Soul Jazz Records’ new album 90 Degrees of Shade features the music of the Caribbean – Mambo, Calypso, Mento, Merengue, Latin Jazz, and much more. The music of Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and more all feature in this lightning journey through the many island sounds.

This is the sound of independence, righteous and hot jump-up sounds from the 1950s and 60s, an exciting period of endless new musical styles that would travel across the world – Mento, the Jamaican precursor to reggae; mambos and descargas from Cuba, Dominican merengue, Haitian compas – and more.

This album coincides with the release of Soul Jazz Records’ massive new deluxe large format hardback book 90 Degrees of Shade: 100 Years of Photography In The Caribbean (with a foreword by Paul Gilroy) featuring hundreds of fascinating and unique photographs spanning one hundred years of Caribbean history.

The new album comes as a deluxe two-CD pack complete with a large outsize booklet, packed full of info and original artwork. There are also two limited edition separate heavyweight double LP vinyl editions, each one housed in gatefold sleeves complete with insert, full text, and free download code. It also comes as a worldwide digital release.