Sunday sessions

Contradictory accounts of Miles Davis’ creation of the soundtrack to Louis Malle’s film noir Ascenseur pour l'Échafaud have all become part of its legend.

Bridge Over Troubled Water is the most enduring album in the beloved duo's catalog, boasting some of their finest vocal performances as well as some of Simon's most accomplished songwriting.

Very Tall, released in 1961, features the first partnership between Oscar Peterson and vibraphonist Milt Jackson.

Lady Soul captures a performer at the peak of her power, restating her ability to take material and make it uniquely her own.

In 1955, Chet Baker prepared the frst European tour of his newly formed quartet. The tour began in Holland in September 1955 and continued with stops in Germany, Switzerland, and France.

Debut laid the foundations for Bjork’s journey into the unexpected.

This album takes the band’s 'Cinematic Soul' aesthetic literally and sends the listener on a journey through a whirlwind of moods and energies.

This is perhaps the most telling of Holy Hive, they are easy to like on first listen but spending time with their music will reveal a much deeper experience.

From their genesis as members of the Venus club in-house band in the early 70s, The Walias were at the forefront of the musical revolution during an era where modern instruments and foreign styles superseded the traditional fare to become the staple sound of Ethiopia. 

Originally issued in 1994, 'The Best Of Sade' is the sublime British act's first hits compilation and it gathers 16 of their biggest singles, rarities and most beloved tracks. 

The results of Nick Drake's solo sessions were as harrowing and stark as anything by Robert Johnson or Charley Patton. enclosed in an inner world of psychological distress, Drake recorded 'Pink Moon's dispatches from a private hell that was simultaneously terrifying and beautiful

Having grown out of the amiable but derivative styles captured on the long-circulating series of bootleg home recordings, Drake imbues his tunes with just enough drama -- world-weariness in the vocals, carefully paced playing, and more -- to make it all work.

Island Records presents Nick Drake's second album 'Bryter Layter' in the Back To Black format.

Reissue of this classic hits compilation of songs from the soul legend who passed away recently. 

BadBadNotGood took the music world by storm with their 2014 LP, 'III', a brash yet refined record of angular jazz improvisations, lush ballads, kraut rock, and futuristic hip-hop tinged rhythms which led to a couple years of touring the world and collaborating with some of the best and brightest artists around the globe.

It was Flying Dutchman that put out some of Lonnie Liston Smith and the Cosmic Echoes's most vital work. Despite their groundbreaking albums, though, they are often overlooked by hardcore jazz nuts and we cannot work out why.

Classic 1972 album. If there’s one word to summarize Donald Byrd’s career, it’s undoubtedly “eclectic.” 

With the collaboration of a very young musician, Jean-Claude Vannier, he created an album hailed as one of the most remarkable successes of orchestral pop around the world.

This release helped fuel the bossa nova craze in the United States and internationally.

The best Beach Boys album, and one of the best of the 1960s. The group here reached a whole new level in terms of both composition and production, layering tracks upon tracks of vocals and instruments to create a richly symphonic sound.

After the success of 1974's Natty Dread and 1976's Rastaman Vibration, Bob Marley was not only the most successful reggae musician in the world, he was one of the most powerful men in Jamaica.

Etta James’ powerful, versatile and emotionally direct voice could enliven the raunchiest blues as well as the subtlest love songs, such as her signature hit, “At Last”.

The recording of the 1968 album The Notorious Byrd Brothers was a labour of love; it's more experimental and progressive than their previous works and is considered one of the best albums they made.

Velvet Underground's self-titled third album seemed like the debut of a new band. John Cale had left (replaced by Doug Yule) and the group became, for all intents and purposes, Lou Reed's back-up band.

The Electric Warrior album effectively buried the psychedelic folk rock of Tyrannosaurus Rex and immortalised the trashy hard rock of T Rex.

Quoted, recommended, and worshipped by the critics for decades, this underground masterpiece has now become part of the establishment. It cries to be listened to without interruption, which may explain why it failed to reach either the UK or US charts.

Completing the essential quartet of Eno's early vocal albums is 1977's Before and After Science.

Miles Davis’ first truly influential project as a leader—which produced a series of recordings between 1949 and 1951 that helped shift the course of improvised music—was publicly underappreciated for almost ten years.

