LEON BRIDGES offers the world 'HAPPINESS ANYTIME'

The Pursuit Of Happiness

By TIM DAVID HARVEY

Dark days might be consuming the world, right now, but here's a Bridge to happiness. Leon Bridges is a throwback. Not only that, the Wrangler, who makes records about a 'Texas Sun' with Khruangbin, is one of the most underrated modern-day greats in an industry that would do good with his inspiration and influence. The 'Coming Home' singer has been steadily chipping away at a classic career and catalogue ever since he took us to 'The River' just over a decade ago. 'Good Thing' (2018) and 'Gold-Diggers Sound' (2021) took us to different and diverse, soulful soundscapes. And his subtle protest record, akin to 'Happy Birthday's' from Stevie Wonder, or the greatest of Marvin, 'Sweeter' (featuring Terrace Martin on the horns), came at the right sobering time, during 2020's COVID-19 pandemic and the turning point of the Black Lives Matter movement. Most recently, he gave us his eponymous 'Leon' two years ago, and just like Miley last week (with her 'Bass Persuades' lane change), he's big enough, in our eyes, to go by just one name.

But why burn Bridges? Especially now. In a cruel, callous and cynical time we could all use a little love right now. Or at the very least, a pick me up. And that's what Leon Bridges is doing for us, taking us to an island in the sun, this summer, for 'Happiness Anytime'. A creed we should all aspire to and a release he wants us to feel "in (our) bones.". Bridges has been releasing a steady stream of this album over the last few months, four-tracks at a time, but now on this new day he gives us the full music Friday of his latest, and one of his greatest records to date. Because of the way he put this out, via mini-EP's, akin to an experiment Norah Jones (they made a great Christmas song together) had when she wanted to 'Begin Again' with how she released albums, everything feels like a single on this somewhat visual album. Right from the moment he rides on his bicycle, all the way through to 'Light The Way'.

Leon cries 'Tears Of Joy', the happiness gets so good, as he sings, "I hang my jacket up beside the willow tree/You know where the devils are, they don't belong with me/I hear water calling, it came and said to me/"Ten more years of glory/These arе our tears of joy"/Oh baby, tears of joy." And on a perfect 'Illusion' the drums can't stop, like his livin'. Making love to the rhythm this might be the most soulful expansion pack since Wyclef Jean's recent take on jazz. This lyric video, in grainy 80s like the new VHS version of season one of 'Stranger Things' on Netflix, is the perfect thing to sing-a-long to anytime, like the takes on Angus & Julia Stone's latest, 'Karaoke Bar'. Part one concluded with the standout 'Your Love Is Electric' that's David Gray lightning in veins. But CD2 got even better with the likes of the title-track and the so smooth, 'Talk It Over'. Collaborating 'All Day, All Night' with producer Lydia Kitto, the good times and this album just don't stop.

"Heavenly, I won't live a day without you next to me/Take me by the hand/I don't wanna let you walk away again/Darlin', honestly, even when it hurts, I'm not the one to leave/I won't let you go/Maybe you and I were always meant to be", Leon sings on 'Fly Baby' concluding the pre-album release eight wonders, offering a love so bright it might burn you, but will always soothe when it's got you. An everyday, forever love that feels like it has already always been here. Kind of like the soul and sound of this album that seeps into your subconscious until you're humming along and feeling all the better for it without even realizing. 'Watch You Dance' continues to move the crowd, down the line of "Wanna watch you dance/Get on your toes/A little romance/Only lightning knows." It's a hook that will have you, sinking through the speakers. That's just 'The Way It Goes' with Janet Jackson smoothness. As Leon says 'Take My Hand' all the way to the end, you'll feel the river again, by the sandy shore of so much more. Even when this record ends on the sea change beautiful ballad of a sombre note ('Please Don't Say Goodbye'), you know what it is. Joy always. The tide is high.

Playlist Picks: 'Your Love Is Electric', 'Fly Baby', 'Please Don't Say Goodbye'.

Spin This: Leon Bridges - 'Gold-Diggers Sound'.

