Jazz & Improvisation / All styles

There's a story that gets to the heart of this record. Years ago, Keefe Jackson spent an evening with South African-Dutch legend Sean Bergin - the only time the two ever met. At some point Bergin told him: "Keefe, you remind me very much of my friend…

Ethiopiques 32: Nalbandian The Ethiopian resurrects Nalbandian The Ethiopian & Either/Orchestra as a blazing big‑band bridge between 1950s Addis and 21st‑century Boston, restoring Nerses Nalbandian’s forgotten Ethio‑jazz charts with cinematic force.

On Lola, Zbigniew Namysłowski Modern Jazz Quartet fuse blazing post‑bop with Polish highlander melodies, cutting a 1964 London session that became both a historic first outside the Iron Curtain and a cult artefact of fiercely local modern jazz.

Limited edition of 500 copies. Recorded direct-to-tape in Devon Turnbull's Listening Room at 180 Studios, London. Pressed on 180-gram heavyweight black vinyl with colour sleeve featuring exclusive session photography. Engineered by Jamie Harley.  On …

On Light, Palle Mikkelborg condenses a lifetime of orchestral colour into a quietly radiant final opus: solo trumpet, flugelhorn and piano drift through self‑designed soundscapes, joined sparingly by harp and guitar, like hymns remembered in slow mot…

** Audiophile reissue from the original masters, 180gm vinyl pressed by Pallas, laminated hand-glued gatefold cover. Limited Edition. ** Katcharpari is the second solo album by Italian jazz trumpeter Enrico Rava, recorded and released in January 1973…

*Listed as one of the four most influential Jazz albums that happened to be released in 1959 (Dave Brubeck -Time Out & Charles Mingus -Ah Um among them), so much has been said and written about Miles Davis'Kind Of Blue, it's virtually impossible to s…

Let us take you back. Waaay back. According to early Greek mythology, the three powerful sons of the god Kronos divided up the cosmos after overthrowing their father: Poseidon ruled the sea, Zeus commanded the heavens, and Hades reigned over the unde…

On Celestial Suite, Atlantis Jazz Ensemble stretch their spiritual soul-jazz into a full skyward arc, an unbroken studio suite where modal grooves, Afro-Latin currents and meditative codas move like one long, rising breath.

On Oceanic Suite, Atlantis Jazz Ensemble ride a warm, late‑night current of modal grooves and spiritual inflections, with trumpet, alto, Rhodes, bass and drums flowing together in live‑off‑the‑floor conversations that feel both loose and meticulously…

Huge Tip! Small repress. "I stood on top of the mountain and looked out over the landscape. It was so beautiful that my chest hurt. The light vibrated, time stood still, and the contours dissolved for a moment. Everything had changed; I felt it then.…

Huuuge Tip! In the pantheon of classic free jazz, Noah Howard's The Black Ark looms large. Recorded at Bell Sound Studios in New York City in 1969 - just prior to the alto saxophonist's relocation to Europe - the album was eventually released in 1972…

Special session in january 2013 for Recordstoreday 2013. Recorded at Martin Siewert‘s studio Garnison 7 in Vienna. First and final pressing of 400.

This 7" vinyl split showcases experimental jazz outfit Sunn Trio, led by multi-instrumentalist Joel Robinson from Arizona's desert scene, alongside his solo work. On the A-side, Sunn Trio delivers "Touch Seang Tana," a hypnotic fusion of modal jazz, …

Solo piano from the heart of the Los Angeles underground. Horace Tapscott completely alone at the keyboard, recorded in the early '80s when the Nimbus label was documenting his every move. This is contemplative music of the deepest order - yet the cl…

Few copies available. The Los Angeles based pianist, band leader, and composer, Horace Tapscott, always stood apart from the pack. A true visionary who was fiercely principled and independent, across the 1960s, '70s, '80s, and '90s, leading his legen…

A beautiful, dreamlike expression of spiritual jazz recorded in 1981 at City Recorders - a time when this kind of music was considered completely out of vogue. Yet here is Gary Bias, unspooling a suite of deeply soulful and profoundly far-reaching or…

The only album ever released under the name of saxophonist, bandleader and composer Jesse Sharps - a major, largely unsung figure in the history of jazz music in Los Angeles. Recorded in 1985 for Tom Albach's legendary Nimbus West imprint, Sharps And…

The only live recording the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra ever released - and arguably the most complete document of this extraordinary musical community in full flight. Recorded between February and June 1979 at the Immanuel United Church of Christ o…

A singular, radical entry in the Nimbus West catalogue from one of the true pioneers of the free jazz piano. Burton Greene was there at the very beginning - co-founding the Free Form Improvisation Ensemble with bassist Alan Silva in early-60s New Yor…

