the real gems in the hallowed Black Jazz label catalog, takes the full measure of the man. Cleve recorded Plenty Good Eaton right aft

Dorothy Ashby was probably the greatest—and certainly the most swinging—jazz harpist of all time, re-purposing an instrument best known for ethereal glissandos into a fully versatile voice in combo settings, capable of providing both instrumental embroide

In the early-to-mid 1970s, Belgian recording engineer and synthesist Daniel Lacksman née Lanckmans recorded and released a series of pop music records, using early analog synthesizers as a central sonic element. Under an admittedly confusing array of name

As the Academy Award-winning documentary 20 Feet from Stardom made abundantly clear, Merry Clayton is one of the greatest and most distinguished female backup singers in rock and soul history, having sung with everybody from Bobby Darin to Ray Charles to

Of all the artists who recorded for the Black Jazz label, keyboardist and composer Doug Carn was the most prolific, releasing four albums for the imprint. 1972’s Spirit of the New Land was his second Black Jazz release, but the first one (of two) to co-fe

Starting with their 1967 self-titled release featuring “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night),” The Electric Prunes made four fantastic albums for the Reprise label in the space of two years, but by the time they made Release of an Oath, the last of the fo

The Awakening were the only 'group' recorded by Black Jazz, for which they made two albums; those two releases happen to be among the most collectible in the label's entire catalog, which, given the value Black Jazz titles command in the open market, give

There are zombies…and then there are brain-eating zombies! And Return of the Living Dead was the film where brain-eating zombies got their first lease on, er, life. Co-written by John Russo, who was George Romero’s writing partner on Night of the Living D

In the early-to-mid 1970s, Belgian recording engineer and synthesist Daniel Lacksman née Lanckmans recorded and released a series of pop music records, using early analog synthesizers as a central sonic element. Under an admittedly confusing array of name

The first release on Black Jazz was by pianist and label producer Gene Russell; for the label’s second release, Russell chose another piano man of impeccable taste, Walter Bishop, Jr. But while much of Russell’s record consisted of songs composed by other

As purportedly the first Black-owned jazz imprint since the ‘20s, the Black Jazz label had its roots in the Black Power movement of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. But not every album on the label had a social message. Kellee Patterson’s Maiden Voyage was s

The title of Horace Tapscott’s debut release is apt, if not self-referential, for indeed a giant of West Coast jazz had awakened with this, the pianist/composer/bandleader’s 1969 album for the Flying Dutchman label. Tapscott went on to form two groups cru

Robbie Basho was one of the big three American acoustic guitar innovators, John Fahey and Leo Kottke being the other two. Basho was the least commercially successful of the three, but his influence and reputation has steadily grown since his untimely deat