My new found favourite Internet based radio show that is Mental Chatter with Denise Benson was championing the new Nostalgia 77 (aka Ben Lamdin) album on her shows throughout May. The album is called The Garden which featured a brilliant cover of The White Stripes’ ‘Seven Nation Army’ with the immense vocal talents of Alice Russell (now if she only got a fraction of the hype that Joss Stone gets, but that’s another rant).

Whilst ‘Seven Nation Army’ attracted the likes of Tom Middleton, Mr. Scruff and even ITV’s Hell’s Kitchen, the rest of the album is more ‘straight jazz’, such as the first single, ‘Cheney Lane’ which is a funky Cinematic Orchestra jazz groover.

The whole of the a-side contains ‘The Hope Suite’ which is a brand new piece that is exclusive to the 12”. It’s in three parts (Part 1, 2 & 3) and features Lizzy Parks on vocals and musicians Kelsey Jones, Riaan Vosloo, John Styles, Mark Hanslip, Will Wood, Tessa Lewin, Russell Knight and Jono Baggaley (who also played on ‘The Garden’). Part 2 is an instrumental exploration with the horns and congas before Part 3 sees the return of Ms. Parks.

As mini deep jazz experience it seems part of a renewed interest in spiritual jazz (not that it ever went away) as evidenced by Dwight Trible, the Ethnic Heritage Orchestra/Kahil El’Zabar series, the re-issue series on Universal Sound (Steve Reid, Hannibal, Travis Biggs) which takes it’s lead from the excellent ‘beginners guide’ triple album out on Soul Jazz called ‘New Thing’.

Ben Lamdin’s influences are said to include free and spiritual jazz greats of Sun Ra, John Coltrane, Don Cherry, Ornette Coleman, Archie Shepp, Charles Mingus, Max Roach and British Jazz musicians like Keith Tippet and Graham Collier, as well as 60s funk and soul and Afro sounds; check out that tracklisting to the Milkaudio mix Ben did last year; yet another fan of Nucleus (see you at the Cargo gig).

“Solid” as Denise would say.

The b-side includes the Lizzy Parks’ acapella and the bonus of the aforementioned ‘Cheney Lane’.

Check the links below for the Hope Suite Part 1 video [Warning: contains some disturbing WMD images] and look out for the very limited edition (No. 30) with hand painted covers.

Reviewed: Nostalgia 77 - ‘The Hope Suite’ (Tru-Thoughts) Cat. No. TRU 077 released date 11th July, 2005.

Tour dates:
30th July - Jazz Café - London
11th August - Concorde 2, Brighton (with Fat Freddy’s Drop)
23rd September - Concorde 2, Brighton (with Alice Russell + T.M. Juke)
14th October - Cargo, London

Links:
Hope Suite video
www.nostalgia77.com
www.tru-thoughts.co.uk
Denise Benson’s Review of ‘The Garden’ - 5 stars http://www.eye.net/eye/issue/issue_03.31.05/beat/extended.html
Gilles Peterson : Tracklisting 12/06/05 Nostalgia 77 -‘The Hope Suite’ (Tru Thoughts)
Gilles Peterson : Tracklisting 09/01/05 Nostalgia 77 - ‘Cheney Lane’ (Tru Thoughts)
Gilles Peterson : Tracklisting 12/12/04 Nostalgia 77- ‘Seven Nation Army’ (Tru Thoughts)
Cheney Lane
Universal Sound
Milkaudio Nostalgia 77 March 2004
01. Nucleus - ‘Song For The Bearded Bady’ (Virtigo)
02. Mingus - ‘Freedom’ (Columbia)
03. Eddie Gale - ‘The Rain’ (Blue Note)
04. MRA - ‘Brotherhood Of Breath’ (Neon)
05. John Mclaughlin - ‘Argens Bag’ (Polydor)
06. Graham Bond - ‘Springtime In The City’ (wb)
07. Graham Collier - ‘Lullaby For A Lonely Child’
08. Lol Coxhill - ‘Duet’ (Ogun)
09. Nostalgia 77 - ‘The Mirror’ (Tru-Thoughts)
10. Duke Ellington - ‘Fleurette Africaine’ (Blue Note)