A fun new slang designation for the devil’s lettuce – i.e. another word for weed (established in 2016, according to the ever well-informed Urban Dictionary), Jazz Cabbage is also the name of a 2017-founded label founded and run by French-born, Berlin-based producer Strip Steve. With its logo art amusingly rerouting the gently transgressive nature of its epithet – showing a cartoon-like cabbage character playing the trumpet, piano, bass drum and clarinet – Jazz Cabbage is quietly finding its place as one of the finest labels in the jazz-house sphere along the likes of Bradley Zero’s Rhythm Section and Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood Recordings. Not bad for a year-old.
After a stream of solo EPs courtesy of YGT, Joe Cleen and Daisuke Kondo, the bop-loving vegetable is back with a debut VA transmission featuring all of the aforementioned artists as well as label head honcho Strip Steve himself. And it’s actually the bossman’s opener that we’re glad to share with you today. A proper smokey jazz-house affair fit to please hybrid house lovers and Blue Note heads in equal measure, ‘Burst‘ engineers a brilliant mix of intricate piano-strewn melodies, big band double bass and fanfare drums, without forgetting the contribution of soft pop wizard World Brain – on his way to release his first solo album – who makes a surprise appearance throughout the track as the possessed clarinetist. To all the cool cats out there, this one’s a no-miss.
The Jazz Cabbage Grand Ball VA is out now via Jazz Cabbage, order a vinyl copy from Juno.
TRACKLIST
A1. Strip Steve – Burst (feat. World Brain)
A2. YGT – Misha (feat. Koloah)
B1. Joe Cleen – Cosmic Sandwich
B2. Daisuke Kondo – Unconventional
Discover more about Strip Steve and Jazz Cabbage on Inverted Audio.