{"title":"Ubuntu Management Group","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"polar-waters","title":"Polar Waters","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe Joshua Jaswon Octet is a Berlin-based contemporary jazz ensemble, featuring a broad cross-section of exceptional young musicians from Europe's leading jazz scenes. Lead by the London-born saxophonist and composer, the ensemble released its debut album Silent Sea in October 2020, which was selected by BBC Music as one of the best jazz recordings of 2020\/21 and received 4 and 5 star reviews across the UK and international media. Polar Waters draws out the distinct musical personalities of each member of the Octet into the group's collective sound was a part of the ensemble's natural evolution from its first record and something that has developed through extended time living with and performing the music. Jaswon focused on exploring the fluidity of roles, sound colours and textural combinations in the ensemble and how this related to both the collective and individual.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ubuntu Management Group","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":50469618450763,"sku":"2016765","price":8.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"LP","offer_id":50469618712907,"sku":"2024784","price":19.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/test_4810c600_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727364341"},{"product_id":"squiggles","title":"Squiggles","description":"\u003cp\u003eSquiggles is a guitar-organ trio project, led by Israeli guitarist Gur Liraz. It was created during the corona virus lockdown period, when there was time to write, compose, arrange, and explore their ideas as individuals and together as a band. Although the album has a clear hard-bop flavour, all the songs are original. The compositions take inspiration from their Israeli roots as well as from the tradition of soul and blues playing that informs jazz music. The sound is influenced by the classic organ-guitar combos of the 1960s, such as Wes Montgomery and Melvin Rye or Grant Green and Larry Young. It is a snapshot of a period in time when the world came to a halt.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ubuntu Management Group","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":50477623935307,"sku":"2016833","price":8.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/test_22bc9d9a_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727475525"},{"product_id":"stay-2","title":"Stay","description":"\u003cp\u003eRay Greene has performed and recorded with a number of the most successful and influential names in the fields of Pop, Funk, and R\u0026amp;B; most notably Aretha Franklin, the Isley Brothers and Natalie Cole.  Ray was selected by the popular and innovative soul\/fusion band Tower of Power, where he served as the lead vocalist and trombonist for several years.  Ray was then invited to join the legendary Carlos Santana and has travelled throughout the globe with the famed guitarist. From Dubai and Singapore, to Australia, Africa and Europe, Santana's music and live performances have been a phenomenal showcase for Ray's vocals and musicianship.  Ray's upcoming project, Stay, is a Soul\/R\u0026amp;B album that hearkens back to the days of Sam Cooke and Otis Redding, who delivered such power and determination in their approach to singing their classic material. This project begs the question, \"what would these gentlemen be doing if they were still with us today?\" or, more specifically, \"what type of music would Bobby Womack or Jackie Wilson be listening to?\".  Ray wrote the music for Stay over the course of several years, which deals with the emotions, joys and pain of being in mature, adult relationships.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ubuntu Management Group","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":50477775946059,"sku":"2011164","price":8.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/test_5cd808fc_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727477830"},{"product_id":"view-from-above","title":"View From Above","description":"\u003cp\u003eUK drummer\/composer\/producer Tristan Banks draws on over 30 years of experience as a sideman for many Grammy award-winning and platinum selling artists. Mixing influences from the jazz, Latin jazz and fusion idioms, the music is a unique combination of high-octane virtuosic performance and sublimely melodic composition. Banks brings together his long-standing musical friends--Paul Booth (saxes), John Crawford (piano) and Davide Mantovani (bass)--to articulate his musical vision.  Tristan explains: \"The idea was to push the acoustic jazz quartet format to the limit, being able to re-image the possibilities that the classic saxophone, piano, bass, drums line-up can manifest, and by being conscious of the sonic traditions that are typically replayed to confirm the listeners tastes while avoiding the genres timbral clich?s.\"  Tristan continues: \"I have always had an interest in music that makes you move as well as simulating the mind with musical interplay and deeper compositional concepts, so the idea was to select tunes that I had written over the last 15 years and record them in a live performance setting with no click track or isolation recording techniques. This created a perfect environment to generate and capture the musical energy of the performance.\"\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ubuntu Management Group","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50477902233931,"sku":"2016922","price":19.