Shamal Wind, Chip Wickham, LP

Shamal Wind combines Chip Wickham's spiritual jazz expeditions with hard-won schoolings in the funk. Drawing on influences like Yusef Lateef and Sahib Shihab, the album rests on Chip's many-sided experience as a musician, spanning left-field beat experiments to hard-hitting funk heavyweights. Like the Persian Gulf winds referenced in the album title, which often mark the shift to a new season, this album signals a new chapter for Chip, opening up a newfound energy and inclusiveness in his music, and further expanding on what he achieved in the past year. "Shamal Wind" is a heavy record, built on strong foundations. Following his critically acclaimed 2017 debut, La Sombra, Shamal Wind adds Arab-influenced percussion to the mix, most notably on the title track. Elsewhere, 'Barrio 71' sees him nodding to Shihab: high energy, lyrical and absorbing, with sax and the vibraphone taking the lead. 'Snake Eyes' taps into the meditative exaltations of modal jazz, while 'Soho Strut' nods to the jazz fusion, funk-influenced side of Chip's playing. Over the past 3 decades Wickham has worked, written, recorded, and toured with the likes of The Pharcyde, Nightmares On Wax, Graham Massey, Roy Ayers, Craig Charles Fantasy Funk Band.