The New Cue #421 October 2: Galliano and The Brand New Heavies blow your mind.

"It could to the uninitiated ear sound a tad like porno elevator music."

Morning Hep Cats!

Before we get into today’s jive talk with a couple of swell alligators, let’s travel back in time…

The year is 1988. Actually, it might be the winter of 1987. Or it could even be early 1989. Hard to be sure: time travel, as we all know, can be unreliable. But what is certain is that we are queuing outside Dingwalls, awaiting entry into this Camden, North London night spot to dance the night away. But there’s no need to make it even as far as the stern bouncers, because outside with us, on the pavement, are four musicians, plugged in and delivering a glorious Herbie Hancock-style funk-jazz fusion. Who are these groovy tight leather jacketed and 501-clad funkateers? Why, it’s an original version of the Brand New Heavies: as yet they are unreleased, but over the next thirty years a revolving BNH cast will provide soul, funk and jazzy pop that’ll sell millions of copies across the globe …

Let’s push that the dial on the time travel buggy slightly forward to 1992. You join us on a sofa in a West London photo studio. We are trying to make sense with a goateed Rob Galliano of the fact that the music press is losing its mind for the new sounds of a man from Sussex sticking his bum out and singing about pantomime horses, while his band Galliano’s masterpiece mash-up of jazz, funk, dub and hip hop, A Joyful Noise Unto The Creator, is roundly ignored. We can’t work it out, even though I am a music journalist. And in fact, the magazine I am conducting this interview for will soon decide not to print it, proving Galliano’s rueful point.

Rob Galliano’s Galliano, however, are now back in 2024 with a dynamite fifth album, their first in 28 years after they fell out in the last century, called Halfway Somewhere.

The Brand New Heavies released a remastered 30^th anniversary edition of their hit Brother Sister album last week, plus they have a UK tour throughout the November and December and a date at the Royal Albert hall next March. Both acts were originally signed to Eddie Pillar’s classic Acid Jazz label, so we’ve we asked Rob and founding Heavy, bassist Andrew Levy, to blow our minds with a listening recommendation.

You can read their choices below if you are a paid subscriber. And if you are not, please consider supporting our vital and valuable work.

See you on Friday,

Ted and Niall.

---