Name: Black Focus
Price: 9 USD
Availability: BackOrder

Release Date: 28th Oct 2016
Catalogue No: BWOOD157CD
Label: Brownswood Recordings
Length: 43 minutes

Usually despatched in 4 - 5 working days

Henry Wu, Yussef Dayes: Black Focus

Work length4:34

Yussef Kamaal, Henry Wu (keyboards), Tom Driessler (electric bass guitar), Yelfris Valdes (trumpet), Yussef Dayes (drums), Yussef Dayes (percussion)

Henry Wu, Tom Driessler, Yussef Dayes: Strings of Light

Work length8:28

Yussef Kamaal, Henry Wu (keyboards), Henry Wu (mellotron), Tom Driessler (electric bass guitar), Yelfris Valdes (trumpet), Yussef Dayes (drums), Yussef Dayes (percussion)

Henry Wu, Kareem Dayes, Yussef Dayes: Remembrance

Work length9:00

Yussef Kamaal, Henry Wu (keyboards), Kareem Dayes (electric bass guitar), Yussef Dayes (drums), Yussef Dayes (percussion)

Henry Wu, Tom Driessler, Yussef Dayes: Yo Chavez

Work length3:59

Yussef Kamaal, Henry Wu (keyboards), Tom Driessler (electric bass guitar), Yussef Dayes (drums)

Henry Wu: Ayla

Work length0:46

Yussef Kamaal, Henry Wu (electric piano), Henry Wu (synthesizer), Kareem Dayes (electric bass), Mansur Brown (electric guitar), Shabaka Hutchings (tenor saxophone), Tom Driessler (electric bass), Yelfris Valdés (trumpet), Yussef Dayes (drums), Yussef Dayes (percussion)

Gordon Wedderburn: O. G .

Work length0:46

Yussef Kamaal, Henry Wu (electric piano), Henry Wu (synthesizer), Kareem Dayes (electric bass), Mansur Brown (electric guitar), Shabaka Hutchings (tenor saxophone), Tom Driessler (electric bass), Yelfris Valdés (trumpet), Yussef Dayes (drums), Yussef Dayes (percussion)

Henry Wu, Yussef Dayes: Lowrider

Work length4:28

Yussef Kamaal, Henry Wu (keyboards)

Mansur Brown: Mansur's Message

Work length2:06

Yussef Kamaal, Mansur Brown (electric guitar)

Henry Wu, Yussef Dayes: WingTai Drums

Work length1:16

Yussef Kamaal, Henry Wu (keyboards), Henry Wu (synthesizer), Yussef Dayes (drums)

Henry Wu, Tom Driessler, Yussef Dayes: Joint 17

Work length8:19

Yussef Kamaal, Gordon Wedderburn (spoken voice vocals), Henry Wu (keyboards), Henry Wu (mellotron), Tom Driessler (electric bass guitar), Yussef Dayes (drums), Yussef Dayes (percussion)

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The borders between London’s musical tribes have always been porous. For Yussef Kamaal, the sound of the capital – with its hum of jungle, grime and broken beat – has shaped a self-taught, UK-tipped approach to playing jazz. In the states, the genre’s long-running to-and-fro with hip hop – from Robert Glasper to Kamasi Washington – has reimagined it within US culture. On Black Focus, Yussef Kamaal frame jazz inside the bass-saturated, pirate radio broadcasts of London.

Taking inspiration from the anything-goes spirit of ‘70s jazz-funk, on albums by Herbie Hancock or the Mahavishnu Orchestra, it’s a loose template with plenty of room to experiment. The pair, made up of Yussef Dayes and Kamaal Williams (aka Henry Wu), have had little in the way of formal training. Instead, their musical tastes – and approach to playing – are indebted to Thelonious Monk’s piano as much as the drum programming of Kaidi Tatham.

“It's all about the drums and the keys,” Williams says. “Not to take anything from anyone else, but that's where it all originates from: the chords, the rhythm of the chords and the drums.” Born out of a one-off live session to perform Williams’ solo material for Boiler Room, it soon became a project in its own right. Coming together as Yussef Kamaal, they played a series of live shows where little more than a chord progression would be planned before taking to the stage

Bringing that unspoken understanding to the recording sessions (engineered by Malcolm Catto of The Heliocentrics), the unplanned, telepathically spawned grooves retain the raw energy of their live shows. “It's not so much about complete arrangement, it's more about flow,” Dayes says. “A lot of the tracks are just made spontaneously – Henry will be playing two chords, I'll fill in the groove and we'll just leave the arrangement naturally.”

Both hail from South East London, crossing paths in 2007 as teenagers playing their first pub gigs around Peckham and Camberwell. Dayes drums for cosmically-inclined, afrobeat outfit United Vibrations, while Williams – on top of drumming and playing keys in different incarnations over the years – has made waves with his solo, synth-draped house 12"s for much-fêted labels like 22a and Rhythm Section.

Black Focus

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