Browsing Tag

Jazz Fusion

Willie Hill Gives Jazz-Fusion Its Lushest Veteran-Led Moment with ‘Now!’

Posted on 15 July 2026
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_l_SlRIPhGfreF7wFmBr7yd-uq0p-ZdXPw

Industry veteran Willie Hill brings the kind of hyper-sensory force only a matured rhythmic hand can conjure in his jazz-fusion single, Now!, featuring Akshat Mehrotra. The Durham, North Carolina musician has earned every inch of his authority, moving from trumpet in the North Carolina Central University marching band to bass guitar, touring RnB and soul circuits, studio ownership and label work.

Tropic heat bears down on the feather-light timbres of the instrumental arrangement as Hill and Mehrotra sonically escapade through the production. Eastern mysticism coils around temperate, smooth, smoky jazz hues and echoes of soul, resulting in a lush meditation on the beauty of sound when delivered by an artist who knows how to paint beyond the usual contours.

Hill’s bass background gives Now! its supple movement, grounding the arrangement while allowing the melodic phrases to bloom with relaxed sophistication. Mehrotra’s presence adds a spiritual, searching quality, with the guitar lines and harmonic turns suggesting candlelit rooms, coastal air and late-night improvisational chemistry. With more life than a maternity ward and a languidly lush sense of spirituality, the instrumental arrangement is mesmerising beyond measure.

After writing One Chance for The Communicators as a teenager and spending decades inside the architecture of soul, Hill proves experience can still sound radiant, curious and commercially rich.

Now! is now available to stream on all major platforms, including YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Homer with an Alto Sax: Wolf Richards’ The Long Way Home Gives Modern Jazz a Mythic Glow

Posted on 12 July 2026

Jazz narrates mythological fantasy in Wolf Richards’ take on The Odyssey in The Long Way Home. The Brazil-based songwriter, guitarist and composer was born in Munich, studied at GIT Los Angeles and has since written across pop, rock, RnB, hip-hop, jazz, fusion and bossa nova, yet this jazz instrumental feels steeped in purpose.

Homer himself would have approved of the way Richards, alongside Reginaldo Saturno on alto saxophone, captures the more humanistic side of the epic Greek fable. The cinematic score homes in on the spirit of the warriors and the sweet taste of victory, turning turmoil into a glowing testament to fortitude. Saturno’s alto saxophone carries the theme with burnished lyricism, letting the phrasing breathe before stretching into a solo rich with bluesy inflection and dramatic ascent.

Richards’ guitar work gives the piece its warm architecture, answering the saxophone with a clean, expressive touch and a composer’s ear for release. The arrangement starts calm, introduces its central motif with patience, then rises with the inevitability of a ship finding land after years at sea. By the final section, the scale swells towards the magnitude of Wagnerian opera, while the legacy of the literature finds new life through Richards’ warmly cultivated sonic signature. The heat of the timbres shimmer as easy listening jazz reaches a scorching temperature, making The Long Way Home the definitive jazz score of the summer.

The Long Way Home is now available to stream on all major platforms. For the full experience, watch the storyboarded official music video on YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Sax Lines Follow a Shadowed Path as Leonardo Radicchi’s Humanity LP Creates Folklore for a Fractured World

Posted on 15 June 2026

Humanity is put under an ambient avant-garde lens in the latest album from composer, saxophonist and instrumentalist Leonardo Radicchi. Across the shadowy jazz-fusion LP, there is almost an arcane mysticism at work; the record becomes a cradle away from modernity as the instrumentals turn into their own form of folklore, carrying dignity, freedom and collective responsibility through a fractured world.

In the standout piece, Dignity from Humanity Suite, Radicchi gives the sax lines a sense of slow-burning catharsis as they move across diaphanous, tribally awakening percussion. Non-lexical harmonies enter the production, lending their hymnal scintillation, which carries enough spiritual weight to lighten your soul.

Radicchi’s work as a humanitarian in conflict zones gives Humanity a sense of sincerity that reaches far beyond abstraction. Pieces across the album respond to justice, identity, war, resilience, nature and shared human worth, with Dignity holding the philosophical centre in its spectral hands.

If the Humanity LP came to light as a kaleidoscope through which the composer and sax savant views the world, it is safe to say he takes a sombre view of how far we have drifted from the meaning of humanity.

Dignity from Humanity Suite is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Desarae Dee and Donyea Goodman Kept Cinematic Lounge-Jazz Anticipation in ‘Telephone….Wait’

Posted on 13 June 2026

Lounge music finds its soul through Telephone….Wait, the standout collaborative piece forged between Canadian fusion artist Desarae Dee and U.S. producer, composer and multi-instrumentalist Donyea Goodman. Taken as the breakout lead single from their forthcoming EP, Outta Left Field, the track turns the act of waiting on the other end of the line into something almost devotional, where anticipation hangs in the air, and connection feels close enough to bruise.

