Around a year ago on a Spotify rabbit hole adventure I came across an album by a group named Yussef Kamaal. The artwork on the cover of the album didn’t tell me anything about the band but the drummer told me all that I needed to know about the music. The first song I heard from Yussef Kamaal was called “Remembrance” and it’s from their brilliant album called Black Focus. I didn’t go into my usual research self that morning because I didn’t want to leave the music. This album was beautiful. I didn’t know if it was new or old and it really didn’t matter because I loved it. I do like a lot of older jazz but hadn’t listened to too many modern jazz artists outside of BADBADNOTGOOD and Kamasi Washington. After listening to the Black Focus album for a good week straight I decided I needed to find out what this group was all about.
Yussef Kamaal only released one album and that was Black Focus in 2016. The band was from London and after the brilliant album, both members, Kamaal Williams (aka Henry Wu) and Yussef Dayes decided to go their separate ways. What they left us with is a great jazz album matching Yussef Dayes’ brilliant drumming and Kamaal Williams' amazing work on the keys. After being disappointed to hear that the group had disbanded, I started researching both artists only to find a plethora of music to listen to! Through my research on these 2 musicians I started finding more modern jazz artists like Alfa Mist, Robohands, Takuya Kuroda and more. I got opened up to a ton of new music! Below is a video from Alfa Mist, Yussef Dayes, Mansur Brown, and Rocco Palladino performing “Love is the Message” live at Abbey Road. Warning, this is a thing of beauty!
This modern jazz musical adventure inspired me to put a Spotify playlist together based on these vibes. This is exactly the type of music that I work well too so this is a playlist that I will listen to for years. Hopefully you find some joy in it too. This playlist is dedicated to all of the musicians out there keeping jazz alive. You inspire me and others across the world. Thank you!