Lonnie Liston Smith, JID017, Jazz is Dead ***1/2

All I wanted to do here was re-create, sadly mission impossible on the time travelling front, being back in Camden at the Jazz Cafe in London hearing Lonnie Liston Smith live at the beginning of the 1990s. As hip as any keyboardist with the exception of Herbie Hancock that I have ever heard live, the vamps were endless - spiritual jazz back then was on the retreat, now it's not - and this new Jazz is Dead album fits the mood far better today. Liston Smith's first studio album in many years, the American's approach takes you on a cosmic trip that is radically different to some of his successors - say ace jazzheads like Joe Armon-Jones here in the UK. Loren Oden's vocals fit well - if you like the UK's Randolph Matthews then what Oden does is for you. But it's the cosmic funk that wins again, just grab your bean bag. SG

Lonnie Liston Smith, photo: via Baxter PR

Tags: reviews

Roaring McCoy Tyner-like piano lines here - esque is more! - from Charlie Stacey on a hyperkinetic lead-off track from drummer Yussef Dayes' Black Classical Music album this autumn. Saxist Malik Venna isn't John Coltrane-like - the sound here is far more Gary Bartz so it confounds expectations when the direction goes skywards that way certainly from a timbral point of view but remaining in a spiritual jazz area. There is fabulous percussion from Alexander Bourt - who like Venna and new don of the bass Rocco Palladino also on the album - scion of the Palladinos - was on Dayes' storming Live at Joshua Tree. The sheer pelting pace that Dayes sets and maintains is a swaggering rollercoaster journey you won't want to jump off at any point in the ride. Yussef Dayes, photo: Danika Magdelena

Lonnie Liston Smith, JID017, Jazz is Dead ***1/2

Track of the week: Yussef Dayes, Black Classical Music, Brownswood / Warners