MILEY'S 'BASS PERSUADES' us to dance

The Art Of Persuasion

By TIM DAVID HARVEY 

Bass for your face. Mononym armed, Miley is back as you've never heard or read her before. But she really never left. As Miley Cyrus, this pop megastar was on a tear like no other. This queen went radio Gaga. Ever since those blonde pixie-cut 'Bangerz' came in like an iconic you know what. From 2020, when most people stopped, she's released a fantastic four. 'Little Plastic Hearts' (which this new album has the most in common with), the emancipation, and iconic artwork of an 'Endless Summer Vacation', and 'Something Beautiful', for her visual, final Columbia Records album before signing with Atlantic for this. Cinematic, classic, and a calendar and change ago. Now, a big-three, the previous pair coupled up with this, completes the next emancipation of Miley. 

Meet Miley on a bold, new breakout that still can't be tamed like her 'Dead Petz'. This tenth album is top-tier and it's a return to the dancefloor, like her country strong 'Younger Now' (teaming up with her late, great godmother, the legendary Dolly Parton for the LGBTQ anthem 'Rainbowland') was a trip back to her Tennessean roots to be Franklin. Now, just weeks after losing her dearly departed family member, and dropping her surname from the billboards, Cyrus shows us she is the closest thing to part two of Madonna's 'Confessions' in the booth in this endless Summer. Gaga? Britney? B####, please. They're working hard, too. But only Taylor is bringing it like Miley, right now. Now, the cult pop art icon is giving us her latest album artwork, in black-and-white, with a white rose in her mouth for a classic cover. This princess getting symbolic with the one name. All on the same New Music Friday headlined by the fact that Beck is back.

'Bass Persuades', like 'Ride Lonesome' (from the 'Sea Change' and 'Morning Phase' album artist), begins with it's title-track and lead single. And boy is it a big one. From pop opera to nocturnal pop grunge, Miley moves the crowd with the words, "Glued your eyes to the telephone screen/But you missed the hit without MTV/Go analog (Yeah), make it cinema (Yeah)/Just look out the window and what do you see?/In the treetops, it's a clear shot/Yeah, chaos is king, but you know that you can't stop, won't stop/New fit is a monster/Love it so much, go and hang it on a poster." And to think they say "the kids don't wanna dance". They'll be alright now, thanks to Miley and this album produced by the likes of Kid Harpoon, from Harry styling fame. The one direction of this new record, is the floor. Thanks to Harpoon shots and guest features from Andrew Wyatt of Miike Snow (not to mention the stellar sprinkling of a song called 'Snow' ("we shouldn't be in Kyoto/We've never been here before")) for the glare of 'Neon Signs' and Model/Actrix's 'Different Religion'.

Put your hands together for the Model/Actriz that also 'Remixx' 'Bass Persuades', and will open for Miley during her October two-night residency at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California. The sweet persuasion continues, singing 'Let's Get Married', like R&B's very own Jagged Edge to new fiancé, Maxx Morando. In a different 'Orbit', this outstanding set beats to the rhymes and rhythms of love and life. Sonically surrendering in all its electronic elements to a night of disco and dance. A district of 'REDLIGHTS' in all-caps, that has nothing to do with selling, but instead, celebrating yourself. Forget your phone and find yourself in the 'Aftermath' of atmospheric hooks that sink into the speakers, singing, "Does it all come closer or just the sound?/I'm sick of poets and being profound/You bathe in the sweat, your mouth like a straw/You're callous, but soft, you trace every flaw." "You were mine", on repeat. "Grace comes with age, but don't tell her/Fall out from the fame, claim my mother's maiden name/Lips in crimson shades, how I love her," the 'Innocent Ways' of this mother's daughter sings. Beyoncé, Rihanna, Madonna. Miley. Sometimes icons can just go by their first name basis.

Playlist Picks: 'Bass Persuades', 'Let's Get Married', 'Snow'.

Spin This: Madonna - 'Confessions II'.

