News & Updates — classic albums

The underrated roots reggae toaster Prince Jazzbo was born on this day in 1951 with the given name Linval Roy Carter. Like every other Kingston youth, he started off working the sound systems before starting his recording career in the early '70s with Studio 1, Upsetter and others for producers Lee "Scratch" Perry, Bunny Lee, Glen Brown as well as for his own Ujama label, which he created in '77. He hit with "Crabwalking" (an update on Horace Andy's "Skylarking") in '72. He is the dude on "Croaking Lizard" on the Super Ape album by Perry. And he and I-Roy...

Happy birthday to a true rock & roll countercultural hero, Mick Farren! His band The Deviants were one of the heaviest psychedelic, proto-punk bands of the late '60s and were part of London's underground scene along with Soft Machine, Syd Barrett & the Pink Floyd, Lemmy & Hawkwind, Mark Bolan and Pink Fairies. He cut away from the music for a bit in the first half of the '70s to focus on his writing projects. He is well-known as a writer & social critic for NME and other publications as well as several novels, biographies and non-fiction books and he...

Here's a birthday shout-out to the Japan's Yamanaka Joe, actor, singer, activist & humanitarian. Born Akira Yamanaka to a Japanese prostitute mother and a Caribbean-American soldier father he never met, whom he believed to be either Cuban or Jamaican. He grew up in an orphanage and got TB as a kid. He started boxing at 16 and became a well-known "tough guy" actor in several Japanese flicks. After singing in blues band Mystic Morning he joined Flower Travellin' Band in 1970. FTB were one of the earliest (and best!) of the bands who were greatly influenced by Black Sabbath. They...

Happy birthday to the underrated bop pianist Walter Davis Jr. Lifelong close friends with Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie and Bud Powell, he was a session pianist of great soulful taste. From Richmond VA, he played as a teenager with Babs Gonzales and got a big gig at the Apollo with Charlie Parker in '49, quitting high school to go on the road with him. He moved to NYC in '50 and made his first recordings with the Max Roach group. He toured South America & the Middle East with Gillespie in '56, and would play with Diz off and on...

A self-taught tenor saxophonist (and activist) from Chicago, Clifford Jordan was underrated and not a flashy type but he enjoyed a long career in jazz, traveling all over the world and lending his hand to various non-profits. While still in Chicago he played R&B, as well as bop with Max Roach and Sonny Stitt. In '57 he moved to NYC, and cut his first of three albums for Blue Note, the classic Blowing In From Chicago, co-led with Sun Ra's tenor man John Gilmore and featuring members of the Jazz Messengers. In the late '50s he worked in groups led...