Jazz & Improvisation / All styles

"The Kalakuta Show album release was Fela’s undaunted manner of extracting revenge on the military regime that attacked and brutalized him in 1974. The second of such attacks in a space of eight months, Kalakuta Show was an attempt by the Nigerian police to influence the cause of justice. After the first police raid on Kalakuta in April 1974, Fela was charged to court for: ‘possession of dangerous drugs’, and abduction of ‘minors’. However, the evidence presented by the prosecution was easily ex…

Also featuring Ginger Baker, the title track is among Fela’s first overtly political lyrics. His political perspective had evolved during the 1969 / 1970 tour of the US, largely through his friendship with the black-rights activist Sandra Izsadore, who introduced him to the writings of Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, Angela Davis and other revolutionary thinkers. By the time Fela wrote “Why Black Man Dey Suffer,” his songwriting and public statements were becoming increasingly critical of the pow…

Jim O'Rourke plays a lot with Japanese Free jazz legend Akira Sakata in various formations. Together with Italian composer and pianist Giovanni di Domenico and the drummer Tatsuhisa Yamamoto they form this powerful band. This is their first release, combining contemporary Avantgarde and Free Jazz in a beautiful way.Line-up:Akira Sakata - sax, clarinet, voiceJim O’Rourke - double bassGiovanni di Domenico – piano, hohner pianetTatsuhisa Yamamoto - drumsRecorded at Pit Inn Tokyo on 10 January 2017

If Zeuhl is any indication, it's not only a French phenomena. This great Japanese group, well-known in the Japanese underground, proves that. Their work, which spans from rock to fusion to experimental to ethnic and draws more from the European school (Magma) than the Japanese new music movement, concentrates on avant-garde jazz structures, loud, blaring rock 'n roll, and occasionally all-out discord. They make extensive use of the violin, contrebass, and vibraphone in addition to the standard r…

For the very first time on double vinyl, one of the most amazing musical adventures of influential singer & songwriter Julie Tippetts. Originally released on cd in 1999, Shadow Puppeteer is the result of a long running career, a devotional solo album fulfilling her royal artistic vision. Surely one of the foremost European vocalists in the field of contemporary jazz and improvised music, she started out with The Brian Auger band in the 60’s fusing soul  jazz and r&b with amazing results.  Moving…

*2024 stock. Deluxe packaging* "A gentle, introspective, yet adventurous solo work... The entire album is a one-man effort, from the composition to all of the instrumentation, with Surman building strata of sound over keyboard and percussion structures using bass clarinet and the soprano and bass saxophones he is known for. The resulting work communicates a unique vision and mood, unsullied by the conflicting interpretations of other performers." - Stacia Proefrock

A heretical symbol of Rare Groove, with its alternative and avant-garde ferocity! Irvine Weldon's 1973 masterpiece, which continues to have a wide influence around the world even today! Although it is based on jazz, it is a work released in 1973 that is more soul/funk than the first album, and reflects more experimental and political aspects and ideas. For over 30 years, it has been loved by diggers all over the world and reigns at the top of the rare groove as a most wanted item, and today the …

Weldon Irvine was one of the most talented and influential artists of his era. Liberated Brother was his first album, originally issued on his own Nodlew label in 1972 in very limited quantities. An impressive showcase for Irvine’s skills as a songwriter, producer, and keyboardist, the collection boasts a rich array of musical textures, resulting in deep, spiritual, funky jazz with elements of soul and psychedelia. Innovative not only for its moody, nuanced jazz-funk sensibility, Liberated Broth…

Hilton Felton's Family & Friends is a rare groove classic that now gets reissued for the first time ever courtesy of P-Vine. The master keyboardist has a cult following thanks to his magically mellow and sophisticated playing style. He was prolific, too, recording several great albums but none as definitive as this one, which is a sought after and pricey gem if you want an original. It has many highlights such as the fantastic jazz-funk cover of the Delfonic's classic 'La, La Means I Love You', …

Funky groove master Les Demar's legendary live recordings have been sampled by numerous artists and DJs, and have captivated jazz funk listeners and rare groove freaks alike with their raging drum breaks and intense grooves. Recorded at Concerts by the Sea in Redondo Beach, California, in August 1978, the eight-piece big combo's frenetic night is back in its original 1970s release! The fusion-like 'Quetzal' (A1), which starts with an opening MC and cheers, quickly raises the tension, followed by…

