Sometimes news travel tragically slow, so it was only on the first day of winter that I received the news of my friend Peter Solley‘s untimely passing two weeks earlier, on November 16th, aged 75. A pedagogue, a producer and a player, Pete is mostly known for introducing synthesizers to PROCOL HARUM‘s sound when he joined the band for "Something Magic" in 1977, yet there’s much, much more to Solley’s creative biography.
There’s a lot of well-deserved accolades to Tinsley Ellis‘ name, the American artist’s guitar tone having become easily recognizable if not since his stint with THE HEARTFIXERS, the ensemble the then-youngster gathered back in the early ’80s, then since the bluesman’s solo debut “Georgia Blue” that was issued in 1988. Still at it three and a half decades on, the veteran, whose latest platter “Devil May Care” appeared in 2022, recently realized he’s never released an unplugged album – a totally honest record, one with no studio effects applied, one where he has nothing to hide behind – and set to remedy the situation. The results of Ellis’ wish to strip his sound to essentials will see the light of day on Tinsley’s “Naked Truth” which is scheduled for February 24th.
Not a lot of collectives have ever been able to deliver progressive jazz-rock and give it an African flavor with such gusto as ZZEBRA used to do. Comprised of saxophonists Dave Quincy and Loughty Amao, who had previously played with, respectively, IF and OSIBISA, and CURTISS MALDOON rhythm section, bassist John McCoy and drummer Liam Genockey, this group released a mere two albums, the eponymous one in 1974 and “Panic” the following year, when the line-up also boasted such future luminaries as keyboardist Tommy Eyre, teenage axeman Steve Byrd and singer Alan Marshall. That was the band who strolled on a Bremen stage in 1975 to record a session for local radio – a live document which will see the light of day on January 12th.
While the new line-up of the mighty COLOSSEUM tour, proving the British ensemble’s timelessness, it’s the band’s classic line-up that never cease to intrigue connoisseurs and the barely-initiated alike – and it’s both categories of fans that two forthcoming releases from the veterans are aimed it. The first offering targets true aficionados by corralling rarities which could form the fourth album of the band’s original lifespan and the second entices newcomers who prefer to keep the bulk of what the group issued during their heyday by boxing up the collective’s classic records.
It takes some cheek for a musician to call one of his cuts “I Am The Blues” and some skill to hear nobody protest such a self-assigned title, yet the talent Dave Kelly‘s been demonstrating for more than five decades now has surely given him the right to get away with any superlative – and to record the aforementioned fave with his ensembles’ fans, co-penned with an esteemed keyboard player Lou Stonebridge, for his forthcoming platter. Slated for release on January 26th, 2024, “Sun On My Face” should also light the faces of Kelly’s followers who enjoyed the online videos he shared on Facebook, performing many a perennial while sitting in his garden – hence the record’s cover and headline.