SEASICK STEVE laments 'THE LAST SEASON OF AMERICA'

The American Way

By TIM DAVID HARVEY 

On the opening track of Steven Gene Wold, AKA, Seasick Steve's 2011 album 'You Can't Teach An Old Dog New Tricks', featuring Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones (and a great tour I saw with Pop), the Sonic Soul Surfer gave us all his 'Treasures'. One of the most beautiful beginnings to any album. Here, with the opening title-track to his new and fourteenth album, 'The Last Season Of America', he tunes into a much bleaker picture with his signature homemade guitar you can't find at Fender. "It’s the last season of America/And we’ll never watch again/The show that we loved/And there’ll be no reruns/All the sponsors have gone home/They’re shutting the whole thing down/All that’s left is the theme song," Steve sings, as everything from Richard Nixon to 'The Jetsons' plays on the tube next to him in this lot of abandoned American automobiles, as a train runs through it.

The Man from Another Time doesn't let up with the second song of his first set since 2024's 'A Trip A Stumble A Fall Down On Your Knees'. 'Bad Things' details the time we're living in, right now and the fact that, "we got a criminal/running this place/he got lies/written all over his face/all he wants/is just to divide/he don’t care /if our country live or die/ as long as the money keeps rolling/up to the rich /a keep rolling/without a hitch/I’m gonna sing/bad things." The 'Dog House Music' singer from Oakland, California, at 75-years-young is putting the affairs of his country in the dog house. Some of his fans from far away parts may not be too fond of this, but this Seasick man has never been one to sell out. When he made it big after Jools Holland's annual New Years' Hootenanny and his breakout album, 'I Started Out With Nothin' And I Still Got Most Of It Left', Steve made one extravangant purchase. A John Deere tractor. Then the man who was just 'Happy (To Have A Job') wrote a song about it.

There's an ode to his drummer Dan Magnusson (pulling up his fellow road warrior by the 'Bootstraps') and a song for 'Matilda From Ottawa', but Steve doesn't shy away from the problems at hand. Even when he's giving us the 'Above Ground Boogie', or collaborating with Ricardo Arjona on 'El Camino'. 'Somebody' is another single that stirs, but on the bluesy 'Surf's Flat', he gets instrumental and inspired, with some "oohs" and "ahhs". But for a country that's running and screaming, like Jeff Goldblum once warned, this 'Free Man' asks us to "have mercy." Yet this is more a call to emancipation celebration, rather than the protest prose that plant this album's flag. "Had a manager and an agent/They did nothing but take the payment/Now I manage myself/At least I keep most my wealth." Wise words from the man who once had nothing (and still has most of it left) for all the young and restless artists looking for a break in a world on the take.

The self-dubbed "professional busker" of the blues made this album after he and his wife, Elizabeth, journeyed across America and were met with poverty and pain. "We drove across the country from Miami to LA," Steve says. "We thought we was gonna have an amazing time but we were mostly sad, so much homelessness and division." In a New Orleans bar, the record's title was coined. Now, he's giving it everything he's got. Closing up shop to 'Feel The Sun' on another Seasick signature, Steve sings "don't lose your hope/things gone get better/Yeah, they gotta get better/Don't lose your faith/Yeah, it's the night/but the dawn gotta come/Yeah, day gone come/When the truth will rise up/And again we'll see the sun." And what more do you need, in song, than that? All on this top ten track album from a man we should treasure forever. Just like those times in the tens, that made for the moment of a man like him to show us a better way. A way that can come back here and stay if we still have a little faith. And the hard work that goes into making everything around us better...together. Seasons change.

Playlist Picks: 'The Last Season Of America', 'Bad Things', 'Matilda From Ottawa'.

Spin This: Seasick Steve - 'You Can't Teach An Old Dog New Tricks'

BECK 'RIDE'S LONESOME' once again

Lane Change

By TIM DAVID HARVEY

Bob Dylan's 2008 album, 'Together Through Life', features album artwork of beautiful black-and-white photography by the great Bruce Davidson. Previously used for American author Larry Brown's short story collection 'Big Bad Love', the still focuses on a young couple, tangled up in each other's embrace, in the back seat of some American muscle. Together. Through. Life. No such luck for Beck, on the road again for his fifteenth album, 'Ride Lonesome', and first since 2019's Japanese 'Hyperspace' (ハイパースペース), produced by Pharrell, in-front of the classic, red Toyota Celica ("you're breaking my heart"). The longest gap between his studio sets. 

