Jazz /
Change Is
The Don Rendell - Ian Carr quintet, created in 1963, was,a small Brit jazz group that took the country by storm and was well received in Europe and in limited circles in the United States. The band developed a unique sound that came out of hard bop and moved through many different phases, developing a unique musical language before they reached the mountain top of creative expresión.
Copenhagen, Bordeaux 1966 & Newport 1967 Live First Release
"These powerful performances from Copenhagen and Bordeaux, released officially here for the first time, and the Newport Festival in the U.S., provide further evidence of the music’s collective necessity – the true ensemble coordination which Ayler adopted, elaborated and romanticized, from his awareness of historic New Orleans precedents." - Art Lange
waxing | waning
Taupe’s latest album release, "waxing | waning" delivers jazz experimentalism, ‘skronk’, avant-rock, and electronics, by the Glasgow-based trio, due out via Minority Records. Across its seven tracks, "waxing | waning" captures Taupe’s approach – bold and boundarypushing – shaped by a fresh shift in the band’s dynamic and compositional approach. Taupe’s "waxing | waning", co-composed and realised by its players in a studio that was once an undertaker’s premises in Glasgow, is an absolutely affirm…
Universal Beings
The 2018 release of Universal Beings, in many ways, feels like the moment that the gates swung open for both Makaya McCraven and International Anthem. On one hand, it's a four-sided communal showcase of the inter-city exchange that had started to develop in the “new jazz” hubs, collecting group improvisations from New York, London, Chicago, and Los Angeles. On the other, it is an editing and post-production masterclass – the MVP of McCraven’s “organic beat music” concept – and a landmark moment …
Tonight At Noon
"Tonight At Noon" compiles tracks from two earlier recordings sessions: one session from 1957 with Jimmy Knepper on the trombone, the drummer Dannie Richmond, Saxophone player Shafi Hadi and the pianist Wade Legge, which were released on the album "The Clown" (Atlantic 1260). The second session took place in 1961 with Booker Ervin and Roland Kirk on the saxophone, Knepper, the bassist Doug Watkins, Mingus at the piano and Richmond on the drums, and was released on "Oh Yeah" (Atlantic SD 1377).
T…
Shadows
On Shadows, Magnus Carlson & The Moon Ray Quintet reconvene after a decade apart to steep 8 songs in late‑night jazz grain: slow burns, noir ballads and subtly psychedelic covers where Carlson’s voice moves like smoke through the band’s velvet swing.
Percussion Bitter Sweet
August 1961. Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Max Roach - the man who reinvented jazz drumming alongside Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie in the 1940s, the co-leader with Clifford Brown of the definitive hard bop quintet until tragedy struck in 1956 - enters the studio with something to say. Something that cannot wait. Something that demands a new language.
The year before, Roach had recorded We Insist! Freedom Now Suite for Candid Records, a searing response to the Civil Right…
Four For Trane
August 10, 1964. Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. A young saxophonist from Philadelphia enters the studio to record his first album as a leader for Impulse! Records. At his side, as co-producer, stands the man to whom he owes everything: John Coltrane. Archie Shepp was twenty-seven years old when Four For Trane was recorded - an age that in 1964 jazz still meant being an emerging voice. Born in Fort Lauderdale but raised in Philadelphia - the same Philadelphia as Coltrane, eleven…
Zawsze coś
*100 copies limited edition* "Ben Bekele does not exist. At least not the one I'm thinking of. It's a mix of memories and fantasies from the mid-80s when it was my father who visited Ethiopia, returning with two small drums, a couple of pictures and tons of tales. One of them was a story of a boy named Bekele, who taught him a traditional Ethiopian song.
Father passed this song on to us, as best as he could - now I'm having doubts as to what the message is actually about - but back then I was fa…
Selections from the Mozaik Archive
*250 copies limited edition* Mozaik began its journey under the oppressive aura of the 1980 coup in Turkey, singing songs of freedom from all around the world, eventually stepping into the more controversial areas of jazz, progressive rock and fusion with their own compositions. Whilst the post-coup music scene was dominated by apolitical pop music, Mozaik produced sophisticated lyrics and composed songs in unusual structures.