Funky groove master Les Demar's legendary live recordings have been sampled by countless artists and DJs, and have captivated jazz funk listeners and rare groove freaks alike with their raging drum breaks and intense grooves! Recorded in August 1978 at Concerts by the Sea in Redondo Beach, California, the eight-piece big combo's frenzied night is back in its original 1970s release! A sharp jazz-funk "Manfred S" (A1) that starts from a drum break that just asks you to sample, a ballad "Once Upon …

"Heard together, Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus and Pre Bird suggest the enormity of  Charles Mingus’ artistic vision. No one album encompasses it in its entirety, and perhaps not even  two or three. However, these recordings, made six months apart in 1960, vividly summarized his  work to date, as he headed towards to jazz’s pantheon." – Bill Shoemaker

*2024 stock* Hellbound Train is a double-album retrospective from Steve Tibbetts with music selected by the US guitarist from 40 years of recordings on ECM . Neatly divided into electric and acoustic chapters, the anthology juxtaposes pieces originally featured on the albums Northern Song, Safe Journey,  Exploded View, Big Map Idea, The Fall Of Us All, A Man About A Horse,  Natural Causes and Life Of. With its liquid melodies and textures and hypnotic patterns and pulsations subtly influenced by…

*2024 stock. Deluxe packaging* Nice Guys is an album by the Art Ensemble of Chicago, recorded in May 1978 and released on ECM the following year—their debut for the label. The quintet features trumpeter Lester Bowie, saxophinists Joseph Jarman and Roscoe Mitchell and rhythm section Malachi Favors Maghostut and Famoudou Don Moye.

*2024 stock* Urban Bushmen is a live double album by the Art Ensemble of Chicago recorded at the Amerika Haus in Munich over two days in May 1980 and released on ECM in March 1982. The quintet comprises trumpeter Lester Bowie, saxophonists Joseph Jarman and Roscoe Mitchell and rhythm section Malachi Favors Maghostut and Don Moye.

**English edition. 200 pp. Hardcover**  Eberhard Weber is a central figure in the evolution of European jazz. A virtuoso who revolutionized jazz bass playing - he brought his instrument from the far corner of the stage into the spotlight – and turned it into a solo force. He began his career as a jazz bassist in the 1960s, and his band Colours, with the saxophonist Charlie Mariano, became one of the most successful jazz groups in Europe. His record Colours of Chloë (made for ECM) was a cult albu…

Remastered reissue on Impulse/Elemental Music. Alice Coltrane was among the most important creative voices of 20th century. A woman like no other, who sculpted a body of music, so singular, that it can be distinguished a mile out – sounding like nothing, before. Originally released in 1972, Lord Of Lords was Alice Coltrane's final album for Impulse! and the last installment in her awe-inspiring trilogy that also included Universal Consciousness and World Galaxy. While all three records featured …

Recorded in one mystical night during Ramadan in 1982, The Night of Power (Laylatu'l Qadri) is a prophetic tapestry of politically and spiritually conscious poetry and revelatory home-studio electronic jazz.

Tip! "Belonging is a studio album by American jazz pianist Keith Jarrett, recorded over two days in April 1974 and released on ECM later that year—the debut of Jarrett's "European Quartet", featuring saxophonist Jan Garbarek and rhythm section Palle Danielsson and Jon Christensen. Because Jarrett's contract with ABC/Impulse! prevented him from performing with the quartet under his own name, the group became known as the 'Belonging' quartet." - Wikipedia

Androide Scrip is a jazz record - not mainstream, but plain and simple: piano, drums, bass. Full stop. Influenced by artists such as The Bad Plus, E.S.T., Thom Yorke, Bush and Muse, the debut is not a pop, rock or electro album, even though it repeatedly makes use of song structures from these varieties of current music styles. Together with pianist Florian Kästner and bassist Philipp Martin, the trio led by Jörg Wähner (Apparat, Bodi Bill, The DAS) explores the possibilities in such a way that …

