New Pop And All That Jazz 1982-1987

Description

Follow-up 4-CD set to "Heaven Sent: The Rise Of New Pop 1979-1983", this box set documents the influence of jazz and African-American music from the 50s/60s (including retro soul) on modern British pop between 1982 and 1987.This box set celebrates an era when jazz inspired many pop artists, from bossa nova rhythms to mainstream covers of classics, from Latin club hits to melancholic ballads and acid jazz grooves.Featuring artists such as Everything But The Girl, Robert Wyatt, Working Week, Joe Jackson, Blue Rondo A La Turk, Matt Bianco, Carmel, Fine Young Cannibals, The Blow Monkeys, The Style Council and Swing Out Sister.In 1982, a new jazz era was dawning and Soho, a hotspot of the music scene since the 50s, was the birthplace of this renaissance. Blue Rondo A La Turk, the band behind the first "New Jazz" hit, was led by Chris Sullivan, who opened the Wag Club on Wardour Street in April 1982, a key venue for the emergence of the "New Jazz" scene.Vic Godard, singer of Subway Sect, turned crooner, hosted his jazz-swing Club Left nights at the Wag (as well as at Ronnie Scott's, a landmark London jazz venue). Among the prominent new groups was Weekend, which would become Working Week, whose first single, "Venceremos", released in 1984, served as a rallying cry. Everything But The Girl had incorporated jazz influences into their first single, a cover of Cole Porter's "Night And Day".Meanwhile, Mark Reilly left Blue Rondo to form Matt Bianco, a more overtly pop/jazz project. Julien Temple's film Absolute Beginners (whose soundtrack includes tracks by Eighth Wonder and The Style Council), adapted from Colin MacInnes's 1959 novel, popularized jazz with a wide audience. By the time of the film's release in 1986, jazz, in the broadest sense of the term, was ubiquitous in British pop, from covers of jazz standards (Alison Moyet, Bronski Beat) to pop jazz hits by Swing Out Sister and The Blow Monkeys.