François Tusques
Dazibao N°2
Reissue of François Tusques's Dazibao n°2, originally released in 1971. This was of course not the first time that François Tusques was a "headline act". In 1965, he recorded, with other like-minded Frenchmen (François Jeanneau, Michel Portal, Bernard Vitet, Beb Guérin, and Charles Saudrais), the first album of free jazz in France, named... Free Jazz. In 1967, Tusques again served up Le Nouveau Jazz, in the company of Barney Wilen (and Beb Guérin, Jean-François Jenny-Clark, and Aldo Romano). Thr…
Piano Dazibao
To avoid the “Quésaco?” on the sleeve of Piano Dazibao, François Tusques explains everything: A wall mural on which the Red Guard expressed their opinions during the Chinese proletarian cultural revolution. So much for the “Dazibao”, very good; but the piano in all that? The piano, François Tusques was self-taught and his work was influenced by Jelly Roll Morton and Earl Hines before discovering Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell and then… free jazz. In Paris in 1965, Tusques mixed with Michel Portal, …
Mobilisation Générale: Protest and Spirit Jazz from France 1970-1976
** 2021 Stock ** 1968. France, Incorporated. The entire building was being consumed by flames and was slowly collapsing. Nothing would survive. Out of the rubble of the old world jumped the children of Marx and Coca-Cola, ripping the white and blue stripes off the French flag. Yet, the socialist revolution was more mythic than real and music did nothing to mitigate people’s behavior. It was time for innovation.
While singles from the Stones, Who, Kinks and MC5 provided an incendiary soundtrack f…
La Chasse Au Snark
**Double LP, limited edition** In 1967, 1968 and 1969 most of my works were happenings loosely based on Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting Of The Snark, a not-so-cryptic poem that, to my mind, gave clues to free the theatre in the same way the “new music” had freed jazz. It never made it to record and I gave up on the idea when I met Sunny Murray and Alan Silva when they arrived in Paris in the summer of ‘69. Few concert venues would have anything to do with us but we didn’t want that kind of connectio…
Intercommunal Dialogue 1&2
In process of stocking. Between 1969 and 1971, Francois Tusques and Sunny Murray were often accomplices in rebellious music. After other recordings, their collaboration culminated in an album that became mythical, Intercommunal Music, the site of a joust within the orchestra. The ephemeral and demanding label Shandar had invited François Tusques to lead a recording session on his own suggestion. Sunny Murray, one of his guests, arrived at the studio at the eleventh hour with a group of musicians…
Alors Nosferatu Combina un Plan Ingénieux
"After Le Nouveau Jazz was released in early 1967, I worked for two years with Bernard Vitet, Beb Guérin and a few other friends on a happening loosely based on Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark. There was a strong element of theater to it and we presented it in playhouses, museums, public places, institutions… It never made it to wax and I gave up on the idea soon after when Sunny Murray and Alan Silva showed up in Paris in late 1968. I had meant to upend the conventions of performance w…
Free Jazz
Cacophonic present a first time vinyl reissue of a pioneering album of French free jazz, François Tusques's Free Jazz, originally released in 1965. Comprising some of the earliest, uninhibited performances from musicians behind groundbreaking European records and films, Free Jazz captures the birth of an exciting movement that would soon earn its Parisian birthplace as the go-to European spiritual home of improvised and avant-garde music. Spearheaded by pianist and composer François Tusques, thi…
Le Nouveau Jazz
With track titles translating to Song For The Devil and The Witches, Francois Tusques’ rarest commercially released LP casts an early stylistic premonition of the vampire themed improvised soundtracks recorded for director Jean Rollin merely months after its release. Assembling the very same group of musical sorcerers this albums personnel (featuring, amongst others, soprano saxophonist Barney Wilen) reads like a who’s who of France’s early improvised music/free jazz scene resulting in a wholly …
La Maison Fille Du Soleil
Cross-pollinating the wants lists of art/jazz/print and architecture enthusiasts this seldom sighted 45 single is regarded as the rarest “lost” recording by American jazz trumpeter and global communal music missionary Don Cherry as he collaborates with French piano improv genius François Tusques. A missing link in the pre-formative years of improvised jazz this mythical private pressing unites two of the key exponents of both American and French free jazz – two entirely independent musical art f…
La Reine Des Vampires 1967
A previously unreleased haul of compositions by French avant-garde musician François Tusques (who released a legendary Futura label LP in 1971, as as the cult "Intercommunal Music" on Shandar). "I remember that around the time I first encountered the world of Jean Rollin I had been hired by Barney Wilen who wanted toperform my compositions, with Beb Guérin on double bass and Eddie Gaumont on drums. My friend Jean-Denis Bonan was in charge of editing Rollin's debut feature film La Reine Des Vamp…