Every contour of the laidback instrumental score is mesmerised to the nth degree, exhibiting the synergy between the two collaborators as they create the epitome of harmony. With timeless nuances of jazz nestled into the cinematically rich production, Desarae Dee and Donyea Goodman succeed in creating the kind of anticipation that flits through you as you’re locked in the stasis of waiting, placed in a liminal space, aching for connection.

Their cross-border partnership began after Goodman found Dee through her viral #4ChordWorship series, before spontaneous Instagram collaborations grew into a deeper creative alliance. Released without a marketing budget, Telephone….Wait has already become Desarae’s fastest-growing single, gaining radio support across the U.S., Canada and Europe. Its success feels earned; the track carries the warmth of real musical conversation, where patience, soul and intuitive musicianship gather into a glowing lounge-jazz statement.

Telephone….Wait is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Mulholland Jive – Jurassic Shark: A Jazz Fusion Jive Through Funk Infested Waters

Posted on 1 May 2026

Mulholland Jive dragged us back into the water with Jurassic Shark, a jazz-fusion instrumental that bites down with schlock-horror wit, cult-cinema camp, and enough rhythmic libido to jolt the blood back into the limbs of the terminally jaded musos. Clearly one for sly pop culture nods and tongue-in-cheek wordplay, Mulholland Jive delivered a release that knows precisely how ridiculous its title is, then backs it up with musicianship sharp enough to leave teeth marks.

As you’d expect from a rock-licked, funk-charged jazz-fusion piece, there are a fair few more chords than in the Jaws theme. The arrangement swings with swanky vitality, a Viagra for the rhythmic pulses, as the synths blaze with a video-game gleam and the keyboards drive the track into a state of ornate frenzy. The oddity lies in how the keys manage to feel both feral and finely wrought, while the brusque tempo and feverish momentum keep you pinned to the edge of your seat. There are traces of Frank Zappa’s irreverence, Cory Wong’s funk attack, and Casiopea’s gleaming technical fire in the spectacle held together with an irreplicable sonic signature

The project is the brainchild of Irish multi-instrumentalist and Cambridge-based composer Ben Mulholland, brought to life through a rotating 9-piece band already seasoned by festivals, headline slots, radio play, and songwriting recognition. It is easy to anticipate Mulholland Jive becoming as big as Henge in the festival circuit this summer.

Jurassic Shark is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

 Review by Amelia Vandergast

Jim Samuel – Last Ride: A Jazz Fusion Panorama of a Perpetual Summer

Posted on 26 April 2026

As cinematic as what you’d expect to hear in a James Bond soundtrack as a sports car winds along the streets of Sardinia or Portofino, the seminal instrumental release, Last Ride, by the jazz fusionist Jim Samuel, reaches the epitome of sun-kissed opulence born from savant-esque talent.

The instrumental score balances an equilibrium of zeal, stridency, swanky exoticism, and the bittersweetness of finality to deliver an emotionally contoured and coloured tour de force. With touches of Latin jazz bringing the temperature of the arrangement up to a degree that’s sublime to bask in, the horn stabs delivering moon-lit terrace romanticism, the fingerpicked guitar balancing notes of morosity and intimacy, and the beat keeping the whole composition kinetic in such a multifaceted way, Last Ride is more of a panorama than a vignette, one capable of opening a temporal gateway to the radiance of a perennial summer.

There are shades of Herb Alpert in the suave brass phrasing, Gato Barbieri in the sultry heat, and Quincy Jones in the screen-ready sense of movement and polish, yet Jim Samuel shapes the atmosphere with a flair and distinction that defines him far more than fleeting reminisces.

That command comes with history. Formerly a keyboardist and songwriter for 60s Northern Soul outfit Bob Brady and the Con Chords, Jim Samuel returned to music after decades away and has since worked with jazz figures including Gerald Albright, Tom Scott, and Scott Ambush, while building international momentum ahead of a fresh run of singles through 2026 and 2027.

Last Ride is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Sylvie Natsume Found the Sweet Spot Between Radiance and Opulence in Her Jazz-Fusion Composition, summerain

Posted on 5 April 2026

Sylvie Natsume scored the soundtrack to sublimity with her latest jazz fusion composition, summerain. Nimble piano keys scintillate against the grounding timbre of the basslines as the UK-based independent artist visualises the zeal of summer through sound; through the ultimate equilibrium of radiance and swanky opulence, the playfully resolving piece becomes one you attune to a higher mood. From the opening movement, Sylvie Natsume shapes an atmosphere that feels light on its feet yet fully anchored, letting the arrangement glow with an easy sense of movement. There’s a real feel for space in the composition, which gives each melodic turn room to breathe while keeping the track warmly immersive.

That sense of balance is what gives summerain its staying power. The piece carries sophistication without losing its sense of play, and the conversation between the piano and bass keeps the mood lifted without ever pushing too hard. Natsume clearly has a sharp ear for contemporary jazz that stretches beyond one lane, and that cross-genre curiosity gives the track added colour and freedom. As an independent composer and producer working in the UK, she’s building music for listeners drawn to modern jazz with openness in its bones, and summerain feels like exactly the sort of release that deserves the attention of curators, editors and anyone after a smarter kind of mood-lifter.

summerain is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Mercy Vibe liquified the lines between meditation and experimentation in Mercy’s Chill

Posted on 26 December 2025

MERCY VIBE never keeps creativity on a leash, and in Mercy’s Chill, she floods the soundscape with a current strong enough to sweep the weight off your shoulders. The deep cut from the Midwest-hailing experimentalist and producer is a lucid state of being – one sculpted from soulful electronica, meditative polyhonia, and flickering 8-bit motifs that pull you into a plush subconscious drift.

This is not music you skim. It’s a full-bodied sensory wash that lets textures mellow, strike, and siren through the euphonic accord of her electronic arrangements. Far from the empty drift of generic ambient electronica, Mercy’s Chill is a temple of tonal meditation – a rare moment of complete resolve dressed in experimental jazz fusion. If escapism had a pulse, this would be its soundtrack. There’s a languid swing to every modulation and a tangible swell of soulful intent, keeping the synaptic weirdness grounded in something warm and resolute.

Mercy’s producer roots make her mastery of detail obvious – nothing is accidental. Every shift feels studied, though never clinical. She’s spent five years chipping away at genre lines, creating music that moves where it wants, when it wants. As an ASCAP member and vocal copyright advocate, Mercy’s got no interest in playing it safe. When she finds an idea worth exploring, she lets it unfold fully. If there were a full LP echoing the mind-slowing serenity of Mercy’s Chill, the stress endemic wouldn’t stand a chance.

Mercy’s Chill is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Psychedelic panache and polyphonic play ignite the surrealism of Esteban Seunarine’s ‘ECHO-OLOGY’

Posted on 22 November 2025

Esteban Seunarine pulled off something wildly transportive with ECHO-OLOGY featuring Ben Kensok, the kind of single that would still swallow you whole even if you played it in mono through the cheapest plastic speaker you could dig out of a drawer. The way the composition from his FREQUENCIES FOR GHOSTS LP sprawls out with swanky, mind-bending colour and the perfect dose of psychedelic panache feels engineered to lift you into another dimension. The playful polyphonic keys flicker through the mix, while the crashing syncopated percussion gives the whole piece an art rock meets trip-hop texture with bags of off-kilter charm.

Just as the atmosphere starts to warp into alt electronica territory, the blasts of sax tear through the haze and pull the spotlight back to where Seunarine’s instincts shine brightest. It is improvised jazz that knows exactly when to lean into surrealism and when to tighten its grip, leaving you feeling like you have been dragged through a vivid synaptic collage.

As a Winnipeg-based drummer, composer, producer and educator, Seunarine has shaped his musical identity through years of weaving rhythmic traditions from across the world into something unmistakably his. After training in Jazz Performance at Brandon University and learning under mentors who pushed his imagination further, he grew into an artist guided by restlessness rather than rigidity. His long list of collaborations with Grammy and Juno-winning musicians sharpened his desire to chase rhythms that surprise and improvisations that tell stories without pandering to academic purists. In Winnipeg’s tight-knit scene, he continues to build projects that stretch the edges of improvised music, reminding anyone paying attention that complexity does not need to shut a listener out. ECHO-OLOGY is proof of his belief that adventurous sound can still feel accessible, as long as the intention behind it comes from somewhere instinctive and alive.

ECHO OLOGY is now available on all major streaming platforms via this link. 
Review by Amelia Vandergast

‘Crossover’ met Levy DeAndrade at his jazz fusion zenith

Posted on 14 November 2025

Levy DeAndrade may take a theoretically cerebral approach to his jazz compositions, but his rhythms speak to the pulses of both savants and jazz fusion laymen alike. The live recording of his seminal single, Crossover, exhibits the tour-de-sonic-synthesising-force’s distinctive demand to give yourself over to his sound fully. Along with the decline of the album format, all music is under threat of being reduced to mere background noise, there to fill an aural void. Yet DeAndrade stands defiantly in the way of the art form’s visceral extinction, piercing intravenous shots of life into his wildly expressive, ardorously zealous arrangements. Crossover meets him at his creative zenith; if he were composing in the time of the Zoot Suit riots, the carnage would have been colossal.

There’s a feral sophistication to the way DeAndrade builds his structures. His piano work feels less like accompaniment and more like an axis around which chaos organises itself, bending to his command. Crossover feels lived, reactive, and irrepressibly human, reminding anyone who has forgotten that jazz, when treated as conversation rather than composition, still has teeth sharp enough to puncture complacency.

As a pianist, composer, and applied theorist, Levy DeAndrade has long rejected the superficiality of fusion, choosing instead to metabolise genres into new organisms. From the chromatic tensions of bebop to the precision of classical form, his architecture is built to test musicians as much as listeners. With collaborators such as Dave Weckl and John Patitucci already sharing his stage, DeAndrade proves that mastery and intensity aren’t mutually exclusive. Crossover reaffirms his position as one of jazz’s most fearless contemporary architects, capable of turning pure intellect into uninhibited feeling.

Crossover is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

– Review by Amelia Vandergast