Specially priced bundles drawn from the catalog of Nimbus West — the American label widely regarded as the greatest single depository of West Coast avant-garde jazz. With the label's future uncertain and no represses planned, this is a final opportun…

A beautiful, dreamlike expression of spiritual jazz recorded in 1981 at City Recorders - a time when this kind of music was considered completely out of vogue. Yet here is Gary Bias, unspooling a suite of deeply soulful and profoundly far-reaching or…

Specially priced bundles drawn from the catalog of Nimbus West — the American label widely regarded as the greatest single depository of West Coast avant-garde jazz. With the label's future uncertain and no represses planned, this is a final opportun…

Very first version of the first single by Cortex, reissued as 7 inch for the 1st time. “I remember that I and Alain Gandolfi wanted to put ‘Mary & Jeff’ on the A side, but the producer decided to set ‘L’Enfant Samba’ instead because he thought that t…

On Morgenmusiken, Green Cosmos expand their small‑town German jazz into a quietly epic, Coltrane‑lit cosmos, braiding modal vamps, Indian classical colour and spacious free improvisation into seven meditative journeys where silence and a single note …

Julius Hemphill's 1972 debut, self-produced for his Mbari label and recorded in St. Louis with Baikida Carroll, Abdul Wadud and Phillip Wilson. The title track spends fourteen minutes on a funky 11/8 groove.

Tip! Tip! Tip! After carrying the idea around for a while, the team at Habibi Funk finally brings their vision of a print music magazine to life. Spotlights gathers research from their own releases alongside stories that reach beyond the label's cata…

Geography lesson: "Riding the San Andreas" - living on a fault line, waiting for the shake. "Southwester Avenue Shuffle" - street-level LA, the neighborhood Tapscott never left. "On the Nile" - Africa, always Africa, even from a piano bench in South …

October in Los Angeles. Horace Tapscott sits down, plays for 38 minutes, gets up. No audience, no applause. Just Tom Albach and his tape machine. This is how monuments get built - one session at a time, one composition at a time, nobody watching. "An…

Solo (Steinway) piano. Los Angeles, September 1982. Just read the titles: "A Dress for Renee" - infectious melody, keeps coming back like a persistent thought. "Shades of Soweto" - South Africa seen from South Central. "The Hero's Last Dance" - whoev…

Solo piano. Recorded March 1983, Los Angeles. Five pieces, forty-one minutes. Where Sun Ra meets Erik Satie. This is the third volume in what would become Tapscott's monumental series of solo recordings - over thirty hours captured between 1982 and 1…

Solo piano. Recorded November 15, 1982 at the Lobero Theater, Santa Barbara. A Steinway piano and one man's soul, nothing else. Producer Tom Albach believed the solo sessions were the most important music Tapscott ever made. Between 1982 and 1985, ov…

Recorded live at the Bimhuis, Amsterdam. The debut album of M.O.B. - "My Own Band" - the project that would become the main vehicle for this South African giant in exile. Eight tracks, almost an hour of music, with titles that tell you everything you…

Live at the Music Academy of the West, Santa Barbara, April 12, 1987. Cello and percussion. Two Europeans conquering California with nothing but strings, drums, bones, bodhran and squeaky toys. This is the duo that gave us Cellotape & Scotchtape in 1…

Nine rare tracks from the Nimbus West archive, a map of Los Angeles underground jazz the world never heard enough of. Horace Tapscott, Nate Morgan, Jesse Sharps, Dadisi Komolafe, Roberto Miranda - the names that built UGMAA and the Pan Afrikan People…

Three creative cells of Austrian avantgarde music form a playfull trio of piano and drums/percussion -pianist and composer Elisabeth Harnik has various improvisation projects, for instance with Joelle Leandre, Ken Vandermark, Zlatko Kaucic, Tony Buck…

The Amsterdam String Trio emerges from Europe's most vibrant improvised music scene: Maurice Horsthuis on viola, Ernst Reijseger on cello, Ernst Glerum on double bass. No violin. An unusual configuration that delivers, as Glerum puts it, "a dark soun…

Lingua Franca: the language that allows different peoples to understand one another. And what better instrument than the clarinet - voice of klezmer, Alpine folk, New Orleans jazz - to speak across borders? Daniele D'Agaro was born in 1958 in Spilimb…

In August 1971, the white wizards of South Africa's psychedelic rock underground shared the stage with the black witchdoctors of the Afro-jazz avant-garde. The event was the Tribal Blues concerts at Wits Great Hall, an unprecedented cross-cultural sh…

A remarkable document finally surfaces after nearly 40 years in the NDR archives. John Taylor - the piano master of dense, orchestral voicings and skittish melodic invention - captured here in 1987 with the full NDR Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted…