Back where it all began—with Fender Rhodes tones, 6/8 grooves, and MPC grit still humming under the surface—Mark de Clive-Lowe brings Six Degrees home. On Wednesday 23rd July, Jazz re:freshed, Be With Records, and The Jazz Cafe celebrate the album’s 25th anniversary with a one-night-only show featuring Myele Manzanza on drums and Mark revisiting the sonic diary that launched it all.
Originally released in 2000 via Kog Transmissions, and picked up by Universal Jazz UK, Six Degrees helped sketch out the architecture for what would later be recognized as broken beat, club-jazz, and future soul. De Clive-Lowe was already fusing jazz-fusion, Afro-Cuban rhythms, hip-hop and drum & bass before the algorithms had a name for it. With an MPC2000, his Rhodes, and no blueprint but instinct, he built a record that moved like a global map in motion.
Each track reflects a stop on the road—“Roundtrip” channeling jungle breaks and Havana footwork, “La Zorra” dancing in folkloric 6/8 time, and “Melodious Funk” bringing raw scratch textures to deep Rhodes loops. “Day By Day”, featuring Cherie Mathieson, became an underground favorite, partly through DJ Spinna’s remix and a lift from Café del Mar. Others, like “Motherland” and “Por La Mañana”, reflect the personal—Japanese roots, Cuban mornings, basement clubs that shaped his perspective and palette.
The remastered vinyl edition, limited to 400 copies, has been pressed by Record Industry in the Netherlands, with lacquers cut by Cicely Balston at Abbey Road and mastering by Simon Francis. The original artwork has been restored by Mark himself, who also penned new liner notes looking back at that pivotal year of travel and transformation.
This isn’t just a celebration of a debut—it’s a recognition of a moment when the borders between beatmaking and live musicianship blurred into something else entirely. Six Degrees still sounds like the start of something: searching, soulful, and unbound by category.
🎟 Standing tickets and restaurant reservations available now via The Jazz Cafe. Don’t sleep.