On their third album Fifth Dimension from 1966 The Byrds started showing a more LSD-tinged side of themselves with the Psychedelic Rock of songs such as "Eight Miles High" and "I See You" and a preference for the Indian raga.

Dorothy Ashby was an American jazz harpist, one of the very few who used her instrument to play credible jazz and bebop.

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings have been rocking out in the Daptone studios again and with sexy results!

‘Brooklyn To Brooklyn’ is the fourth album by Floridian soul/funk outfit Scone Cash Players.

Menahan Street Band, a veritable supergroup of some of today's most prolific songwriters, arrangers, and producers return with this beat-forward, cinematic masterpiece. Their unique brand of instrumental soul has not only been the foundation for some of modern hip-hop's most successful beats, it has also become the perennial soundtrack and veritable vibe-generator for countless parties, art shows, and restaurants throughout NYC and abroad.

In early 2022, Lee reunited with Daptone Records and producer Gabriel Roth to record Sentimental Fool, a deep, blues-tinged, wholly-conceived soul album. From his first line to his final plaintive lyric, the beauty, power, and raw humanity of Leeʼs voice is on full display here; the culmination of an astounding career that has seemed to defy gravity, rising to only greater and greater heights. Soul music pours out of Lee Fields, as free and unstinting as God's love.

A monumental force firmly rooted in the soul canon, Willie Hutch is most notable for recording two of the best Blaxploitation soundtracks, The Mack and Foxy Brown. Yet his legacy is much greater. Outside of Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and Smokey Robinson, Hutch was arguably Motown's top male solo artist of the 70s. Prior to his association with Gordy et al, Hutch crafted his opening statements for RCA, two vital LPs that Be With Records is honoured to present today.

New CAM Sugar collection on Italian crime soundtracks (Poliziottesco / Spaghetti Crime); Piombo paints a ‘picture in sound’ of The Years of Lead (1973–1981), a controversial period when the escalation of political violence and terrorism in Italy reached its climax. Italian cinema documented this season with Polizieschi (aka Spaghetti Crime Films / Poliziotteschi / Euro Crime): a genre that, drawing from the French Polar tradition and American Blaxploitation, encompassed thrill and action (but also comedy and drama) in a whirlwind of breath-taking car chases, heists, kidnaps, gunfights, political terror attacks, and brutal violence.

For a whole decade, spanning between the second half of the ‘50s and the second half of the ‘60s, jazz took over the Italian screens.

When Scott Walker recorded this, his first solo album, he was 23 years old and sounded about two hundred. He was rich, handsome, absurdly famous - and he hated it. Though the Walker Brothers, the band his cavernous croon decorated, specialised in lavishly over-produced, heroically lachrymose ballads (Make it Easy on Yourself, The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore), any subtlety they attempted was being lost beneath the screams of their teenage audiences. Scott Walker took to spending his days in darkened hotel rooms and becoming steadily obsessed with the work of legendarily louche belgian songwriter Jacques Brel. On the cover of Scott, a sunglass-wearing Walker stares tetchily at his shoes, as if the merest intrusion of a camera was, by this point, becoming intolerable. He needn't have looked so glum: the sleeve contained a masterpiece. of the 12 tracks on Scott, three were written by Walker, three by Brel and the rest by other famously consumptive writers such as Tim Hardin and Kurt Weil. Walker sang all of them like they were his valedictory message to humanity, finding greater depths than ever in his awesome voice, and drenching the whole thing in great surges of strings. This is a classic, which generations of self-consciously misunderstood young men have clasped close to their hearts ever since.

Kiwanuka is the follow-up to Michael’s number 1 album, Love and Hate, released back in July 2016 that resonated broadly both critically and in the public’s affections, netting the British musician his second Mercury Prize nomination and his second and third Brit nominations too.

The second Michael Kiwanuka album produced by Dangermouse is a glorious and beautiful tour de force. 