Loneliness may look good on this 'Loser' singer, mind you, behind his own Dylan shades and blonde on blonde curls. The last time the man was this solitary it garnered him some Grammy's. The 'Morning Phase' of 2014, like the 'Sea Change' another dozen years before that. Twelve years later, consider 'Lonesome' the conclusion to this lonely trilogy, making for the magnum opus of this classic career and catalogue under the 'Devil's' Haircut' always on our minds. Beck has bordered genres before, from rock to rap and country to classic Americana. He's hit Bowie big ('Modern Guilt') courted a compelling canvas ('Colors') and released signature sets like 'Odelay' and 'Mutations', but nothing feels quite like this style of spacey, dreamy yet earthy Beck. Lamenting lost love and finding hope in the hallowed heartbreak. How else would you explain the clipped wings of an angelic sound that still soars to the stratosphere?

Coming off his amazing acoustic tour (we get 'Bleed' in France as a YouTube bonus), that took in here in Tokyo, and the rest of the watching world, this Capitol record is an exclamation point. Beck David Hansen told us he was working on an orchestral album after his residency at London's Royal Albert Hall. Earlier this year he already gave us the collection of covers (Elvis, Lennon etc) and rareities that was January's Valentine's Day themed 'Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime' and now he offers up this Room B, United Studios, Hollywood affair, as the wind comes through the veil of his wooden cabin, isolated home space. The lead single and title track features Sierra Ferrell, and the latest track to hit the charts is 'Disappearing Act'. Yet it's the music videos that feature the actors that really strike a chord, like Garrett Hedlund in Angus & Julia Stone's own title-track 'Karaoke Bar' off the album that was released a fortnight back.

On another lonesome day, 'In The Night' features distinctive French actor Denis Lavant, reminding you of Tom Waits. Yet from 'Tokyo!' to 'Shōgun' it's Golden Globe winner and '47 Ronin' and 'Thor' actor Tadanobu Asano who really shows the loneliness amongst the burning neon of Tokyo for the track 'Run Away'. From highlight 'For Your Love' to the black-and-white still of a 'Disappearing Act' seeping through the studio, Beck knows how to get slow, searching and sublime. All as quiet as kept, making music, not noise, in an age that wants to aggravate your attention. What Hansen says with subtlety, is held dear. The emotional texture of this set, with the same team behind 'Sea' and 'Phase', evolves into a sonic, orchestral album. The forlorn, 'Failed Words' telling us, "When the words they fail you/And truth is more than you can say/And the fear surrounds you/You can't walk away/There's no way to change it/Don't know what to say/In a total silence I saw you walk away."

A 'Slow Canyon' opens up more in its grand sense of scale. Yet 'It Ends Right Here' starts an acoustic strum that could string you along to the promise of a better future. 'Falling Through My Hands' holds onto the moment love felt special, before facing the clock made it history, like, "Time forgets what love remembers/So throw your ashes to the embers." 'If You Don't Know What Love Is', it exists in the margins here and the notebook of a great, American singer/songwriter who pens lyrics like, "Just a soldier on the line/Who's taking all the blows/No refuge from the battle in your ragged clothes/So come out from the darknеss/Sit down by the door/No one will condemn you/You don't havе to run anymore." Even mired in heartbreak, Beck sees the light and goes beyond that for the curtain ('Beyond The Light') of this dozen for a dozen. "In the praise of bеnediction/The secrеt of your name/Sends a shiver to my soul/With my heart hung out in vain/Sowing diamonds in the fallow ground/With your sacrament of ice/I've got nothing to believe/Just the distance in your eyes." There's a change at sea this morning, like a phase, and you don't have to be lonesome on this ride tonight.

