Jazz & Improvisation / All styles

OGJB — Oliver Lake, Graham Haynes, Joe Fonda, and Barry Altschul — characterize themselves as a “leaderless” quartet. In that spirit, the compositions featured here serve as sketches to be built and elaborated on (and often entirely reconfigured), no…

Wadada Leo Smith´s new album Najwa features four compositions in tribute to past masters of creative music, Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Ronald Shannon Jackson and Billie Holiday, as well as the title composition "Najwa" in remembrance of a love l…

With Celestial Weather, Wadada Leo Smith and John Lindberg employ a spare, conversational approach. Smith whispers on the mute and issues plaintive cries with the open horn. Lindberg bows and goes pizzicato. Smith searches for and finds very un-trump…

Wadada Leo Smith, a trumpet player born in Mississippi in 1941, was an early member of the Chicago-based AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) but has remained somewhat lesser known than such collaborators as Abrams, Mitchell, …

Occupy the World features the legendary composer and trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith together with Tumo, a new improvising orchestra that is assembled specifically for each project, in its first appearance. The 22-piece orchestra performs five extended co…

Da Bang! was recorded in February 2011, just two months before the master violinist Billy Bang (1947-2011) succumbed to cancer. In this final session, the Billy Bang Group featured one extended composition by Bang, "Daydreams," as well as composition…

Despite the fact that they've shared several stages over the past 40 years, Ancestors marks the first occasion that trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo have ever recorded together. Smith, one of the true progenitors of creative…

Prayer for Peace is the first recording by violinist Billy Bang´s regular working quintet of the past five or so years. Featured with Bang are trumpeter James Zollar, pianist Andrew Bemkey, bassist Todd Nicholson and drummer Newman Taylor-Baker. Bill…

Raoul Björkenheim, who is one of the most adventurous guitarists on the contemporary scene, initially progressed from B.B. King to Frank Zappa and from John McLaughlin to John Coltrane in his search of a sound of his own. With his own groups, such as…

*Includes 20 page booklet.* Each with five decades of musical knowledge and experience in free improvisation under their belts, the trio of saxophonist John Tchicai (also heard, for the first time on record, on vocals), bassist Reggie Workman and dru…

After their duo album Heart of a Bird, Iro Haarla and Ulf Krokfors wanted to make a recording with a different overall atmosphere and have some fun doing it with a larger ensemble. To achieve this, a group of friends was brought together to form the …

Delirium is a quartet made up of Finnish saxophonist Mikko Innanen and his three Danish compatriots, including Kasper Tranberg on cornet, Jonas Westergaard on bass and Stefan Pasborg on drums. Eclexistence, the second album of Delirium, is characteri…

This is the first recording of Ahmed Abdullah´s Ebonic Tones, featuring trumpeter Abdullah, baritone saxophonist Alex Harding and violinist Billy Bang in an unusual, yet highly effective front line and bassist Alex Blake and drummer Andrei Strobert a…

Sudden Happiness is a live recording by Triot, which includes the leading young Finnish saxophonist Mikko Innanen and two of Denmark´s most in-demand young jazz musicians, bassist Nikolai Munch-Hansen and drummer Stefan Pasborg, with the saxophone le…

Reflections features three giants of improvised music in an open dialogue built on both their shared influences and their different backgrounds: Juhani Aaltonen on tenor saxophone and flute, Reggie Workman on bass and Andrew Cyrille on drums. The alb…

Shadowglow is an improvised musical interplay between guitarist Raoul Björkenheim and drummer Lukas Ligeti. The Raoul Björkenheim & Lukas Ligeti Duo includes two long-time residents of New York, who share European roots and a mutual interest in the m…

Heart of a Bird is an intimate collaboration between two kindred spirits, pianist/harpist Iro Haarla and bassist Ulf Krokfors. The music represents free improvisation within a compositional framework. The duo shares with the listener a beautiful, int…

Strings Revisited revives and revamps the sound of Strings, a now-classic recording of Henrik Otto Donner´s compositions by tenor saxophonist/flautist Juhani Aaltonen together with a jazz group and strings that was originally released in 1976 and has…

Mother Tongue is the first recording of the Juhani Aaltonen Trio, founded in 2001. In addition to tenor saxophonist and flautist Juhani Aaltonen, the trio includes Ulf Krokfors on bass and Tom Nekljudow on drums. For this album, the Juhani Aaltonen T…

*Includes a 80 pages booklet.* The trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith from Leland, Mississippi, started his career in the late sixties as a member of the legendary jazz trio Creative Construction Company, which also included Leroy Jenkins and Anthony Braxton…

