Measure for Measure | 02

"Munmorah" - Triosk Meets Jan Jelinek

"Vibes From The Tribe (J-Rocc Edit)" - Phil Ranelin

“The Plum Blossom" - Yusef Lateef

"We Walk" - Hu Vibrational

"NTU" - Bobby Hutcherson

"Never Can Say Goodbye" - INO Hidefumi

"Reflections" - Bill Conti

"Shades of Blue" - Esbe

“Hummin’ In The Sun (Black Monk Remix)" - Roy Ayers

"Reflection" - Emapea

"At This Point In My Life (DJ Jazz Instrumental)" - Tracy Chapman

"Variance" - Aether

"I've Known Rivers (Madlib Remix)" - Gary Bartz

"Loving You" - George Otsuka Quintet

“Munmorah” — Triosk Meets Jan Jelinek

Ample headspace, restrained beats, and jazz loop electronica propel this opener. Jan Jelinek recorded his source materials in Berlin and shipped stems to Sydney, where Triosk (Adrian Klumpes, Ben Waples, and Laurence Pike) replayed, re-mic’d, and fed the fragments back in a feedback loop of live improvisation and edit culture that resulted in the 1+3+1 album. The sessions show Pike’s cymbal work and Klumpes’s Rhodes floating over Jelinek’s micro-loops. The project was first released on ~scape, then reintroduced digitally and on vinyl via Jelinek’s Faitiche, from sessions at Megaphon Studios.

"Vibes From The Tribe (J-Rocc Edit)" - Phil Ranelin

Phil Ranelin co-founded Detroit’s Tribe Records with Wendell Harrison, a musician-run imprint and magazine that linked community politics to spiritual jazz. “Vibes From The Tribe” is one of the label’s signature themes, and Now-Again’s archival campaign returned it to circulation with tapes-to-lacquer remastering and session documentation. Trombone over trimmed breaks with bass and hand percussion. J-Rocc’s LA scene re-contextualization pairs with a nod to Detroit jazz lineage. 

“The Plum Blossom” — Yusef Lateef

Recorded at Rudy Van Gelder’s Englewood Cliffs New Jersey studio in 1961 and issued on Moodsville/Prestige, “The Plum Blossom” features Lateef on the Chinese xun, a globular clay flute, framing his focus on non-Western instruments and spiritual jazz. The percussion is quiet; most of the motion happens in the low mids and the wind instruments. 

“We Walk” — Hu Vibrational

Adam Rudolph’s Hu Vibrational issued “We Walk” on the 2003 album Beautiful, pairing meditative percussion with low end bass. Sessions ran in Venice, California with mixes finalized in Santa Monica, and released by Soul Jazz as part of a brief Afro-percussion/electronics arc. The dedications on the album to Don Cherry and Yusef Lateef signify the method: ritual polyrhythms, modal tones, and studio dubs. 

“NTU” — Bobby Hutcherson

By 1970 Bobby Hutcherson had become one of Blue Note’s most innovative artists, and Natural Illusions marked where his modal jazz, Afrocentric philosophy, and electric instrumentation converged. Recorded in Los Angeles with a forward-looking post-bop ensemble that included Stanley Cowell on electric piano, Woody Shaw on trumpet, Reggie Johnson on bass, and Joe Chambers on drums. Released as an LP-only cut rather than a single, “NTU” became one of Hutcherson’s most cited opening statements from the period. The title is an Akan term associated with universal force or spirit, and reflects Hutcherson’s engagement with the Black consciousness movements of the period, paralleling similar turns by Gary Bartz and Lonnie Liston Smith. 

“Never Can Say Goodbye” — INO Hidefumi

INO Hidefumi’s instrumental of “Never Can Say Goodbye,” released on Satisfaction in 2011, removes the vocal and leans into dubby future jazz. Citing Jamaican dub and late-70s soul instrumentals as touchstones, the cut is a satin-smooth cover of the Jackson 5's early seventies hit.  

“Reflections” — Bill Conti

Before Bill Conti became synonymous with Rocky and large-scale orchestral themes, he was a working composer navigating between jazz, television scoring, and library music. “Reflections” comes from this period, when LA studios were filled with crossover players writing to groove-oriented sessions. Conti emphasizes melody-driven cues rather than overt action scoring, with the arrangement leaning on strings, electric piano, and understated rhythm, aligning it more closely with cinematic jazz-fusion than traditional soundtracks.

“Shades of Blue” — Esbe

Cold Busted pulled Esbe into its ecosystem, a label world of lo-fi jazz chords and boom-bap tempo. “Shades of Blue” appears on Bust Free 18, fixing the title in the label’s running compilation series and introducing Esbe to a global downbeat audience. The track’s palette of dusty keys, upright bass, and rim-shot drums slots neatly with Emapea and Esbe’s label peers, where short-form instrumentals are produced like 7 inch B-sides.

“Hummin’ In The Sun (Black Monk Remix)" - Roy Ayers

Ras G’s Day & Night EP under the Black Monk moniker is a love letter to Roy Ayers and the spiritual drift of ’70s jazz-soul. “Hummin In The Sun” is a sun-baked instrumental with a lazy swing, the sample drifting and connecting cosmic soul to an SP-1200.

“Reflection” — Emapea

From the Polish beatmaker’s full-length Reflection, released in 2020 on Cold Busted, the title cut threads library-grade keys and hazy drum programming with acoustic sourcing. The compact jazz phrasing gets filtered and framed, with snare and dry kick balanced by the roomy bass. 

“At This Point In My Life (DJ Jazz Instrumental)” — Tracy Chapman

A vocal-chopping instrumental from Chapman’s 1995 album New Beginning, originally produced with Don Gehman and issued by Elektra in 1995. The “DJ Jazz Instrumental” circulates online only. While piano carries the melody between phrases, Chapman’s vocal provides pathos and harmonic gravity without front-loading the narrative.

“Variance” — Aether

From Artifacts, “Variance” distills late-2000s indietronica and beatmaker instincts with classical string tones and spiritual melody. San Antonio producer Diego Chavez emerged on Exponential Records, a Texas independent that championed “electronic music for humans.” The cut samples Ryuichi Sakamoto “Bibo no Aozora”, situating the beat in a contemporary-classical ambient jazz lineage. Transients are soft, with passages feeling suspended amidst artifacts and the cinematic scale.

“I’ve Known Rivers (Madlib Remix)” — Gary Bartz

Bartz’s 1973 spiritual-jazz theme, indebted to Langston Hughes’s poem, is a live 1973 highlight from I’ve Known Rivers and Other Bodies, recorded at Montreux. A DJ pleasure for years, part of Otis Jackson Jr.’s habit of folding spiritual jazz into hip-hop architecture. Madlib's hand drumming frames the heavy pulse while the vocal floats.

“Loving You” — George Otsuka Quintet

Recorded live at the Nemu Jazz Inn in 1975 and originally issued by Bellwood, “Loving You” is Otsuka’s Minnie Riperton cover rendered as modal jazz spirit funk, with Fumio Karashima’s Fender Rhodes stabs in the foreground with ample room for Otsuka’s cymbal time. Wewantsounds’ reissue campaign restored the tapes and reintroduced the LP to wider ears. A soulful beauty for the evening’s climax.