Under the Stars is a quasi-weekly column that presents new music releases, upcoming shows, opinions, and a number of other adjacent items. We keep moving with the changes, thinking outside the margins. In this edition, we’re providing you with NYE options and tunes to slide you into the New Year with good form. All the best in 2023!
OAKSTOP ALLIANCE, ROYALTY SUMMIT
Oakstop Alliance, a community non-profit, has just released its new 12-track compilation album Royalty Summit, curated by Homeboy Sandman. It was produced via the Alliance’s Oakland Resident initiative to provide increased visibility to the city’s musicians, producers, and engineers by facilitating stress-free collaborations with progressive artists from around the world … in Oakland.
Known for spawning musical greats such as Kehlani, Raphael Saadiq, Kamaiyah, and Fantastic Negrito, Oakland remains a fertile ground for musical talent. Local creatives have long shown talent in cultivating their expertise, just like in hip hop’s better-known centers of New York, Atlanta, and Los Angeles.
Royalty Summit, recorded over three days with Homeboy Sandman and over 20 regional musical artists and professionals, will undoubtedly return heads and ears back to The Town.
Purchase the compilation here.
LES CLAYPOOL’S BASTARD JAZZ AT JAM CELLARS BALLROOM NAPA, DECEMBER 30 AND 31
Les Claypool is on the list when you consider the Bay Area’s top contemporary bass virtuosos from the last 25 years. The legendary Primus frontman dings the bell. He recently revealed to Bass Player that another Bay Area bass legend had a profound influence on him. Have you ever heard of Larry Graham? Claypool apparently got goosebumps from his song “Scream,” which I’m sure is a difficult feat to pull off.
“The album Starwalk was a great influence on me, not necessarily because it had Larry Graham’s best songs, but because there’s a song on there called ‘Scream’ which is very impressive,” Claypool told Guitar World. “Pretty much anything that Larry played on is amazing, though—he’s done everything there is to know about bass.”
Claypool will ring in the New Year with a two-show run at Napa’s JaM Cellars Ballroom (located on the upper floor of the Napa Valley Opera House) with his supergroup Les Claypool’s Bastard Jazz on December 30 and 31.
The NYE performances, which will feature Claypool and frequent collaborators Mike Dillon (percussion) and Skerik (sax), will also feature special guest Vinnie Colaiuta, a Grammy-winning drummer who has toured and recorded with many artists, including Frank Zappa. Colaiuta even played drums on Zappa’s iconic Joe’s Garage album.
According to Claypool, the shows will be largely improvised. “I’m just going to get a bunch of guys together, and we’re going to walk on stage not knowing anything about what we’re going to do,” he said in a press statement. “No rehearsals, no nothing—and just start jamming.”
Claypool has had a busy year, performing with Bastard Jazz as well as touring the country with Primus for the band’s wildly popular A Tribute To Kings Tour, which pays tribute to Rush. The sprawling three-song “Conspiranoid” EP, which included the epic 11-minute opening track “Conspiranoia,” was Primus’ first new music in more than five years.
Purchase tickets here.
A FILM BY RÓISÍN MACHINE
“It’s time to bring The Róisín Machine era to a close,” posted the gregarious musician, producer, vocalist, and part-time Youtube dramatist Róisín Murphy on Twitter. As a means of saying thank you to the many fans and newfound Murphy enthusiasts (myself included), she’s made her livestream film available to the public.
Murphy performs selections from the Róisín Machine projects on a soundstage with a sharp band, a yoga-tuned expressive dancer who helps convey the moods and thickness of the tracks performed (oh, they thicc), and the artist’s signature costume changes.
When the Irish Diva began performing on YouTube during shutdown isolation time, her rendition of “Sing it Back” drew comments ranging from “when you find a bag of coke in some old jeans,” to “adopt me, Mother.”
All kidding aside, this film is some peak Grace Jones shit. Period.
If you don’t feel like being around crowds of people who refuse to take vaccines, I can’t think of a better way to celebrate the New Year than popping champers, hooking this film up to your smart TV, DJ set up, soundsystem—whatever supports the bump going on in your house—and getting deep into the cleansing.
There isn’t a single rushed groove in this 90-plus minute performance. Murphy’s setlist is jam-packed with ruff-and-tuff dub-disco frequencies that will make you limber.
I really wish this was pressed up on wax. Listen up, chicken butt, Queen Bey may have the year’s most popular record, but THIS is the performance that everyone needs to experience.
Psychotropics are optional.
Stream the film here.
PLEASURE, JOYOUS (JAZZ DISPENSARY)
Within the first two minutes of the funk-jazz track “Joyous,” that heat-rock lands consisting of a saxophone solo gone molten-lava-orange-riding-over-an-in-the-pocket groove that prolly stole inspiration and cash money from James Brown’s cheap-skate wallet. It is a moment that remains throughout the decades an ear pricker-upper. Sampled by Janet Jackson, LL Cool J, Eric B. & Rakim, Sugarhill Gang, and Daft Punk, among many others, it’s a DJ party break anthem still to this day.
Pleasure, a Portland, Oregon-based band known for their fusion of soul, jazz, and funk, created the track under the production of Jazz Crusaders co-founder and trombonist Wayne Henderson in the late 1970s. The long-out-of-print record is set to be returned to vinyl on January 6 by way of Jazz Dispensary.
Pleasure was signed to Fantasy Records (home to Creedence Clearwater Revival and Vince Guaraldi), where Henderson produced four of the band’s albums.
Landing between the mellower phases of disco and foreshadowing the upcoming groove-boogie waters soon on the horizon in the upcoming ’80s, Joyous is a perennial album that makes for an eight-track excursion through jazz arrangements informed by dance floor awareness.
You can pre-order your vinyl copy here.
