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NYC Jazz

NYC’s MG & the Orbs delivered a remedy for self-pity with their timelessly swanky jazz blues alchemy in HELP is What You’re Needin’

Posted on 31 May 2024

With Maria Giorgio at the helm, MG & the Orbs is a peerless ensemble, revered throughout the Big Apple and beyond for their soul-imbued brand of jazz blues. Their latest single, HELP is What You’re Needin’ is enough to make you want to turn back time to add them to your radar earlier.

The resolute rejection of an invitation to a pity party is the ultimate remedy for anyone who finds themselves perpetually employed to do other people’s emotional labour. The soulful defiance in the blues shuffle which Giorgio penned after a writer on a movie set she was working on started to sing his own relationship blues. After instantly finding the inspiration in the exchange, Giorgio enlisted her cultivated collective to breathe life into the upliftingly unreckonable single that proves just how dangerous it can be to bring out the hellcat in a conduit of soul.

MG & the Orbs don’t just believe in music as a healing force, they deliver the cure in their timelessly swanky jazz blues alchemy.

HELP is What You’re Needin’ was officially released on May 24; stream the single on YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

NYC’s Jazz-Punk Raconteurs of Rancour, Goldbloom, Stridently Blossomed in Their Fusionist Revolution, Redneck

Posted on 21 May 2024
For Money and Power by Goldbloom

The protestive pulse of punk and the rhythmic rebellion of jazz went hand in hand in ‘Redneck’, which is just one of the seminal singles from the Texan-born, NYC-based jazz trio Goldbloom’s sophomore LP, For Money and Power.

Channelling the jazz-punk flair of icons in the same vein as Acoustic Ladyland, with this sax-led riotously smoky tour de force, the outfit which originally connected at NYC’s New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, pushed visceral momentum into an aural arena hallmarked by sophisticated syncopation and inaccessible pretension.

The synergy trio’s triadic power is on full display in Redneck, as is the dualism between the technical skill and the intensity of a garage rock band riffing out a sonic resistance that you will want to join them at the vanguard for.

Redneck is now available to stream and purchase on Bandcamp.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Stix Bones is ‘Phearless’ in his hip-hop-inspired instrumental jazz single

Posted on 11 January 2023

Stix Bones’ latest album, Breaks from the Soul Vol.2, starts with the swinging smoky jazz grooves in the standout single, Phearless. Standing as a testament to the Brooklyn-based artist’s reverence for the timeless genre, the instrumental single is a disarming triumph; the quintessentially complex time signatures don’t miss a beat while leading you into rhythmic arrest. The funky basslines claw against the bright timbre of the horn stabs, while the percussive fills provide a solid backbone with perfect alignment.

Stix Bones started his career in the industry by touring with the Godfather of the Noise, Rahzel. After stamping his passport in the UK and across Europe with Rahzel, Stix toured the states with the infinitely accoladed Jessica Care Moore before Stix took the position of music director for Lyricist Lounge, which saw him collaborating with De La Soul, Q-Tip and more. His jazzy ensembles can be heard on major TV shows, including The Real House Wives of Miami and in the film Raise Up. Whatever his next move is, it is likely to be a luminary one.

Listen to the Breaks from the Soul, Vol. 2 LP in full via Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast