Jazz & Improvisation / All styles

New Map is based on open-form “cells” of concrete ideas, notes and directions that the musicians had to respond to. The 22-minute title piece swings - sometimes, literally - back and forth between subtle percussive games, mysterious and sensual orchestral-chamber dynamics, anchored by harpist Krüger, accordionist Kalle Moberg and trumpeter Köster, and raw, noisy and abstract improvisations led by sax players Lea, Klaus Ellerhusen Holm, Kristoffer Berre Alberts and Finnish electronics player Tomm…

On Clusterfuck, Nilssen-Love used graphic notations. The 24-minute title piece pushes the Large Unit to urgent and ecstatic blowouts but this powerful sonic adventure is often punctuated by playful, or subtle and reflexive, improvised solos. Eventually, the Large Unit exhausts its whole energy in the explosive coda before letting Moberg and Keränen end this piece. Nilsson-Love, second drummer Andreas Wildhagen and percussionist Celio de Carvalho navigate “Bubbles” to even more intense and energe…

"At first glance this new CD on PNL looks like familiar territory - a trio recording with two known collaborators of Nilssen-Love: Accordionist Kalle Moberg have become a steady and important voice of the Large Unit sound over the last ten years, and Frode Gjerstad truly needs no introduction - him and Nilssen-Love have played together for 30+ years. And while this trio is a new constellation, a combination that is good news in itself, "Time Sound Shape" offers another, bigger surprise: this is …

*2023 stock* Over the years the fantastic, genre-defying Norwegian label Rune Grammofon has published a few books mostly celebrating its own snazzy design aesthetic and rich history, but a gorgeous new volume by art historian Johannes Rød focuses more on the music and artifacts that have influenced label owner Rune Kristofferson, who penned one of the forwards for Free Jazz and Improvisation on Vinyl 1965-1985 (there’s a second one by notorious “discaholic” and reedist Mats Gustaffson). Rød deli…

Evil in Oslo represents the Hedwig Mollestad Trio at a critical juncture in their musical development. It was released on the same day as their studio offering Black Stabat Mater. Though both are comprised of Mollestad compositions, they couldn't be more different. Black Stabat Mater is tighter, its musical terrain is more easily discerned as jazz-rock. Evil in Oslo is a different beast. Recorded in two clubs, its tracks feature jams from Mollestad's first three albums in four medleys. It's a si…

Rune Grammofon mainstay Hedvig Mollestad joins forces with legendary 12-piece Trondheim Jazz Orchestra on her latest prog-jazz-metal opus.

*2023 stock* Geir Sundstøl has made a name for himself as an innovative session musician on hundreds of Norwegian and international albums. 2015 saw the release of Furulund, the first self-composed long player from this Master of Strings. Langen Ro, Norwegian Grammy winner Brødløs and St.Hanshaugen Steel, followed soon after. Now, the stage is set for something quite different. The Studio Intim Sessions, Volume 1, Sundstøl's fifth solo album, has taken a trip on its own, away from the cinematic …

*2023 stock* "Trond has been compared with guitar calibers such as Bill Frisell and Ry Cooder among a number of reviewers. "Bedehus & Hawaii" locates Trond Kallevåg at the right height on the heels of Ry Cooder and Bill Frisell. " - Jazzaroundmag. On "Fengselsfugl" (prisonbird in english) Trond takes the listener into musical landscape inspired by his job as music teacher in Oslo Prison. Isolation, hope, darkness and the ballads inside the prisons in the 18th century are some key words that desc…

White double LP version. Their first two albums, Exit and Enter, were presented with sizable and ambitious line-ups of 28 musicians. Ritual saw it reduced to 21 and with Arrival it's been trimmed down to a "mere" 14, with the core trio of Fire! (Mats Gustafsson, Johan Berthling, and Andreas Werliin) and the two singers Mariam Wallentin and Sofia Jernberg being the only constant members since the beginning. Apart from this reduction, the main line-up difference is the introduction of a string qua…

Legendary composer/producer David Axelrod's album, Heavy Axe, is a jazz-rock opus that encapsulated the sound of the mid-70s.With help from iconic players Johnny "Guitar" Watson, Cannonball Adderley and George Duke, the album moves between lush funk sounds, full round low end, and majestic orchestral flourishes that made Axelrod's sonic realm a goldmine for sample-hungry hip-hop beatmakers from the '90s to today.180-gram LP remastered from the original tapes and packaged in a tip-on jacket.

In between being one of the most recorded studio drummers of all time (the Purdie Shuffle graced everything from Aretha Franklin to Steely Dan), Bernard Purdie squeezed in a few sessions of his own.Purdie Good! was recorded early in 1971 by legendary engineer and audio obsessive Rudy Van Gelder at his bespoke studio, and it masterfully balances three Purdie-penned originals with three covers of hits-du-jour, utmost among them a blazing romp through James Brown’s Cold Sweat.This 180-gram reissue …

Gábor Szabó was one of the most original guitarists to emerge in the 1960s, mixing his Hungarian folk music heritage with a deep love of jazz and crafting a distinctive, largely self-taught sound. This evocative 1967 set for Impulse! features nine live tracks recorded at Boston's Jazz Workshop, capturing Szabó and his finest working group at their peak.

