London Jazz Classics originally came out in 1993 – the first album ever to be released on Soul Jazz Records. The album brought together rare and obscure dance tracks in a unique mix of jazz dance and fusion, funk, Brazilian and Latin grooves.
The album was ironically titled – none of the music was from London, none of the music was traditionally classified as jazz, and all of the tracks were at the time practically unknown to most people. Instead, these were tracks that were filling dancefloors in a nascent jazz dance scene in London being created by a small group of DJs – Paul Murphy, Gilles Peterson, Sylvester, Patrick Forge and a few others.
As demand for these rare groove jazz tracks grew, previously unknown records…
Tag Archive: Soul Jazz Records
Sixteen killer 70s reggae funk and soul cuts from the likes of John Holt, Lee Perry, Cornel Campbell, The Cimarons , The Chosen Few and more featuring superb reggae takes on songs by artists including The Jackson 5, William DeVaughn, Diana Ross and The Supremes, War, The Temptations, Roberta Flack, The Stylistics and others!
Well-documented is the influence of American black music on Jamaican styles of the 1960s – from the birth of ska music, when The Skatalites ska-ified the jump-up southern USA rhythm and blues music of Rosco Gordon, Louis Jordan and Fats Domino, through to the creation of rocksteady when Jamaican artists like The Techniques, The Paragons, Alton Ellis and The Melodians turned to the slower rhythms…
New 2026 Edition of 600% Dynamite, part of Soul Jazz Records classic compilation series of Jamaican music, featuring killer reggae in all styles – ska, soul, rocksteady, dancehall, funk and dub. Originally released in 2003 this album has been out of print for nearly 20 years making it one of the most-collectible of Soul Jazz Records’ Dynamite! Series.
Newly remastered and relicensed for 2026, the album is packed with dancefloor classics and non-stop reggae anthems such as Tenor Saw’s ‘Golden Hen’, Johnny Osbourne’s ‘Buddy Bye’, Dennis Brown’s ‘Wolf & Shepard’ and Sister Nancy’s ’Transport Connection’ alongside hard-to-find cuts by Tall T and the Touchers, The Interns, Tetrack and others, making the album a superlative…
…JUNGLIST! Old Skool Ragga, D&B, Jungle leans to Soul Jazz’s deep reggae-dub-dancehall roots with a treasurable haul of ’93-’95 joints covering the rapid evolution from hardcore to jungle and the seeds of D&B to come. It spotlights a countrywide phenomena never to be repeated at such scale, pulling up artists who would become household names for a brief window of time.
It’s super strong on the old skool heroes, namely M-Beat’s strongback steppers ’Surrender’ and ‘Rumble’, the sizzling dark/light rushes of Krome & Time’s Ruffneck Scouts’, and Bizzy B with the baddest cuts of Amen breakage in a ‘Big Things’ that now trades from upwards of £250, 2nd hand, and his cantankerous ‘Dub Select’, plus the needlepoint step sequencing of…
Unique collection containing authentic rhythms of Haitian Voodoo drumming. Recorded in Port-au-Prince, Haiti by Soul Jazz Records, this album features The Drummers of the Societe Absolument Guinen.
Voodoo is the African religion at the heart of Haitian life. The complex rhythms of the drums are used to bring down African spirits in Voodoo ceremonies. These drums are the link between the music of Africa and the Caribbean. With links to Cuban Santeria, Jamaican and Trinidadian Afro-religions, Voodoo rhythms are the heaviest, most intense of all.
This record, which consists entirely of recordings of voudou drumming made in Port-Au-Prince, is one of a series of Soul Jazz releases exploring…
There are few bands like Sand. Borrowing from jazz, industrial, techno and post-punk, somehow everything is mixed up to produce some seriously bowel-shifting grooves. Their 1999 debut Beautiful People Are Evil sees the York band still working on their formula which had been perfected by the time of 2002 follow-up Still Born Alive.