Playlist Picks: 'Run Away, 'In The Night', 'For Your Love'.

Spin This: Beck - 'Morning Phase'

BRIAN FALLON & THE PAINKILLERS are 'NOT BAD FOR NEW JERSEY'

New Jersey Angel

By TIM DAVID HARVEY

By gaslight, I'm not trying to play New Jersey's devil's advocate. I love this f#####g city, like talking from across the way in Neew YAARK! The city I used to take an Amtrak train from to East Rutherford, just to watch the New Jersey Nets play. Back in my 20s, before Brooklyn and with more affordable air-fare, You just had to see Jason Kidd throw it up there to Vince Carter. Would have been there for the K-Mart days, too. I love Jersey, boy! Like I was Bruce, 'Born To Run' there. Besides, it's the home of Springsteen and the American dream, Jon Bon Jovi, and of course, The Gaslight Anthem.

Following the band's decade in the making, heartland reunion back in 2023 for the 'History Books', frontman Brian Fallon switches 'The '59 Sound' for an 80s one that the 'Sob Rock' of John Mayer, coming out of COVID, would be proud of. It's all Springsteen synths with a human touch and songs with the man that "went back-to-back" with The Boss, Brandon Flowers (who just released his own solo set, 'Thrasher' a few weeks back). All as the other NYC area adjacent Fallon tells us he's 'Not Bad For New Jersey' on his first individual album in four years. Featuring the self-titled single, 'Better Before', 'Love At The End Of The World' (featuring Flowers), 'On Good Terms' with Lori McKenna, 'Somewhere You Shouldn't Be' alongside Phil Collen, a 'Wolf By The River' and Mark Ribot, and the movie-making 'The Big Sleep', with Donovan Woods playing his part.

New romantics classic, all the way down to the 80s vibe pink neon cover like a summer sunset in Tokyo, this is Brian back to being Fallon, following his beautiful hymn sheet of a 'Night Divine'. His first traditional solo album of type since the 'Local Honey' of 2020. Not to mention his sixth set in total, ever since the band eponymous debut a decade ago. It's something to celebrate now The Horrible Crowes singer has matched his Gaslight output, album for album. Dropping 'Pearls' of wisdom on a Butch Walker produced song that sings, "Where the streets come alive/On the Lower East Side/And you're just like the city/You're just like a ghost/I still want you to have all the pretty things/Even if we're not close." 'Nobody Likes You In NYC' teases the same across bridges and boardwalks like, "Nobody likes you in New York City/They were sad, they were sad, they were sad/They got no use for no Animal boys/They were sad, they were sad, they wеre sad/Nobody likes you, but I love you/I wish I didn't, but I do."

'Fading On Me' riffs on a live 'Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out' for the real King of New Jersey, but the prince is close in off-purple. Yet it's deep in the Meadowlands were we find him 'Walkin' Through The Garden'. "Now, I searched along the rivers, and I searched among the stars/Looked out in California in the neighborhood bars/I kept my lantern burning so she would come back to me/But I think I saw the devil in her passenger seat." All for what might just be the best and most him album yet, pulling up his collar in a signature style and struck pose. A bruised and brooding Brian knows how to bring that heartland yearn across the shores, from the city all the way to the promised land. If Springsteen is the blue, bootcut jeans, Fallon is the leather jacket that goes over them. Not bad...and that's no gaslighting.

Playlist Picks: 'Pearls', 'Nobody Likes You In NYC', 'Love At The End Of The World (Feat. Brandon Flowers)'.

Spin This: John Mayer - 'Sob Rock'

 

Join ANGUS & JULIA STONE at the 'KARAOKE BAR'

Angus, Julia and Perfect Singing

By TIM DAVID HARVEY 

What's your go-to karaoke song? For 'Tron: Legacy', 'Four Brothers' and 'Mudbound' star Garrett Hedlund, it may just be the lead single and title-track off 'Karaoke Bar', the new album from ruling Aussie double-act, Angus & Julia Stone. The singing sibling's first album in two years, following the warm and wonderful 'Cape Forestier'. The 'Friday Night Lights', 'Unbroken' and 'On The Road' actor appears in the music video for said single that has shades of Scarlett Johansson and Pete Yorn's 'Iguana Bird', off their 'Apart' EP. Not to mention, many a lonely, Las Vegas night Killers, or Brandon Flowers blooming video amongst the Sin City neons.

