Big thanks to our friends over at Funk It who just posted a pro-shot video of The Roots’ entire performance from last year’s Lowlands Festival.  The show took place in August on a brief European tour right after bassist Owen Biddle left the group.  Mark Kelley hadn’t become a member of The Roots yet, but Tuba Gooding Jr. stepped up the low nicely, filling in with his sousaphone.  Full video from the European TV broadcast can be streamed below, and you can download the audio as well.

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To this day, I still attest that the jam sessions The Roots held for 32 weeks at Highline Ballroom in NYC were the best string of concerts the band has done in their entire career.  For further proof, here’s our exclusive audio recording of The Roots jammin and tearing through incredible renditions of Table of Contents and 75 Bars, with some help from Vernon Reid (from Living Colour), Truck North and Yoshi Takemasa (from Antibalas).  We’ve also embedded some great footage below of the performance courtest of Okayplayer and Noisemaker Media.

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As we head into the final days of 2011, its time to reflect back on the musical releases this year and examine the best music from the past 12 months.  Compiling this list was no easy task as it was a year stacked with quality releases.  As with last year, since the focus of this site is always live music and we’re discussing studio albums, we’re providing a new live song from each artist who made the list.

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To commemorate the release of their 13th album, Undun, The Roots performed three sold out shows at Highline Ballroom in NYC.  At these shows, The Legendary debuted many new songs from their latest release.  There has been a lot of buzz around their “bonus” performance of The Otherside w/Bilal on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon (see video below), so we thought it was only right to let loose an epic, extended, 15 min version from Highline last week.  One of our favorite cuts off the new album is Lighthouse, so we’re also including the live version as well for your listening pleasure.

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Questlove and Tony Allen drumming on stage together?  Talk about a dream concert… then add in the rest of the incredibly talented ensemble that comprised the Afro-Picks Big Band and you have something truly special.  Described as “a journey through African funk: past, present & future”, Questlove teamed up with the Red Bull Music Academy to co-curate a special concert dedicated to the immense impact of African funk and soul on modern music.  The unique show was a selection of tracks played by the Afro-Picks Big Band, which featured Tony Allen & Questlove on drums, Macy Gray, Black Thought, Mamani Keita, Amp Fiddler, members of Antibalas, the David Murray Big Band, Damon Bryson (of The Roots), cast members from Fela! the Broadway musical and more.  Needless to say, if you like good music, say Yeah, Yeah and listen to this epic show.

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The 4th annual Roots Picnic was headlined this year by The Roots (of course) and Nas, who performed a special set backed by The Roots.  It was a great way to close out the festival, with The Roots digging up some gems from their catalog and flawlessly rockin’ the set with Nas.  The personal highlight for me was a surprising cover of The Bottle, to pay homage to the late great Gil Scott-Heron.  Check out the soundboard recording of the full set right here.

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