It's Time by Phil Dawson ٤-tet

6-track album from a musician with a long list of credits including South African trumpet legend Hugh Masekela, afrobeat co-creator Tony Allen and Ethiopian jazz originator Mulatu Astatke as well as many Brit-jazz and other international roots artists. “It’s Time” blends Afro-jazz groove, free improv, spoken poetry and other-worldly atmosphere, with lyrics and titles hinting at unorthodox takes on reality and the times we live in.

'This is great' - Gilles Peterson, BBC Radio 6 Music 

'Amazing' - Chris Phillips, Jazz FM

'A truly intriguing release from Phil Dawson and his incredibly funky friends... he has history, and the proof is in the pounding sound heard here' - thenonsemble.com   

"Buoyed by flute, bass and percussion, It's Time is a six-track brew combining free improv and spoken word with Afro-spiritual groove and a far-out esotericism befitting these strangest of times. Opener ‘It's Time (Radio Edit)’ is a psychedelic romp through a beneficent cosmos where ringing chords and woodwind trills underpin Khaditjatou Doyneh's pathos-laden musings on love and the universe and one of three variations on a theme. Over three minutes longer at 9:34, ‘It's Time (aka Ouaga Mama)’ is a freewheeling instrumental made dazzling by Dawson's silver-fingered guitar work; Doyneh resumes her pronouncing on the more dissonant but equally mind expanding ‘It's Time (Fully Spoken)’. Then there's ‘Gnostic Hilife’, whose three interpretations each juxtapose the structures of this West African lingua franca in ways tight, spacious and inventive." - Jane Cornwell, Jazzwise Magazine

"absolutely wonderful" - Katrine Ring, P8 Jazz Radio, Denmark
 

Thanks for the support so far: Worldwide FM, BBC 6 Music (Jamz Supernova/Gilles Peterson), Tim Garcia, Ruth Fisher and Chris Phillips at Jazz FM, Gordon Wedderburn on Riverside FM, Max Reinhardt and Tamar Collocutor at Soho Radio, Totally Wired Radio, P8 Jazz Denmark,  Kevin Beadle, Bob Hill, Harv Nagi, Jane Cornwell, Debbie Golt, pointblank.fm, tangentenial music, Jazz Revelations, the Nonsemble, Nick Walters, Andy Hickford and many others
 

London-based jazz/Afro/improv with members and guests from the UK, Brazil, Italy, Nigeria and other places

phildawsonmusic.co.uk