Arto Lindsay is an influential American guitarist, singer and record producer. He was a member of the pioneering no-wave group DNA in the late 70s. He can be heard as singer and guitarist on the first album of the Golden Palominos and as guitarist on the debut of the Lounge Lizards, which was dismissed as fake jazz. He later founded the group Ambitious Lovers with Peter Scherer.  He has an unmistakable soft voice and an often loud, self-taught guitar corruptions that consists almost exclusively …

Many artists achieve greatness but very few produce work that is so moving it's considered sacred. Whether you choose to call them hymns, psalms or spirituals, their songs are a healing force for troubled times. Jazzman's Spiritual Jazz series would not exist without the inspiration and leadership of the spiritual messiah that is John Coltrane. It can therefore only be right and proper that a whole album is dedicated to his legacy and lasting influence. Spiritual Jazz 15: A Tribute to 'Trane shi…

*2024 stock* "Nature rejoices in simplicity. And nature is no fool, as Isaac Newton knew. A tree. A fruit. A touch. A look. A flavour that awakens memories. A sound that transports us to a foreign land and back to ourselves. Like that of Kurt Rosenwinkel and his baritone guitar on these eight, with one exception, completely improvised solo pieces. This music is much more than the skilful ordering of notes. It is intoxication and clarity, calm and movement. And because there is only one musician …

Tip! The word Asapani is part of the artistic vocabulary of Paolo "Batà" Bianconcini, percussionist of the La Scimmia Records collective, founding member of the Circolo Psiconautico and part of the Neapolitan bands Parbleu, Funkin' Machine and Nu Genea. This ancient-sounding term is a creation of the artist, who defines it as a word of nature, but also the (italian) acronym of Listen to the Silence, Listen to the Peace, Listen to the Inner Nothingness. More than a simple term, an exhortation.  T…

Pharoah Sanders recorded the songs that comprise Thembi in the winter of ’70/’71, in between  sessions with Alice Coltrane that would eventually become her masterpiece Journey In Satchidananda LP. The same compelling spirituality that embued Coltrane’s masterpiece with a mood of stately calm and grace pervades Thembi. ‘On Thembi, that was the first time that I ever touched a Fender Rhodes electric piano. We got to the studio in California — Cecil McBee had to unpack his bass, the drummer had to …

In March of 2023 composer, arranger & alto saxophonist Cassie Kinoshi premiered a commissioned suite of music in front of a sold out crowd at London’s Southbank Centre. She wrote the piece – gratitude – for her flagship large ensemble seed., in a special augmented formation that also featured turntablist NikNak and the London Contemporary Orchestra (LCO). Followers of UK Jazz know Kinoshi from her previous work with seed. (including the Mercury Prize-nominated album Driftglass, released by jazz …

MajoIe Hajary is an atypical musician. Born in Paramaribo (Suriname) to Indian parents and raised in Amsterdam. In 1970, in France, accompanied by the best Jazz musicians and with arrangements by Roger Guerin, she recorded “La Passion Selon Judas”. The result was an incredible fusion of Psych, Funk, Indian and Jazz elements – deep religious Jazz in the vein of Jef Gilson.

**333 copies, one-time pressing**  Volume 11. 2 disc set documenting the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra in concert at the Immanuel United Church of Christ - April 27, 1980. This is the eleventh and final concert that Tom Albach recorded at Immanuel United Church of Christ. Easily ranking as one of our favorite performances of the series, its also destined to be considered one of the greatest Arkestra live recordings, brimming with intense energy and culminating in the 1-2 punch of a blazing “Lelan…

** 333 copies, one-time pressing ** 2CD SET in gatefold slipcase  2 disc set documenting the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra in concert at the Immanuel United Church of Christ - November 25, 1979. This is the eighth in a series of eleven concerts recorded at the church. This month sees the Arkestra stretching out and reaching blissful heights… the 30+ minute long version of “Carnival” is worth the price of admission alone, but the same could be said for the monumental “Nation Rising” or the deep ta…

In a truly monumental event, De Occulta Records launches their brand new Willisau Jazz Series - drawing on 30 years (1968 - 1998) of incredible live recordings made at the legendary Swiss musical institution, Willisau Jazz Festival, by its founder Niklaus Troxler - with “Live at Mohren, March 25th 1984”, comprising an astounding and never before heard, 75-minute performance by Sun Ra and his Arkestra.

