“Life is nothing without love. Love is the force that drives our journey in life. Life is love and love is life.”
UK jazz master Chip Wickham follows last year’s brilliant soulful long-player Cloud 10 with a deftly crafted, reflective EP of beautiful spiritual jazz sounds influenced by the soulful sounds of Yusef Lateef. Chip’s music has always drawn from a broad world of influences from hip-hop to Roland Kirk and from classic funk to the classic ‘60s Brit-Jazz sound of Tubby Hayes. But Love & Life finds him foregrounding his wonderful flute playing and producing a perfect four tracker of reflective, peaceful jazz that elevates and inspires as well as a trademark slice of boppish soul jazz – the jaunty Space Walk.
Elsewhere lead single Love & Life is a joyous jazz waltz with an uplifting, bouncing groove and Slow Down Look Around is introspective and intimate, featuring Chip’s signature flute with a beautiful solo from UK trumpeter Malcolm Strachan. Chip explains that the track presents “a big lesson for us to learn as the world changes around us with such speed. The technology changes but our human needs remain the same: peace, tranquillity and time to think.”
About Chip Wickham
Chip Wickham is a jazz musician and producer who divides his time between Spain,
UK and the Middle-East and who has made a name for himself with a series of
beautifully crafted solo albums that draw equally on the hard-swinging spiritual
jazz of Roland Kirk, Yusef Lateef and Sahih Shihab, alongside the music of
British jazz legends such as Tubby Hayes and Harold McNair and the more
contemporary sounds of Jazzanova, Kyoto Jazz Massive and Robert Glasper.
Originally from Brighton, Chip studied in Manchester and became involved in the 00’s UK jazz, soul. trip- hop and funk scenes, working with the likes of The Pharcyde, The New Mastersounds and Nightmares On Wax as well as playing with Matthew Halsall’s Gondwana Orchestra. And his relationship with Gondwana Records goes right back to the very beginning as he played on Halsall’s 2008 debut Sending My Love.
