A free Lightspeed Champion download

Seattle’s KEXP.org provides a nice new FREE MP3 from the eccentric hipster known as Lightspeed Champion.

Click here to hear “Marlene” on my Vox blog. To commence downloading the track right now... hit this link.

Lightspeed Champion’s new CD is called “Life Is Sweet! Nice to Meet You.”

A free Geri Allen download

Pianist Geri Allen, one of the great women of modern jazz, has a new album out called “Flying Toward the Sound.”

The title track is available as a FREE MP3.

This project is a solo piano suite Ms. Allen composed as a Guggenheim Fellow.

Click here to hear “Flying Toward the Sound” on my Vox blog. To download it, click below.

“Flying Toward the Sound” (MP3)
Album available at iTunes Music Store
Album available at Amazon MP3

A free Balkan Beat Box download

Here’s a new FREE MP3 from Balkan Beat Box, a crew of Brooklyn hip-hop fusionists with roots in Israel.

Click here to hear “War Again” on my Vox blog. To download it, follow this link to Spinner.com.

A free Mulatu Astatke download

I first blogged about the Ethiopian jazz master Mulatu Astatke a year ago. The vibraphonist has a new album coming out at the end of March. It’s called “Mulatu Steps Ahead.” You can cop a FREE MP3 right now.

Click here to hear “Green Africa” on my Vox blog. To download it, follow this link to RCRD LBL.

A free Garaj Mahal download

The jazz-funk jam band Garaj Mahal (which I blogged about in 2008) just dropped a new album. Want a FREE MP3?

This track was composed by the band’s bass player, Kai Eckhardt, whose fusionist credentials include close work with John McLaughlin and Billy Cobham.

Click here to hear “Witch Doctor” on my Vox blog. To download it, click the title below.

“Witch Doctor” (MP3)
More on this album

A free MillionYoung download

South Florida’s Mike Diaz, a.k.a. MillionYoung, is giving away FREE MP3s to draw attention to his music. Good on him.

Click here to hear “Feel the Same” on my Vox blog. The style is called “chillwave,” though I would simply call it electro-pop.

To download the track, follow this link to MillionYoung’s official website and look in the upper left corner.

A free Rufus Reid download

Face it. You need more jazz in your life.

Bassist Rufus Reid, who has played alongside such great ones as Dexter Gordon, Freddie Hubbard and Jack DeJohnette, has a new album coming out in two weeks. But you can cop a FREE MP3 right now.

Click here to hear “Glory” on my Vox blog. To download it, click the title below.

“Glory” (MP3)
More on this album

A free Disco Biscuits download

Want a FREE MP3 from the Disco Biscuits? Have you ever even heard of the Disco Biscuits? (I hadn’t.)

The type of music they play is called “trance fusion.” (Never heard of that either.)

Click here to hear the band’s new single, “On Time,” on my Vox blog. To commence downloading, hit this link.

A free Budos Band download

The Budos Band out of New York City is another American group doing the Afrobeat thing. Wanna sample a FREE MP3?

Click here to hear “The Proposition” on my Vox blog. To download, follow this link to Amazon.com for a 2009 sampler album called “CMJ 2009: The Bands, The Music, The City, Vol. 3.”

A free Gigi download

Two years ago I blogged about the Ethiopian-born singer known as Gigi. Now I got another FREE MP3 for those who may want. She’s the guest vocalist on a 2009 track by her countryman Tommy T.

Click here to hear “The Response” on my Vox blog. To download, click the title below.

“The Response” (feat. Gigi) (MP3)
Album available at iTunes Music Store
Album available at Amazon MP3

A free Scott Amendola download

Want a FREE MP3 from hipster drummer Scott Amendola? It’s kinda Afrobeat-ish. Click here to hear the 2005 track “Oladipo” on my Vox blog. To download, click the title below.

“Oladipo” (MP3)
Album available at Amazon MP3

A free Shilts download

Wish I had time to do another full-blown Funky Whiteboy Appreciation Week. For now, let me give Shilts some dap.

London’s Paul “Shilts” Weimar is a sax player formerly with the Brand New Heavies. He’s better known in the U.K. for his involvement with another acid-jazz group... Down to the Bone.

I’ve got a FREE MP3 from Shilts’s 2006 solo album, “HeadBoppin.”

Click here to hear “Break the Mold” streaming on my Vox blog. To download that track, click the title below.

“Break the Mold” (MP3)
Album available at iTunes Music Store

A free Rene Lopez download

New Yorker Rene Lopez is the first Latin cat I know of to jump on the ’60s soul revival.

Click here to hear “Not the Same Day” on my Vox blog. Sounds kinda Staxy. If you want it as a FREE MP3, hit this link to commence downloading.

Two free Soul of John Black downloads

Former Fishbone member John Bigham now performs as The Soul of John Black. He just released a six-song EP with solo acoustic versions of tunes from last year’s album “Black John.”

I’ve got two FREE MP3s for you tonight.

