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Jake Long: City Swamp
ByLong is best known as the leader of Maisha, adepts of spiritual jazz, who debuted with There Is A Place (Brownswood) in 2018 and went on to record with Gary Bartz on Night Dreamer Direct-to-Disc Sessions (Night Dreamer) in 2020. For City Swamp, Long assembled a band with Maisha musicians at its core: tenor saxophonist and flautist Nubya Garcia, guitarist Shirley Tetteh, keyboardist Amané Suganami , bassist Twm Dylan and percussionist Tim Doyle. These players are augmented by tenor saxophonist Binker Golding, baritone saxophonist Tamar Osborn, B3 organist Artie Zaitz and pianist Al Macsween. It is a killer crew and all its members will be familiar to regular readers of these pages.
City Swamp connects to the jazz-rock vibe that Miles Davis explored, but does so in a less artful and more unabashed manner than did Davis. Davis was not comfortable in a rock groove. It was simply not his thing, though in pursuit of record sales he tried to disguise the fact. (For more on this, read Miles Davis & Don Cherry: Which One Is The Grifter? here.) Long on the other hand is home from home and unafraid of getting primal. City Swamp also stands apart from such albums as Bitches Brew (Columbia, 1970) through Long's embrace of the dub techniques of first-generation Jamaican producers such as King Tubby and Lee Perry.
The quickest way to get a handle on the album is by checking the YouTube below, which is of lead single "Silhouette," built around Shirley Tetteh and Twm Dylan's looping riff.
Long describes City Swamp as a "dystopian suite" addressing the architectural and social butchery being inflicted on London by venal property developers and other bloodsuckers from the Dark Side. In this parish, however, it sounds more like a terrific full-throttle jazz-rock romp with a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.
Track Listing
Ideological Rubble; Celestial Soup; Swamp; Silhouette.
Personnel
Jake Long
drumsNubya Garcia
saxophoneBinker Golding
saxophone, tenorTamar Osborn
saxophone, baritoneShirley Tetteh
guitar, electricArtie Zaitz
guitar, electricAl Macsween
pianoTwm Dylan
bass, electricTim Doyle
percussionAlbum information
Title: City Swamp | Year Released: 2024 | Record Label: New Soil
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Jake Long
Album Review
Chris May
City Swamp
New Soil
Tom Skinner
London Brew
Miles Davis
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Shirley Tetteh
Amané Suganami
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Binker Golding
Tamar Osborn
Artie Zaitz
Al Macsween
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