*Including a 52 p. booklet.* Sacred Ceremonies represents a meeting of three true giants of contemporary creative music. On this three-CD boxed set, Wadada Leo Smith joins forces with the barrier-breaking electric bassist Bill Laswell and the late, g…

*Including a 44 p. booklet.* Trumpet is a unique extended collection of solo trumpet music. Fourteen new compositions by Wadada Leo Smith are included on this recording and spread over three CDs. The Album was recorded during a beautiful summer week …

*Limited edition of 300 copies.* Now Again Records and Sonor Music Editions announce the debut release by The Kimba Unit on 45. Grown up in Los Angeles, Julian Rapaport made his musical studies in New York, developing his personal musical taste liste…

*Limited edition of 500 copies.* Sonor Music Editions team was able to rescue from oblivion the lost tapes of this incredible recording, composed and orchestrated by the great Italian arranger and pianist Paolo Ormi. Originally conceived in 1972 at R…

Piano, handmade electronics, tenor sax, couple strings. I was after something tangible. Sounds you could roll around in your palm and consider different, complex, and flawed textures. Feel the weight, maybe even smell them. This desire is probably a …

This double LP release features one of Miles Davis final great bands: John Scofield on guitar, Bill The Other Bill Evans Evans on saxophones, flute and electric piano, Darryl Jones on bass, Al Foster on drums, and percussionist Mino Cinelu. Miles was…

*2022 Stock.* ‘Visions in Black and White’ is a collection of rare jazz and improvised themes by one of the greatest Russian film composers Mikael Tariverdiev (1931-1996). Transferred from the original tapes and beautifully remastered, these recordin…

** Black vinyl with obi strip ** This previously unreleased album by the Horace Tapscott Quintet was unearthed from master tapes in the Flying Dutchman archives. Recorded in 1969 and was intended to be a follow-up album to the classic "The Giant Is A…

Tip! Despite the title of the album, it is the Tullio De Piscopo's third work, recorded in 1976. Comprising nine tracks in total across its two sides, “Vol. 2” falls somewhere between fusion and prog, straddling darker, brooding temperaments with joy…

Tip! A lost bit of 70s Italian modal jazz, with spiritual overtones and global percussion from drummer extraordinaire Tullio De Piscopo – an incredible set of heavily rhythmic grooves recorded in Milan in 1978 – originally a tiny edition effort on Ca…

Temporary Super Offer! 'Cecil Taylor’s whole career was a wave-front of exploration. The analogy with light is apposite enough. He evolved so fast most of us never quite caught up and relied instead on a few safe generalisations that momentarily appl…

Temporary Super Offer! 'Among the jazz innovators, Albert Ayler is still considered a solitary figure to this day. From 1964 on he pursued his vision with firm determination. Like no other artist he used well-known melodies from military, marching, b…

**Last Copies, sold out at source**  A brand new 4LP box set bringing together the incredible 1970s recordings of Afrofuturism pioneers The Pyramids, led by saxophonist Idris Ackamoor. The set features the remastered LPs Lalibela, King Of Kings and B…

*2022 repress* A mysterious psychedelic masterpiece: incredible Middle Eastern music of Moontribe is restored from tapes by Fortuna Records, that return with a mysterious album by the anonymous artist known only as Moontribe. A deep-space journey bet…

Strut present the final instalment in their series of reissues of Sun Ra’s historic recordings in Egypt with The Sun Ra Arkestra meets Salah Ragab in Egypt plus the Cairo Jazz Band, originally released on Greek label Praxis in 1983.  Salah Ragab firs…

Otoroku is proud to present the first vinyl reissue of "Blue Notes for Mongezi", one of the most passionate celebrations of a life in music ever laid to tape. Recorded in late 1975 by Blue Notes, then reduced to a quartet - Dudu Pukwana on  alto sax,…

Otoroku is proud to present the first vinyl reissue of "Blue Notes for Johnny" - a defining statement by one of the greatest ensembles in the history of jazz. Recorded in mid-1987 by Blue Notes - then reduced to the trio of Dudu Pukwana on alto sax, …

Between May 1968 and the end of 1969, Paris became the Mecca of new jazz. Many American musicians, struggling to make a living from their activity in the USA, went to live in Paris. Thus: Don Cherry, Sunny Murray, Marion Brown, Anthony Braxton, Alan …

The Munich band Embryo was founded in 1969. "Opal" was her first album. Released on the OHR label in 1970. The band led by Christian Burchard (2018) combined numerous genres into one huge crossover project. Jazz rock, folk, blues, soul, contemporary …

Like some musical virus, jazz spread across the world in the 1920s. It was, in a very real sense, the first global 'world' music. Due in part to the improvisatory and open form of jazz, it lent itself very easily to merging with, and adopting to, loc…