Click here to hear the acoustic version of “Black John” on my Vox blog. To check out the original version, click here.

You can download one or the other – or both – by clicking below. I like the acoustic one better.

“Black John” (acoustic version) (MP3)
EP available at iTunes Music Store


“Black John” (original version) (MP3)
Album available at iTunes Music Store
Album available at Amazon MP3

A free Santigold download

Coming next month is a peculiar collaboration from David Byrne and Fatboy Slim... a double-CD called “Here Lies Love.”

Evidently it’s a dance-music concept album about the former First Lady of the Philippines, Imelda Marcos. (What?)

“Here Lies Love” features a hip lineup of guest vocalists such as Sharon Jones, Alice Russell, Theresa Andersson, Cyndi Lauper... and the one and only Santigold.

Mr. Byrne is giving away the Santigold cut as a FREE MP3. Click here to hear “Please Don’t” on my Vox blog.

If you wanna download it – and you’re willing to share your email address – here’s a widget:

A free Charlie Hunter download

Funky guitar virtuoso Charlie Hunter has a brand new album out. It’s called “Gentlemen, I Neglected to Inform You You Will Not Be Getting Paid.”

Would you like a FREE MP3? Click here to hear “High Pockets and a Fanny Pack” on my Vox blog. To download it, click the track title below.

If it leaves you wanting more, you can cop a free live track – recorded a month ago at Yoshi’s San Francisco – direct from Hunter’s official website. Listen to the live version of “Antoine” by clicking here.

"High Pockets and a Fanny Pack" (MP3)
Album available at iTunes Music Store

A free Jon Cleary download

This weekend I’ve been in writers’ meetings with David Simon, Eric Overmyer and George Pelecanos. Let me tell you, the joy of my life is being in a room with those guys constructing stories.

“Treme” will have lots of New Orleans music in it, so occasionally, in meetings, Simon will crank up his laptop and blast a tune.

Today it was a song by Jon Cleary, a British pianist who’s now a New Orleans fixture. “This is so funky,” Simon said. Click here to hear “More Hipper,” a track from 2002.

Turns out “More Hipper” is available as a FREE MP3. Just click the title below if you want to download.

“More Hipper” (MP3)
Album available at iTunes Music Store
Album available at eMusic
Album available at Amazon MP3

Playlist: Black rocker chicks rock!

Will the Twenty-Teens be the decade of Black Rocker Chicks? Surely a lot of talented black women – more than ever before, it seems – are going the indie-rock route. Even if very few of them get famous.

Some of them I’ve blogged about before. Dita Vox of Thee Emergency, Lisa Kekaula of the BellRays, Shingai Shoniwa of England’s Noisettes...

Here go some more, streaming on my Vox blog. God bless ’em for doing their thing.

1. “Remember” – Three5Human

Atlanta’s Three5Human is fronted by vocalist Trina Meade, a.k.a. Black Rock Queen.

She got a break a few years ago when Three5Human toured with the Indigo Girls. You can see Ms. Meade singing “Midnight Train to Georgia” on the new Indigo Girls DVD “Live at the Roxy.” And the Indigo Girls provide guest vocals on the 2007 Three5Human album “A Swig from the Acid Bottle.”

The track I’m streaming is from the album “Sunlight and Toys.”

2. “Pearl” – Tamar-kali

I got turned on to Brooklyn’s Tamar-kali by one of my readers, daughterofthedream. I blogged about Tamar-kali in 2008. This cut, “Pearl,” is brand new.

According to Rob Fields, the must-read music blogger at Bold As Love, Tamar-kali’s new album – “Black Bottom” – is due out next spring.

3. “On My Way” – Res

Res is another artist I stumbled upon at Bold As Love. You can download Res’s new album, “Black.Girls.Rock!,” for free. Just follow this link to her homepage, and peep the lower left-hand corner.

4. “Box” (live) – Shelley Nicole’s blaKbüshe

Shelley Nicole is another one from Brooklyn. Her new release is called “The Quick & Dirty E.P.”

5. “The Hard Way” – The Doll Daze

More FREE MP3s... this time from Atlanta’s The Doll Daze (pictured left). To cop her six-song EP, follow this link.

Hey... how about a battle of the bands between Brooklyn and Atlanta black rocker chicks?

A free Afro Classics download

Here’s something fly, phat and funky fresh from L.A. rap duo Afro Classics.

Click here to hear “Rap Fanatic” on my Vox blog. To download a FREE MP3, click the track title below.

“Rap Fanatic” (MP3)
Album available at iTunes Music Store
Album available at Amazon MP3

A free Carol Thomas download

Always looking to shine a light on talented black rocker chicks, I just found out about Carol Thomas, who has been part of the New York City music scene since the mid-’90s.

Click here to hear a solo demo track called “Keeping Quiet.” I’ve been rocking this tune on a mix CD as I drive north to Ohio to spend Christmas with family.

To download “Keeping Quiet,” follow this link to Carol Thomas’s website, where you’ll find other FREE MP3s on offer.