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50477903806795,"sku":"2016925","price":8.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/test_21575a21_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727478862"},{"product_id":"tip-top","title":"Tip Top!","description":"\u003cp\u003eTip Top! is the current stop-off-point in the musical journey\/career of sax player Fraser Smith. Two decades of study and scholarship have informed this album of original material. Wholly inspired by the music and artists of the late bebop to early hard bop periods, Fraser pays tribute to his heroes with ten tracks stylistically dedicated to the jazz masters of the mid-twentieth century.  A slightly late starter, Fraser picked up the sax at age 15, and at around the same discovered a Charlie Parker CD in the Woolworths discount bin. These incidents started him on a lifetime path of decoding and understanding bebop and its descendent genres. With no musicians in his immediate family, he was left to his own devices, listening and playing along to the CDs of Louis Armstrong and Scott Hamilton. Three years later Fraser was accepted onto the jazz course at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama where he later graduated with first class honours. After that he moved to the capital to complete his Masters Degree at the prestigious Trinity College of Music, London.  The line-up consists of Smith on tenor sax, Rob Barron (piano), Simon Read (bass) and Steve Brown (drums).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ubuntu Management Group","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":50478299677003,"sku":"2016898","price":8.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/test_c5dabc3d_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727482541"},{"product_id":"home-49","title":"Home","description":"\u003cp\u003eBorn and raised in Burford, Oxfordshire, Eddie Gripper first started learning the piano at age 11. In 2019, he began to study Jazz under the tutelage of Huw Warren at Cardiff University, graduating with First Class Honours in 2021. Since then, Eddie has established himself as a prominent pianist\/improviser, composer, and educator in the Southwest region, expressing a broad interest in musical styles, including jazz, folk and electronic music.  Home, Eddie's debut album, consists of a traditional trio format and exhibits a keen rhythmic focus. The development of this vocabulary is evident from beginning to end; metrically challenging grooves are paired with rich, elegant harmonies, culminating in an outcome that is both provocative and gratifying. The stylistic range of compositions (through choice of instrumentation and arrangement) helps to support an overall, arcing narrative. Each track is a journey through time and space - beginning and finishing at a familiar and comforting destination before moving onto new or subtly developed ideas. The trio breathes together as one homogeneous sound, with individual players taking to the spotlight to elaborate on their own interpretations of the music at hand.  Eddie explains: \"This album really came out of nowhere for me. Once Covid hit and we all went into lockdown, that's when I really started to take writing music seriously. All of the music featured on this album was written in the space of a year, starting in Spring 2021. It was never supposed to be an album or, at least, I never had that intention from the outset; the whole process was totally serendipitous! This record encapsulates a very important moment in my life - the exact moment where the line was crossed from wanting to write to needing to write.\"\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ubuntu Management Group","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":50482713264459,"sku":"2011095","price":8.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/test_eadcafeb_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727555216"},{"product_id":"pauses-in-shades","title":"Pauses In Shades","description":"\u003cp\u003ePauses in Shades is an intimate duet where the pieces are grounded in listening, improvisation, and emotion. In the studio, Maya and Uriel seek to pour life into images. 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The band's ecstatic and sensitive performance fill the album with both powerful and highly touching moments.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ubuntu Management Group","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":50531267379531,"sku":"2214046","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/test_965d10bb_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1728102238"},{"product_id":"live-at-ornithology-3","title":"Live at Ornithology","description":"\u003cp\u003eLive at Ornithology, Maya Cohen's third album, is a blend of emotions, colours and sounds. It merges the dynamic rhythm of New York City with the natural melodies of birds and rivers. Featuring wordless vocals, simple melodies with complex rhythms, and written music with real-time improvisation, to create beautiful landscapes and stories of hope for peace, women's empowerment, and authenticity.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ubuntu Management Group","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":50531389833547,"sku":"2214042","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/test_9302b5cc_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1728106826"}],"url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/collections\/ubuntu-management-group.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}