The fourth installment from Jazz Is Dead, the live music project/label launched in 2020 in which Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad (A Tribe Called Quest) collaborate with an illustrious lineup of legends. The focus here is on the sound of Azymuth — not only their own many classics, but the sound that laid the foundation for so many great Brazilian fusion/boogie/funk albums of the 1970s, from Hyldon to Marcos Valle. Eight tracks in all, including the groovy, technically dazzling jazz-funk of "Cat Jump" (sample_2) and the crystalline bossa-fusion of "Quiet Storm" (sample_3), recorded and mixed at Linear Labs, the outstanding analog studio in Los Angeles, California. With Kiko Continentinho brought in as successor to Azymuth keyboardist Jose Roberto Bertrami, who passed away in 2012 (the Jazz Is Dead site calls him a "synthesizer samurai," ha), it's moving to hear the cosmic, mellow electric piano that is Azymuth's signature played without a single thing missing. (Original Japanese text by AYAM)