Coupled with the other-worldly atmosphere of these 'Celestial Bodies', this is the Stones back in their most accomplished age. Back when Australian friends were introducing me to their music in Manchester and in-sync, listening to the pair in Santa Monica was like a dream. This is the sweet spot of albums like 'Snow' and the fall of their self-titled third. With this sixth, for a collective that have been doing their thing, together and solo, since 2006, they mark their 20-year anniversary with an album that really ties their catalogue together. Just like the Lebowski rug they lie on for the amazing album artwork. The only thing that looks better is Angus' Mickey Mouse Daytona 500 jacket (want) over a Bruce Willis vest and Julia's orange on white Wordtec, Louisville, Kentucky tee (also want...I'll make it work).

So, it's time to sing along. As clever concept lyric videos for 'The Cherry Farm' and 'Monroe', for all you weekend with Marylin guys, actually look like grainy, classic karaoke ones from the 80s. You know when the words light up, that's your cue to flow. Of course, karaoke comes from here in Japan. That word is as Japanese as capsule hotels, vending machines and half a cup of ramen. So, what better way to celebrate all this then with the Nippon neon sounding 'Take Me Back To Japan'? Singing, "You like cigarettes in the cinema/There's only a few places left where you can/Roll the die out with a half played hand/Take me back to Japan." As atmospheric, as the land of the rising's sunsets, and fellow lost in translation and love tracks of Lianne La Havas ('Tokyo') and Phoebe Bridgers ('Kyoto').

This snack bar with the perfect hosts, goes all over the show, too. Right to the moving 'Mexico City' end of the line. This Virgin album was also conceived in Greece, France and their native home of the likes of INXS (before the tragedy) and The Jezabels (before the stupidity), Australia, with all the people they met in the places along the way. From 'The Start', this feels like the 'Brightest Place', as Julia sings, "I chase the city lights for somewhere fun to go/I'm hiding out in the brightest place I know/I'm not a liar/It takes me higher, than I could on my own/I'll get home/I'm at home on the dance floor/Don't call me if you didn't want to stay for more," with a vivid vocal distort, like an opening to a 'Lost Weekend', in an experimental age A.I. couldn't hold a note to.

'Strangely Strangely', a breakup record with bite, is one of the best, best. Whereas 'Cowgirls Lover Boi', certified anti-Drake, is something Neil Young and his crazy horses would love in the sand. As Angus accents, "Rattlesnake, he bite like a snow storm/Can't get the saddle on the back while the horse run/He my cowboy, 40-gallon oil drum/At high noon, he'll put you in the ground son." Yet it's the title-track and Neil Diamond classic that will have you Hedlund, head-over-heels singing along like you were sweet on someone named Caroline. "BA, BA, BA!" Diamond tributes haven't been mined this strong since Hugh Jackman and an Academy Award-nominated Kate Hudson channelled Mike and Claire Sardina for 'Song Sung Blue'. But this one still passes the bar. You're up! What song have you got in your back pocket?

Playlist Picks: 'Monroe', 'Take Me Back To Japan', 'Mexico City'.

The 'Q THEORY' of WYCLEF JEAN'S jazz age

The Ecleftic 

By TIM DAVID HARVEY

Ever since Wyclef Jean sang 'No Woman, No Cry' by iconic idol Bob Marley, serving as his music muse. Settling 'The Score' of quite possibly the best hip-hop album of all-time, by one of its greatest groups. Ever since then, you just knew Jean was more than a real rapper. I mean, here's a guy who once rhymed in multiple languages, leaving us Bill Murray in translation. Opening the Fugees 2005 reunion show at the then M.E.N. arena in Manchester, England. Telling the usher, " I used to do your job, give me your jacket." All before rocking out in that garishly legendary M.E.N. arena blazer yellow. Something previously embarrassing, but then instantly iconic, as everyone in attendance wanted their own like golf's green jacket for The Masters, or the Naismith's Basketball Hall of Fame orange. Wyclef wasn't playing before he introduced a 'Ghetto Superstar' and Ms. Hill.

