John Morrison’s Philly Top 5: New Jazz Fusion, Experimental Rock, ’90s Instrumental Hip-Hop Throwbacks

Reflecting on this month, I’m reminded that the themes of learning and play are central to my work. In recent conversations with friends and colleagues, I’ve noticed that I often describe my work in these terms. There are so many avenues and throughways in music and culture. I feel like as long as I remain open to experimentation and play, I’ll never run out of records to discover or stories to tell. Here are five local highlights that made this month special.

April 10 show at Vox Populi

This was one of the best shows I’ve been to all year. Vox Populi is always a fun time and a welcoming space for experimental art, film, and music — and the last show I caught there was a bill packed with experimental Philly rock bands. Sun Within is a power trio playing gnarly, witchy garage rock. Spectral Forces combined free-jazz and no wave while Rope Trick played doomy psychedelia. Sweepers closed things out with a diabolically funny and fierce set.

Golden Hour Jazz at Percy, every Thursday from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Shout out to author and curator Marcus Moore and his weekly Golden Hour Jazz session at Percy Diner. Marcus has been traveling this month, so he tapped me to fill in for him. Percy’s always a nice vibe, so I took the opportunity to load up on jazz records and hold down two of the Thursday night dates. I began both nights playing full album sides by Catalyst, Sonny Rollins, and Amina Claudine Myers. Toward the end of the night, I was playing more in a DJ style, mixing jazz 12-inches by Sun Ra and Bobby Matos and his Afro-Cuban Jazz Ensemble. All in all, it was great and Marcus is back every Thursday from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Make sure you pop in and catch the vibe.

Philly Joe Jones – Philly Joe’s Beat

Speaking of the endless reserve of cool Jazz records to be found and appreciated, I recently got into Philly Joe’s Beat, the 1960 album by Philly Joe Jones. A stalwart of the jazz scene, Jones’ credits include every legend from Miles Davis and Lee Morgan to Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane. On Philly Joe’s Beat, Jones stepped up from his role as a sideman and took the reins as a leader. The result is a fiery set of bop and hard bop recordings that highlight Jones and company’s power as players.

Nazir Ebo – Beyond

While Philly Joe Jones represents Philadelphia’s drumming past, Nazir Ebo is a scion for its present and a bright hope for the future. Ebo’s latest album Beyond is a striking collection of contemporary jazz fusion pieces that incorporate everything from R&B to futuristic broken beat. The album’s opener “reality continues to haunt you” melds explosive fusion/prog riffs with dreamy synth passages. Throughout Beyond’s 10 tracks, the energy and virtuosity is relentless. Nearly every composition is full of dynamic tempo and meter shifts as well as beautiful improvised passages. Songs like the title track “Beyond” and “When Clouds Remember” are  complex and wholly original. Anyone curious about what the cutting edge of jazz sounds like, this album is highly recommended.

Lushlife – No Dead Languages

Lately, I’ve been revisiting a lot of the music that ruled my teen years in the mid-to-late 90s; instrumental hip-hop, trip-hop, and illbient from labels like Mo’ Wax, Asphodel, Wordsound, and Ubiquity. Like myself and many young people in bedroom studios around the world, my friend Raj Haldar (aka Lushlife) spent his formative years producing music inspired by these sounds. In 2016, Lushlife released No Dead Languages, a heady and ambitious homage to this long-gone era of music. Lushlife’s production skills are on full display on the sitar-tinged dub track “Shattered Into Gold” and the eight-minute epic “The League of Frightened Men.”