It’s not often that jazz guitarists and bandleaders double up as DJs and producers, but neither is Nicola Conte the kind of person one often encounters. Here the Italian multi-talent proffers a new version of his latest spiritual jazz-house opus, Umoja. This record first came to be as a full-length 4×4 dance LP of serene, danceable tropicalias and sports-whistly whorls. They now come reincarnated, karmically re-endowed with the thermal force of an eagle, by way of an album’s worth of reworks by the veteran producer’s vim of fellow spiritual house height-scaler and abseiler, Joaquin Claussell. Whether invoking the exquisite voices of Stefania Dipierro or channelling the patent inspirations of Lonnie Liston Smith of Gary Bartz, Conte Conte-nues to propose endless Conte-nuations of his sound; all it takes is a little help from one’s friends to evoke a sacred dance, a sonic world-spirit.
