notes: joe armon-jones / kamaal williams
Francisco Espregueira
In May two brilliant pianists, composers and trend-makers will be dropping full albums.
The co-founder of the avant-garde jazz band Ezra Collective, Joe Armon-Jones sparred with Maxwell Owin (and guests) on last year's fantastic 'Idiom' project. In 2018 we eagerly await for "Starting Today", a full record that features Nubya Garcia, Moses Boyd, Oscar Jerome, and more. This year, it could be a crucial release.
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Kamaal Williams (a.k.a. Henry Wu) greets us with "Salaam", the first track of "The Return" coming out later in May. He comes up with his signature jazzy-fuzzy piano chords with fluid rhythms. Williams has been one of the most influential artists in the movement flowing from South London. On keys he was half of the acclaimed Yussef Kamaal duo that a couple years ago surprised the world of music with "Black Focus".
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And we greet him back down south with our homage to "Shahada" included in the 4-track collaborative EP with the electronic Producer/DJ - K15. "WU15" is another piece of his consistently inventive musical career. It ends with this masterpiece that so many times took us to where mysticism is. Further south.
