Elsewhere Art . . . Superbrew

 |   |  1 min read

Elsewhere Art . . . Superbrew

In the late Eighties the saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist Jim Langabeer helmed the innovative jazz group Superbrew which, as I noted in my piece about the 2010 CD reissue of their '87 Africa Aroha album, "was jazz which also possessed that conspicuously absent ingredient in contemporary forms: fun.

"Africa Aroha includes their take on Nock’s sprightly In Out and Around; Dollar Brand’s Soweto-groove Namibia; Coltrane’s Afro Blue; and Young’s Agbekor, a Afrobeat/Manu Dibango-soul makossa exploration reaching towards Ornette Coleman.

"And in the final track, Langabeer’s restful Aroha, they invented a kind of Ellington’n’Pacific soul".

hero_thumb_SuperbrewAfrica_ArohaWhen that album -- their sole recording unfortunately -- was given that reissue, I took it upon myself to create a piece of art which referenced the album cover but also added a more obvious Maori twist of my own.

This was it and Jim -- who died in January 2022 -- wrote me a generous note saying they should have used my art for the cover of the reissue.

Jim gets a few mentions at Elsewhere, notably in what I wrote about the magazine Passages: The Magazine of Jazz and Elsewhere which I created and edited, and in which Jim was a contributor.

He was a wonderful man who I never saw without a smile and a glow of optimism.

The article this illustrated is here

.

For other Art by Elsewhere go here

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Art by Elsewhere articles index

Elsewhere Art . . . The ACT label artists

Elsewhere Art . . . The ACT label artists

In 2010 I received a small package of CDs from the ACT label out of Germany, and their Signature Edition albums all came in generic cover art by Carl-Hendrik Wigren. What appealed to me... > Read more

Elsewhere Art . . . John Scofield

Elsewhere Art . . . John Scofield

American John Scofield has long been one of Elsewhere's favourite jazz guitarists . . . and not just for his playing. His song titles -- chosen by his wife he told me once -- can be pretty damn... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

THE MIND AND TIMES OF REG MOMBASSA by MURRAY WALDREN: The strange and the simple

THE MIND AND TIMES OF REG MOMBASSA by MURRAY WALDREN: The strange and the simple

Less than a year after he had what the designer of the Sydney Olympics 2000 closing ceremony called “the biggest one-man show in history”, the artist known as Reg Mombassa was part... > Read more

Ennio Morricone: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966)

Ennio Morricone: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966)

The relationship between some movie directors and composers is so close that it is hard to imagine certain films without their soundtracks: Hitchcock had Bernard Herrmann's gripping scores for... > Read more