Bahama Soul Club: Artist You Should Know

A few years back I got an email blurb from Giant Step Promotion in NYC, an organization KCRW used to do concerts with here in LA. They featured a download of a band called The Bahama Soul Club, from their album “Rhythm is What Makes Jazz Jazz.” The cover was lifted from a classic Blue Note side by trumpeter Kenny Dorham, so it caught my eye right away.

The sampler cut was called “But Rich Rhythms” and featured the voice of the late great alto sax player, Cannonball Adderley, famous for his quintet, his work with Joe Zawinul and Charles Lloyd, and even more so, with Miles Davis on “Kind of Blue” and other albums. I loved it and forked over $30 for the import version. Stream the track here:

BSC is a bunch of German guys who love jazz, acid jazz, and tropical music. They’re kind of a German branch of the Italian collective Schema, who with artists like Nicola Conte, Gerald Frisina and Rosalia de Souza do such great Brazilian vibe music. BSC does this with jazz, re-imagining classic music and adding their own special signature.

On a new CD, “Bossa Nova Just Smells Funky,” they use the voice of Symphony Sid Torrin, the great announcer of live radio from the Versailles of Bebop, The Royal Roost, introducing Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and other classic beboppers.

This kind of remixing, re-imagining is what jazz needs—with US 3 we got a bit of it in the early 90s, but not nearly enough. Now the Italians and the Germans, as well as the UK collective Far Out Records, we see a renaissance. You will be hearing more from the Bahama Soul Club, that’s for sure.

— Tom Schnabel