With a dynamic crew and a rotating list of songwriters in the band, M…
1981
Superb and underrated early '80s jazz fusion album showcasing authentic Brazilian grooves by one of the country's most famous flutists and saxophonists. Originally released by Som Da Gente, 1981 is a grooving fusion of baião rhythms, jazz funk, and Brazilian soul. Featuring his Gallery club band, Costita soars on sax, flute, and clarone, backed by Roberto Bomilcar and Dirceu. Recorded with full creative freedom, this rare LP captures the free spirit of Brazil's '70s & '80s jazz scene. Hector Cos…
Thereupon
Thereupon is the long-anticipated return of the all-star collaborative trio Fieldwork, which has been described by NPR as a “power trio for the new century.” This long-standing collective comprises three internationally revered innovators of contemporary music: alto saxophonist-composer Steve Lehman, pianist-composer Vijay Iyer, and drummer-composer Tyshawn Sorey. In the seventeen years since their last recording, Door (Pi), all three musicians have climbed to the pinnacle of the creative music …
New Trombone
Jazz fans rejoice: Curtis Fuller's seminal debut album, New Trombone, originally released on Prestige in 1957, is back in the spotlight. At just 23 years old, the Detroit-born trombonist arrived on the scene with a fluent, innovative style that marked a bold evolution for the trombone in jazz.
Backed by an all-star quintet – Sonny Red on alto sax, Hank Jones on piano, Doug Watkins on bass, and Louis Hayes on drums – Fuller delivers a powerhouse hard-bop session. The album bursts open with three …
Sonor
For a few fleeting moments during a sunset, the sky is cast a vivid shade of amber. A dramatic flare of colour, a moment belonging to both the day and the night. It is within this vibrant, ephemeral world, that Mongolian-born, Munich-based Enji has written her new album Sonor. Sonor is a record full of life and optimism, from an artist finding the beauty of existing between two worlds, much as a sunset does. Between the cultures of Mongolia and Germany, tradition and innovation, nostalgia and ex…
Much Les
Together with the saxophone player Eddie Harris, Les McCann was responsible for one of the best-sold albums in the whole history of jazz – "Swiss Movement" (Atlantic SD-1537). It was his debut album on the Atlantic label. 1968 saw the release of "Much Les" and elaborated it with new aspects of what McCann did best in his early years: his core sound was enhanced with a string section and Latin percussion. The result is convincing, appealing, and captivating throughout and is considered an underes…
Ornette!
Ornette Coleman, who died in June 2015 from cardiac arrest, must be counted as one of the most influential musicians in the jazz genre. His importance does not only lie in his ground-breaking recordings in the late Fifties and early Sixties, but lies more significantly in the educational effect of his work – in the fact that he always went beyond himself to the very end. Just a little more than a month after his ground-breaking release "Free Jazz", Coleman recorded the present album, in which he…
Listen Ship
Listen Ship is the latest masterpiece in the ever-expanding sound world of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Henry Threadgill, whom The New York Review of Books recently described as “one of American music’s great Romantics and a lifelong seeker of the sublime.” The new work is a suite for six acoustic guitars – including individual stylists such as Bill Frisell, Miles Okazaki and Brandon Ross – and two pianos that utilize Threadgill’s unique intervallic syntax to illuminate his idiosyncratic visi…
Coincidentia Oppositorum
Is an open dialogue of polarity possible? A dialogue of human existence in the cosmos and in nature, set against the backdrop of contemporary technology? That the feeling of being torn or detached is permanently inscribed in human nature is a truism. Yet we don’t always recognize the nature of this detachment—sometimes it seems like a separation from something immense, completely different from what humanity itself is. From a certain perspective, one could say that the many myths, symbols, ritua…
Remedy + Aki Takase
Remedy, the boundary-pushing collective known for their raw improvisational prowess, today announces the release of Remedy + Aki Takase, a luminous fusion of avant-garde jazz and experimental soundscapes. Teaming up with Japanese piano virtuoso Aki Takase—celebrated for her collaborations with legends like Lester Bowie and her pivotal role in global free jazz—this album marks a triumphant meeting of generations and genres.
Recorded live in Berlin's vibrant jazz scene, Remedy + Aki Takase capture…
SOM-HI!
Fundacja Słuchaj proudly announces the release of SOM-HI!, a breathtaking new album capturing the raw, telepathic interplay of four European free jazz visionaries: pianist Agustí Fernández, trumpeter Artur Majewski, saxophonist Albert Cirera, and drummer Ramon Prats. This recording erupts with the unbridled joy and ferocity of spontaneous creation, pushing the boundaries of improvisation into exhilarating new territory.
Recorded live in Barcelona, SOM-HI! distills the quartet's collective fire i…