*2024 stock*I n his review of Exta, the critic Brian Olewnick commented that “there's a tendency on the part of [John Tilbury's] younger companions to defer a bit to him”, adding that, in his view, this was not “necessarily a bad strategy”. In this encounter, their first as a trio, John Edwards and Mark Sanders do not defer to Tilbury at all, and it proves to be perhaps the best strategy of all. This is a vigorous music of equals, the democratic clamour of three distinct personalities committed …

*300 copies limited edition* Tucked away in a corner of northwestern Europe and so small you could drive through it in minutes without noticing you were ever there, Luxembourg is often overlooked. This is also true for Luxembourg’s music scene, and even more so in the early 1980s. Aside from a string of victories at the annual Eurovision song contest or the mighty Radio Luxembourg that had for decades been blasting jazz, rock and other modern music into stolid Western European ears, very little …

PNL Records and Audiographic Records are thrilled to announce the release of the seven CD boxset, Paal Nilssen-Love & Ken Vandermark: Japan 2019. This co-production includes live recordings by this long-standing duo from their 16-date concert tour of Japan, as well as new collaborations with legendary Japanese musicians: Akira Sakata (reeds/voice), Masahiko Satoh (piano), and Yuji Takahashi (piano). The Nilssen-Love/Vandermark is an internationally acclaimed percussion/reed duo and has been in c…

Tip! To abandon animals for music – and avant-garde jazz at that –, could seeming shocking to some people. However, it is exactly what Manuel Villarroel did, as he was a vet for three years before leaving his native Chili for Europe and a career in music. And though the animals may have suffered, the world of music can be grateful. Born in 1944, Manuel Villarroel lent an ear to the best pianists from North America: Oscar Peterson and Erroll Garner then Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner and Cecil Taylo…

Tip! Before coming to Europe, in 1970, pianist Manuel Villarroel was a vet in his native Chili. A few years later, as leader of the Machi Oul Big Band, he returned to the animal kingdom. A very specific kind of animal, for sure, the Quetzalcoatl, also known as the Feathered Serpent. What is behind this title (also the name of one of the three original compositions on this album released on the Palm label in 1976), is first and foremost a sort of homecoming… After discovering the jazz of Herbie H…

*300 copies limited edition*New release on NoBusiness from two of the best reed instruments' veterans. Mats Gustafsson – slide flute, flute, baritone sax and live electronicsLiudas Mockūnas – sopranino, soprano, reedless soprano, overtone, bass sax and contrabass clarinet

A vinyl reissue, in Ecm new audiophile Luminessence series, for Kenny Wheeler’s sensational ECM leader debut. Recorded in New York in 1975, and produced by Manfred Eicher, Gnu High brought Canadian trumpeter Wheeler to a new level of international acclaim, for both his impassioned playing and his profoundly lyrical writing. Here Kenny is fronting an extraordinary quartet, with Keith Jarrett, Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette, all masterful improvisers who had shaped their intuitive collective und…

The New Quartet stands as a landmark in modern jazz, capturing Gary Burton at a creative peak and introducing a band of extraordinary new voices. Recorded in March 1973 at Aengus Studios and now reissued in ECM’s “Luminessence” series, this album features Burton’s radiant vibraphone alongside guitarist Mick Goodrick, bassist Abraham Laboriel (in his debut recording), and drummer Harry Blazer. The album’s repertoire is a showcase of jazz’s evolving language, with compositions by Chick Corea, Keit…

Brazilian percussionist Naná Vasconcelos’s Saudades album, recorded in March 1979, was the culmination of a dream for a musician who had long yearned to hear the berimbau in an orchestral context. This ‘concerto’ for an innovative player of a traditional instrument was made possible with the creative input of Egberto Gismonti, here the arranger of the material for strings, as well as co-composer and supporting soloist. The Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart was conducted by Mladen Gutesha (who h…

Hot on the heels of Old Friends, New Friends comes Old And New Dreams, an operation meant as a new flagship for Ornette Coleman, whose lack of enthusiasm for the project left a gap duly filled by Dewey Redman. The result is this delightful excursion into post-bop outlands that sounds as alive as ever. Two Coleman pieces comprise nearly half of its duration—which is saying much, for like many of ECM’s joints of the 70s, this one breezes by in under 50 minutes. The first Coleman piece, “Lonely Wom…