Carnivals of 'Ecleftic' classics by the hip-hop number have given us further rhyme to this reason. But now, Wyclef Jean takes a real quantum leap, like Scott Bakula. Showing us, he's got the jazz, akin to tribes that go quest. This q-tip in your ear, in all its abstractions offers up the 'Q Theory- Quantum Leap Vol. 2'. "So smooth and sweet" according to a brilliant bassist I know, these sounds fill up the scape with yet another scope to Jean's range. Following the 'Clef Notes' of volume one and the time 'Wyclef (Went) Back To School' in 2019. Taking us all to it as this jazz project explores the history of his Haitian roots and the inspirations of the late, great Quincy Jones' improvisations. What results in this second chapter is something else. Something thrilling in the same N.M.F. weekend where we get new, posthumous Prince ('Timeless'), fellow dread-ditcher Busta Rhymes bringing the late, great J Dilla back for 'Dillagence II', and Erykah Badu and The Alchemist becoming Abi and Alan 'Before The World Blows'.

The Alchemist, like the restaurant in Manchester, just mixed a classic concoction to give us Badu's best yet. Jazz is doing the same for Jean. Two classic catalogues have just become all the more compelling for a culture that needs to be celebrated in all corners of the world it unites, lyrically and sonically. Jean used to get down with the great Jerry Wonda. Here, under the piano with an acoustic, like the black and white album artwork of a young boy with innocence and fire in his eyes...and a couple of record sleeves by his side, he brings forth some friends to the fore for his foray into the world of Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Most notably, modern-day great Robert Glasper, Godwin Louis, Theo Croker and many, many more. The glasses on the table of the cover may be empty, but the hearts and musical minds are full. Right to the brim as you raise a glass in the 'French Quarter', or toast to those 'Harlem Nights' in a New York, 'Clef once called New Jerusalem on the iconic sequel to a classic, 'Carnival II: Memoirs Of An Immigrant'.

'Rocinha', with Glasper, Godwin and Patrick Pelissier just takes you there. Right into the heart of those beautiful Brazilian favelas. Sounding like a halfway house between Thelonious and the inspired intro to Spielberg's 'Catch Me If You Can'. 'Lady Havana' stamps even more passports in perfect percussion and poise, as Theo, Yiyi Sanchez and Axel Tosca. From 'Silk & Sand', featuring Jean Caze, Godwin Louis, Weedie Braimah and Axel Tosca, to 'Sugarcane & Watermelon', this Ecleftic epic encompasses it all, as Jean builds another band of brothers and sisters. Taking wing with Bradford Hayes on the God reaching 'Pegasus'. 'Farafina', alongside Robert Glasper, Elena Pinderhughes, Godwin Louis and Arden Altino, is so fresh you can touch it. And there are even some lyrics amongst all the licks here for this rolling stone, cold as ever. Alas, it's the curtain of a 'Toussaint Louverture' (feat. Mushy Widmaier, Dadi Beauburn, Jean Caze, Papa Jube, Emmanuel Laine and Weedie Braimah) that let the horns blow, like Gillespie, for his home. There's no place like it. Nothing sounds as good. Not even Andre 3000 with a flute, but we'd love to see this Fugee and that Outkast play together under a new blue sun. Get your blue notes ready.

Playlist Picks: 'French Quarter (Feat. Harvey Mason Jr., Niia, Robert Glasper & Theo Croker)', 'Sugarcane & Watermelon (Feat. Godwin Louis, Harvey Mason Jr. & Weedie Braimah)', 'Harlem Nights (Feat. Axel Tosca, Emmanuel Laine, Emmanuel Najee, Godwin Louis, Melky Jean & Patrick Pelissier)'.

Spin This: Wycelf Jean - 'J'ouvert'.