Sand musically walk the line between different worlds. They have played with, on the one hand, dance artists such as Robert Hood, Patrick Pulsinger, Andy Weatherall and Carl Craig and on the other hand with groups such as God Speed You Black Emperor, Squarepusher , Add N to X and ESG. Sand play diverse live events. They have performed on stage with the Karas Dance Company in Tokyo (where they played onstage with…
Soul Jazz Records’ new Soul Jamaica brings together a wicked selection of reggae funk and soul tracks from the legendary Studio One stable, featuring a stellar line-up of artists including Jackie Mittoo, The Heptones, The Gladiators, Sim Smith, Peter Tosh and The Wailers, Cedric ‘Im’ Brooks and many more. For a short period of time at the end of the 1960s and early 1970s, nestled between the end of rocksteady and the arrival of roots reggae, Studio One released a small stream of superb soul and funk reggae tunes – covering everyone from Sly and The Family Stone, Diana Ross and The Supremes, Nina Simone, Gene Chandler, Tyrone Davis and more.
Most of the tracks featured on Soul Jamaica were only ever released on Studio One’s…
…Soul Jazz Records delve into the vast vaults of Discos Fuentes, one of the oldest and largest record companies in Latin America, known as ‘the Motown of Colombia’. Discos Fuentes played a major role in spreading Afro-Latin sounds both to Colombia and around the world and this album explores that legacy.
Latin Fire! features legendary Colombian artists such as Fruko, The Latin Brothers, Michi Sarmiento, Afrosound, Pedro Laza, Wganda Kenya and more and showcases the wide-ranging variety of styles that Discos Fuentes made unique to their sound. The album features music from the golden era of Fuentes; from late 50s and 1960s Cumbia through to the emergence of heavyweight and hardcore salsa and Afro-funk in the 1970s…
…The album features a mixture of classic tunes and rarities from the period 1967-74, when Jackie Mittoo was at the height of his musical powers.
Mittoo’s solo career began after the end of The Skatalites in 1965. He began pushing new musical boundaries, creating a uniquely identifiable organ-led funky reggae sound that owed as much to Booker T and The MGs, Jimmy Smith, Stax and Motown as to the post-ska and emergent rocksteady island rhythms of Kingston, Jamaica.
His solo work at the legendary Studio One spanned seven albums and hundreds of singles. Aside from producer and founder Clement ‘Sir Coxsone’ Dodd, it’s hard to think of anyone more central to the sound and success of Studio One than Mittoo; keyboard player extraordinaire,…
Special new 25th anniversary edition of this most popular and highly-acclaimed of all Soul Jazz Records’ Dynamite! series – 300% Dynamite is jam-packed with reggae tunes that crossed-over to become dancefloor hits and are 100% guaranteed to rock any party!
Out of print for the last 15 years, this new edition is being released in a one-off limited-edition heavyweight special-edition coloured blue vinyl pressing + download code exclusively for Record Store Day 2024.
This album is fully remastered, recut and with new tracks exclusively for RSD 24. Wayne Smith’s booming anthem “Sleng Teng”, Althea & Donna’s worldwide hit ‘Uptown Top Ranking’, Sister Nancy’s classic “Bam Bam”, Augustus Pablo…
Soul Jazz Records journey into early 1990s ragga, drum & bass and jungle. The album features all-time classic jungle anthems such as General Levy’s ‘Incredible’ alongside some serious Ragga heavyweight tunes like Cutty Ranks ‘Limb By Limb’ and Congo Natty’s classic re-make of Barrington Levy’s Under Me Sensi’. The renowned album tells the story of how Jungle developed out of acid house but with its roots in the UK Dancehall scene of the 1980s and comes with extensive sleevenotes, exclusive interviews and photography. // “Every one of Rumble in the Jungle’s thirteen tracks is brimming over with life and sonic thrills” and “some of this music was released in ‘91, but it sounds like it was made yesterday.” BBC MUSIC // “Soul Jazz’s string of success continues…