Charlie Apicella & Iron City - Groove Machine - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

2 years since her record-breaking debut InchFirst LoveInch, here comes Hikaru Utada's awaited 2nd album! It includes 5 hit singles, starting with InchAddicted To YouInch. R&B, pop & rock... these sub-genre distinctions are all but meaningless with the young singer's talent still developing with unlimited potential.

A deeply melodic guitarist along the lines of Grant Green. Apicella faithfully has sought to channel an era of American music when hard-bop and r&b reigned - But the guitarist still manages to keep things fresh. - DownBeat. New York guitarist Charlie Apicella's musical voice runs historically deep, with his 7 recordings to date highly focused on celebrating the elders of jazz, R&B, and the Blues. His band, Iron City, has been with him the whole way, providing a base context for all of his projects. With InchDestiny Calling,Inch this hard bop rhythm section drives headlong into the future as the elder masters of The Griots Speak draw from a lifetime of experience in communication with the ancestors. Trail blazing percussionist Juma Sultan formed the Griots with saxophonist Daniel Carter, bassist William Parker and Apicella to help celebrate a patriarch of New York's '60's loft scene. Simultaneously fluid, extroverted, light, confrontational, and meditative, their music is poetry in motion. They create spontaneously, as they move between instruments, including a variety of indigenous instruments which convey a pan-ancestral tapestry at the core of their sound. For Apicella, it's the realization of lessons learned through his studies with Yusef Lateef and the opportunity to further amplify the legacy.

The ambience is one of primal spirituality... sparse conversations over the controlled yet riotous ensemble performance. The result is contemplative and thrilling. All About Jazz - The Griots Speak's sound is at once cosmic, earthbound, and ancestral. Though new, it's familiar, a continuation of the collective creations of New York City's 1960s Loft scene, developed by the electric bands of the 1970s, and propelled into the future by Charlie Apicella & Iron City, one of New York's more enthralling Hard Bop rhythm sections. Call To Action / Call To Prayer is the companion piece to 2023's InchDestiny Calling.Inch Both captured during the same session in Brooklyn, Destiny Calling highlighted the compositional scaffolding present in collective improvisation, while Call to Action - propelled by drones & grooves within hypnotic swirls and percussive incantations - is presented as an uncut 40-minute improvisation event presented in 8 Inchmovements.Inch The Griots - Daniel Carter, Charlie Apicella, Juma Sultan & William Parker - draw together the indigenous sounds, with organist Brad Whiteley and drummer Austin Walker of Iron City painting in moments of urban energy.