VA - Theo Parrish's Black Jazz Signature: Black Jazz Records 1971-1975

Check out Sound Signature label head, unofficial ambassador of Detroit's long-fertile electronic music culture, and endearingly outspoken re-editor, DJ and producer Theo Parrish's mix commission for Snow Dog's ongoing CD reissues of the entire Black Jazz catalog, now featured in our listening post (and specially priced for a limited time)!

"Parrish, as would be expected, takes a low-key, backseat approach to mixing the tracks he loves; no Flying Lotus pastiches or potentially disrespectful attempts at taming grooves into linear house form. Instead, simple, quick transitions and deft choices keep the recordings entirely at the fore. The selections are astounding and the energy insistent from beginning to end. The majority of the pieces chosen by Parrish are hugely amorphous, the by-then elastic forms of the most adventurous modern jazz electrified into further flexibility. Black Jazz Signature captures a sheer flood of music, parts crashing and reforming around each other as they break away, jut out, drop back, or lace themselves around others." - FACT

"To get Parrish to do the mix, Snow Dog Records—a Japanese label that does licensed reissues and mixes of the BJR catalogue—sent a package of hard-to-find LPs to a PO box in Detroit. Some time later, Parrish sent back a few different versions of his mix, all of which sounded quite different—some more challenging, others more serene. The one that made the cut is somewhere in the middle: the whole thing is bright and upbeat, but a frantic, dissonant energy occasionally creeps in." - Resident Advisor