There has been one constant in the career of Nostalgia 77 (aka Ben Lamdin): pushing his own envelope as a producer, arranger, and composer. While he began in hip-hop, he’s expanded his reach as a producer to jazz, blues, soul, and beyond. He’s worked with everyone from Alice Russell (and scored an international hit with a cover of the White Stripes' “Seven Nation Army”) and Lizzy Parks to Bonobo and jazz diva Beth Rowley. He’s also recorded and toured with a live jazz octet and won Jazz Album of the Year at Gilles Peterson’s BBC Music Awards for 2007’s Everything Under the Sun. Nostalgia 77 Sessions, Vol. 1 featuring Keith and Julie Tippett is a dream-come-true collaborative venture. This is the seam where the great innovative British jazz tradition that began in the 1960s meets the 21st century club and concert stage. Pianist/composer/arranger Keith’s earliest claim to fame was his leadership of the 50-piece free jazz orchestra Centipede. Julie (then Julie Driscoll) played with Brian Auger and then recorded as a solo artist, a session vocalist, and finally as an improviser in the vanguard music of the past four decades with Keith and on her own. Here, Lamdin co-produces (with bassist Riaan Vosloo and Martin Levan), arranges, and co-composes. They are joined by drummer Adam Sorenson, guitarist Gary Boyle (also an Auger alumnus), Mark Hanslip on tenor saxophone, and trumpeter Fulvio Sigurta. This is unlike any other Nostalgia 77 project. The end result is a gorgeously produced effort that contains the studio ambience found on Alice Coltrane’s or Marion Brown’s recordings for Impulse! and crosses all the benchmarks in jazz -- from the blues through swing and the avant-garde -- in a thoroughly accessible, forward-looking project that is a mindblower. Whether it’s a straight-ahead nocturnal blues like the opener, “You Don't Just Dream When You Sleep” (illustrated nicely by deep double bass, acoustic piano, and Julie’s throaty vocal), a finger-popping scatting swinger such as “Sketch for Gary/Billy Goes to Town” (with killer guitar work countered by Keith's piano), or a modal ballad such as “Okinawa,” the effect is the same: enchantment. There are a couple of outside/improvisational tracks, or moments within them, such as “Soothing the Rattlesnake,” the middle of “Rainclouds,” and the last third of “Lapis Blue,” but even these are painted in such illustrious colors and textures that they are not only listenable, they are desirable to the point of compulsive listening.
© Thom Jurek /TiVo