Fertile Ground - Spiritual War (Kaidi Tatham remix)
It's time for a blast from the recent past for all of you jazzy beat fanatics. This one was a favorite at the old Wednesday night Melange sessions (hey, Lorin!), a track that nearly always would bring some middle-age soul head to the DJ booth to ask what it was.
Fertile Ground is a Baltimore band that has been making waves for several years in the underground soul/jazz community, mainly, as is so often the case with U.S. artists in this field, in the UK and Europe. If you've ever checked old-school acts like Weldon Irvine, Pharaoh Sanders or Roy Ayers, you'll have some idea where they're coming from. What sets Fertile Ground apart, though, is the magnificent vocal work of Navasha Deya, who brings chops to rival Dee Dee Bridgewater (to whom she sounds very similar) or Dianne Reeves.
"Spiritual War" is the title track off Fertile Ground's 1999 release of the same name. That record, and all the ones since, were picked up for UK and Europe release by the nice folks at Counterpoint Records in Brighton, England, and the first of a series of remix EPs featured this epic piece of Quincy Jones-like studio wizardry from the very, very bad Kaidi Tatham (Agent K, ex-keyboardist with Herbaliser, ex-sideman with Ayers and Fela Kuti, Bugz in the Attic member, Restless Soul instrumentalist). Just feel this sucker build on the intro from a half-time Quiet Storm rubato into a full-on Afrobeat chant. Then Deya's vocals come in at the break, and it's time to shut up and listen. Enjoy this, whether it's your first time to hear it or it takes you back a few years.
By the way, Fertile Ground's latest album, "Black Is," dropped recently, and the single "Yellow Daisies" features a sick-as-usual remix from nu-bossa maestro Nicola Conte. Check them out on the Counterpoint site.
Note: The first few Fertile Ground remix EPs were compiled into a CD a year or two back; that's the album cover image that appears in this post. Some of them are still available on vinyl, but if you want to find the Kaidi joint on the original vinyl, you'll probably have to hit up Lorin ;) (or was it Brad?)
