Gondwana Records are delighted to welcome saxophonist and flautist Chip Wickham to the family. An original member of the Gondwana Orchestra, Chip played on Matthew Halsall’s debut album ‘Sending My Love’ and has regularly played with the Orchestra while also leading his own excellent band.
We’re super delighted that Chip has now signed to the label and we’ll be releasing his debut album on the label next year. In the meantime we’re really excited to share his new single ‘Sais (Egypt)’, an uplifting spiritual-jazz piece and a cover of Lonnie Liston Smith’s classic from the maestro’s iconic Cosmic Funk album.
You can also see Chip live at Yes Manchester on November 25th and London’s Ronnie Scott’s on November 27th.
Recorded in Madrid in July 2017, Shamal Wind combines Chip Wickham’s globetrotting, spiritual jazz expeditions with hard-won schoolings in the funk. Following his critically acclaimed 2017 debut, La Sombra, the record draws on spiritual jazz influences like Yusef Lateef and Sahib Shihab, and rests on Chip’s many-sided experience as a musician, spanning left-field beat experiments to hard-hitting funk heavyweights. After the Latin and flamenco whispers on La Sombra, Shamal Wind adds some Arab-influence percussion to the mix, most notably on the title track. Elsewhere, ‘Barrio 71’ sees him nodding to Shihab: high energy, lyrical and absorbing, with sax and the vibraphone taking the lead. ‘Snake Eyes’ taps into the meditative exaltations of modal jazz, while ‘Soho Strut’ nods to the jazz fusion, funk-influenced side of Chip’s playing. Like the Persian Gulf winds referenced in the album title, which often mark the shift to a new season, this album signals a new chapter for Chip, opening up a newfound energy and inclusiveness in his music, and further expanding on what he achieved in the past year. “Shamal Wind” is a heavy record, built on strong foundations. Over the past 3 decades Chip Wickham has worked, written, recorded, and toured with the likes of Rae & Christian, Fingathing, The Pharcyde, Jimpster, Nightmares On Wax, Graham Massey, Roy Ayers, Nat Birchall, The New Mastersounds, Lack Of Afro, Craig Charles Fantasy Funk Band, Matthew Halsall, and Dwight Trible.
In recent times Manchester has produced an impressive slew of jazz musicians, with the likes of Matthew Halsall and Nat Birchill both receiving widespread acclaim. A lesser known figure but no less important in the development of the Manchester scene is Chip Wickham, a flautist and saxophonist who soon releases a spiritually leaning and vintage sounding '70s jazz record called La Sombra via Lovemonk Records. Translated from Spanish as 'The Shade', Chip's debut album drops after a 25-year career touring, recording and experimenting across three decades of jazz, funk, soul, hip-hop, Latin and electronica. La Sombra is a monumental record for Chip as it symbolises the moment he stepped out into the light as a director of his creations with freedom to explore his roots, express and tell his version of jazz and pay testament to his heroes Roland Kirk, Yuseef Lateef & Harold McNair. Now living in Dubai after an intense and productive six years in Madrid, it was Manchester where Chip studied in the late '80s and became enmeshed in the chaotic and thrilling music scenes emanating from one of the world's most culturally prominent cities of the time. Recording and generally 'keeping things real' with Manchester's hip-hop collective Grand Central Records, Rae & Christian, The Pharcyde, Fingathing, Nightmares on Wax, Graham Massey (808 State), Chip was in a city that was undergoing a music revolution with the Haçienda as its temple. Yet it was the headlights of the M62 motorway and not the strobe lights that were lighting Chip's path during his student years ('88-'92). The lure of the jazz and funk clubs of Leeds, where The New Mastersounds were breaking out and building the blocks that would lead them to UK funk royalty status, proved too strong. In the 1990s Chip continued to refine his craft in the rainy city and the gigs booked were growing in stature. It wasn't long before he was on the road with Roy Ayers and Badly Drawn Boy. Around that time Chip met up with trumpeter Matthew Halsall that was the beginning of a friendship that lasts to this day. Chip was a recording artist on Matthew Halsall's breakout album Sending My Love and continues to work with him, with live dates confirmed in spring 2017. This close connection with Halsall gave rise to other collaborations, such as with Nat Birchall and Go Go Penguin’s Rob Turner. Three decades after his late night excursions to Leeds, Chip found himself recording with Eddie Roberts from The New Mastersounds in Madrid, as part of their new band, The Fire Eaters, which he'd formed soon after he moved to sunny Spain in 2007 – the same year he released the Fried Samba album under his moniker Malena, his electronic Latin band that became a hit at the turn of the century for Freestyle Records. During his time in Spain he connected with the local scene and brought together many of his musicians colleagues from the UK to Spain and it was for a local and well established label, Lovemonk, that he released two 45s blending raw funk and Latin. These new roads and musical leanings led to an invitation to play for the prestigious Craig Charles Fantasy Funk Band. Based on a poll from Craig Charles’ top rated BBC6 radio show, Chip was chosen to play alongside the cream of the UK funk & soul scene: James Taylor (JTQ), Snowboy, The Haggis Horns (Mark Ronson), John Turrell (Smooth & Turrell), and Mick Talbot (The Style Council). La Sombra takes an altogether more rooted direction than Chip's recent collaborative work, with the jazz of the late '60s and early '70s a dominating influence to the recordings. Comprising of seven tracks recorded in Madrid with musicians assembled by Chip from Madrid's jazz scene, it combines contemplative explorations akin to Yusef Lateef's early work on tracks like 'La Sombra' and 'Pushed Too Far'. There's a fiery cover of Camarón de la Isla’s classic ‘La Leyenda Del Tiempo’ and tracks like 'Sling Shot' and 'Red Planet' are locked in a groove harking back to Freddie Hubbard's Blue Note era and Nathan Davis.
What others have to say about the album
"I'm a massive Chip Wickham fan." – Craig Charles
"This is coming from the outside, I was like whooooa, easy - Chip Wickham! Blowing hard - they got it right!" – Gilles Peterson
"I love this record" – Matthew Halsall
"Helll yeah, I've been bumpin' this" – DJ Lefto
"This is my kind of jazz… think Harold Land and Bobby Hutcherson 1968 and you'll not be far off the mark" – Eddie Roberts (The New Mastersounds)
"Fxxing love this" – Eddie Piller (Acid Jazz)
"Love this album and coudn't turn it off" – Dean Rudland
"All tracks show an incredible depth, feeling and soul. Will be on my playlists for years to come" – Dr Bob Jones
"Beautiful stuff - played it out last night and it sounded fantastic" – Tim Love Lee (Tummy Touch)
"Really fantastic playing and composition. Wickham has a classy touch that makes his vintage influences fresh and vital sounding" – Tomas Palermo (Forward Ever)
"Slingshot is quality, can't wait for the album" – Mark Further In Fusion
"This album came in somehow like out of the blue late 2016, and has not left my audio ever since" – Michael Rütten
