Brian Hurst‘s Saturday night show, and subsequent weekly podcast, The Hurst Selection, is an inspiring programme that focuses on the finest quality new soul and jazz grooves, with choice cuts from the past four decades, all expertly selected by the good man himself. I’ve been downloading the SoulandJazz.com podcasts for some time now, but not just Brian‘s own THS shows, SoulCuts also loves Phil Driver‘s Soul Unsigned radio show and Live Tropical Fish‘s essential monthly podcast, Aquarium, among others. If you’re at all unfamiliar with the excellent work that Brian and his cohorts do at SoulandJazz.com, don’t wait another minute, get over there and get downloading.
Another taster comes in the form of their first compilation (sound the trumpets), the snappily titled, The Hurst Selection. Without a doubt, this compilation, now digitally available from amazon.co.uk and amazon.com (with physical copies coming next week serviced via SoulandJazz.com, Soul Brother Records, Simply Soul Mail Order and Moods Music), is an essential purchase for all fans of modern, independent soul. The album is full of SoulCuts faves including Avery*Sunshine, LeNora Jaye (with an exclusive, very tasty, Ahmed Sirour remix of our old fave, Never Get Away that Brian enthusiastically played down the phone to us the other week!), South African Nothende (a smartly suggested ‘unrapped’ version of current modern soul fave Dance to This) and Live Tropical Fish featuring the UK soul don, Omar. Further selections come from Claudia Hayden, William Green, Kabanya Chemise, Joey Somerville featuring Alex Lattimore (a very tasty vocal jazz cut), Khari Simmons (of Jiva fame), Randy Skinner, Milton Suggs and the beautiful vocal Latin jazz of Russian Victoria Urusova. You can preview all tracks here and take a listen to one of the jazzier standouts, Milton Suggs‘ Hope below:
We’ll be coming correct with a full review once we spent a little more time with the music, but suffice to say that this compilation comes with a buy-blind recommendation and a honking great SoulCuts Seal of Approval. Brian‘s plans for SoulandJazz include further compilations and single artist albums. Quality is undoubtedly a byword for SoulandJazz.com‘s podcasts and, on this evidence, it will become apt at describing their output as a record label.