Few records make such an instant impression as 'home again', the debut album by michael kiwanuka. immersing the listener in a sound that is both modern and at the same time as familiar as the classics, it manages to strike the balance between being contemporary and somehow utterly timeless. for kiwanuka, key musical touchstones include marvin gaye, otis redding, bob dylan, paul simon, shuggie otis, roberta flack's first take, bill withers' live at carnegie hall and d'angelo's modern soul landmark voodoo. citing the latter album in particular as exhibit a in refuting suggestions that his listening tastes are rooted exclusively in the 1970s, kiwanuka calmly shrugs off any 'retro' accusations that might be levelled at his music. from the opening bars of the stirring 'tell me a tale', it is instantly clear that 'home again' is a very special album. while its more upbeat characteristics are embodied in the prince buster-like loping of the lovelorn but irresistibly catchy 'bones' and the rolling soul groove of 'i'll get along', elsewhere it proves itself to be a record of real stripped-down beauty. in 'i won't lie', with its gospel-infused echoes of the staples singers, kiwanuka offers something akin to a modern spiritual, while in 'rest' he turns in a tender love lullaby and in 'always waiting', he blends classical elements with the confessional intimacy of roberta flack.

Sly and the Family Stone might have psychedelicised soul music, but Marvin Gaye personalised it. Although the powers-that-were Motown didn't even want to release the record, the unexpected success of What's Going On, issued in 1971, inspired Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield, and just about every other black artist on the planet to take greater responsibility for their music and its meaning.

Breathe captures the Hammond B-3 organ legend Dr. Lonnie Smith during his 75th birthday run at the Jazz Standard in NYC in 2017.

One of the very rare chances, and quite possibly the only chance to listen to the genius of Ennio Morricone engaging with the musical world of jazz.

Surprise Chef’s music is based on evoking mood; their vivid arrangements utilize time and space to build soundscapes that invite the listener into their world.

Their ears have developed, their ethos and their drive has matured, their musicianship is full-blown; hence the name of the EP, Ripe.

Awa Poulo is a singer of Peulh origin from Dilly commune, Mali, near the border with Mauritania.

Love Is Overtaking Me contains 21 tracks recorded between 1974 and 1990. 

Where I’m Meant To Be is a thumping celebration of life, an affirming elevation in the Ezra Collective’s winding hybrid sound and refined collective character.

The album moves from mellow soulful moods, into screaming disco-jazz-fusion, samba funk, synth boogie and ends with a tough 160bpm Batucada workout.

Arthur Verocai's long-lost solo LP straddles the continents to fuse Brazilian tropicalia with American funk, yielding a shimmering, dreamlike mosaic of sound that both celebrates and advances the creative spirit.

It is fully a jazz album, and a completely funky soul-jazz disc as well. Smith plays both piano and electric keyboards and keeps his compositions on the jazzy side: breezy, open, and full of groove.

Ali isn’t just a greatest hits compilation. It’s a lullaby, a remembrance of Ali's life through known highlights and B-sides from his catalog.

On their third album, the dubby band’s feel for a groove remains intact, but they often render vibrant sounds from all over the world as impeccably stylish mood music.

Formed of Laura Lee on bass, Mark Speer on guitar, and Donald “DJ” Johnson on drums; Khruangbin’s sounds are rooted in the deepest waters of world music infused with classic soul, dub and psychedelia. Their 2015 debut album ‘The Universe Smiles Upon You’ was heavily influenced by 60’s and 70’s Thai cassettes the band listened to on their long car journeys to rehearsal in the Texan countryside. ‘Con Todo El Mundo’ takes inspiration not just from South East Asia but similarly underdiscovered funk and soul of the Mediterranean and the Middle East, particularly Iran.

Four decades have failed to dull the album’s power and awe-inspiring scope. It’s been cited as a favorite by figures like Prince, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey – and Wonder himself. “Of all the albums, Songs in the Key of Life I’m most happy about,” he told Q magazine in 1995. “Just the time, being alive then. To be a father and then letting go and letting God give me the energy and strength I needed.” Credit: Rolling Stone

Buena Vista Social Club was released in June 1997 and has since come to be regarded as a classic, selling 7 million copies worldwide.

HONEYCOMB hits the sweet spot between jitwam’s work in dance music and efforts as a bandleader, connecting people in-studio and on-stage.

The all-star collaboration between a producer, a saxophonist, and a symphony is a celestial event. But it’s Pharoah Sanders’ playing that holds it all together, a clear late-career masterpiece.

Diggin is a classic Hip Hop Jazz album, hard to find on vinyl. A must have in every record collection. DJ Cam Quartet is a live jazzy hip hop side project from DJ Cam.