Ahmad Jamal is a jazz giant and The Awakening is his iconic masterpiece. The landmark deep trio session - recorded in NYC and released on Impulse! in 1970 - is an essential album and perennially sought-after on vinyl, so Be With Records are delighted to make it available again. As a “Zen master of jazz piano” and one of its greatest innovators, Jamal evolved his elegant sound with this adventurous record. The Awakening showcased his fast, richly melodic chops in remarkable variation. A consummat…

The first ever reissue of Juju’s powerful 1973 album for Strata-East, ‘A Message From Mozambique’.  The roots of Juju started in San Francisco after Plunky had met his musical mentor, Zulu musician Ndikho Xaba, helping to form his band Ndikho and The Natives. Three members of The Natives (Plunky, bassist Ken Shabala and vibes / flute player Lon Moshe) then joined Marvin X’s theatrical production The Resurrection Of The Dead, joining local musicians Al-Hammel Rasul (keyboards), Babatunde Lea (per…

Radha-Krsna Nama Sankirtana was the first of two albums Alice Coltrane released in 1977 (the other being Transcendence). Coltrane's music during this period grew out of an epiphany in which she would renounce secular life and don the orange robes of a swamini (spiritual teacher in the Hindu tradition). Musically, this meant leaving jazz behind (at least partially) and embracing the chants and rhythms of devotional music. The first half of Radha-Krsna is mostly filled with simple arrangements of …

What a record! The outstanding Solar Plexus, the much-loved third album from Ian Carr and Nucleus, was first released on Vertigo in 1971. Inevitably, original copies are now very tricky to score and, like all the Nucleus records, it’s aged ridiculously well. This Be With re-issue, re-mastered from the original analogue tapes, shows off just why this deserves to be back in press.

Their masterpiece? With breaks for dayyyyyys and an almost ambient, heavy jazz atmosphere throughout, *this* is the apex of British jazz-rock fusion. We'll Talk About It Later was first released on Vertigo in 1971 and original copies are now very tricky to score. Like all the Nucleus records, it’s aged ridiculously well and this Be With re-issue, re-mastered from the original analogue tapes, shows off just why this deserves to be back in press.

Nucleus's Elastic Rock is undisputedly a milestone in Jazz-Rock. A beautiful and vital debut album, it was first released on Vertigo in 1970. Original copies are now very tricky to score and, like all the Nucleus records, it’s aged ridiculously well. This Be With re-issue, re-mastered from the original analogue tapes, shows off just why this deserves to be back in press.

The distinctive rolling grooves, growling basslines and blasting horns of Snakehips Etcetera combined to present Nucleus's most energetic record. First released on Vertigo in 1975, original copies of Snakehips Etcetera are now very tricky to score. Like all the Nucleus records, it’s aged ridiculously well and this Be With re-issue, re-mastered from the original analogue tapes, shows off just why this deserves to be back in press.

On their first stand-alone record as a duo, Ken Vandermark and Hamid Drake celebrate their 30+ year playing relationship with an electrifying live set of pieces, all featuring music composed by legendary free jazz musician Don Cherry.

A never before issued recording of Horace Tapscott leading his legendary Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, 'Live at I.U.C.C. 11/26/78' documents the entirety of a nearly two-hour performance that rises as one of the most beautiful, striking, and historically important releases of the year. The first in a series of eleven volumes planned by the label for 2023, this 2CD set is limited to 250 copies only and is already sold-out at source. A joyous explosion of sound, seeded by social, political, and co…

** Much-needed 2023 Repress **By the late '70s, Alice Coltrane had largely gravitated away from jazz, incorporating Hindu chants and hymns into her music to reflect a newfound sense of creative omnipotence. However, in April 1978, she would return to her roots, performing at University of California, Los Angeles to make her first and only live album. Transfiguration, featuring drummer Roy Haynes and bassist Reggie Workman, showcases Alice's many compositional talents and fierce improvisatory abi…

**2023 Much-needed Repress** Transcendence was not only Alice Coltrane's last studio album for Warner Bros., it would also be her last studio work for nearly three decades. While Eternity and Radha-Krsna Nama Sankirtana followed the composer's muse through an exciting range of musical styles and influences, Transcendence is perhaps the most fully realized of the three LPs, synthesizing the best elements of each into a monumental whole. Side one consists of intimate compositions with Alice's poin…

After a creative break of more than 10 years the Contemporary Noise Ensemble returns with the brand new album called "An Excellent Spiritual Serviceman”. With the band’s line-up reduced and the sound of the brass section replaced with programmable synthesizers comes an entirely new sound of the band’s music. Leaning towards composition instead of improvisation the music is now less jazzy sounding - with electric bass being used instead of double bass and drums actually being the only strictly ac…

Originally released in 1979 on Mistlur Records in Sweden, Nyanser is widely considered Thomas Almvqvist’s masterpiece.

The impossibly cool 1973 album What's Going On from Late, Great Japanese Funk & Jazz Don Takehiro Honda which swings through jazz orchestral renditions of American R&B and Funk Classics like Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On, "Otis Redding's "Sitting On The Dock of the Bay," and James Brown's "Ain't It Funky Now" turning them into the most Down Home, Grits 'N' Gravy Grooviest Versions and sounding like they were recorded at the studio of the band that taught the Memphis Rhythm Sections all they eve…

French non-jazz trio overflowed by Simple Music Experience’s funders Tamara Goukassova, Théo Delaunay and Alexandre Larcier, offering a 40mn of non-simple music madness, and navigating between a dozen of etiquettes from undecided space rock to motorik-infused-dub, medieval folk, cartoon trance; everything under the seal of psychedelia and half-improvisation.Built from drums, violin, springs, samples, reiterations, overdubs, trumpets, synths, distortions; and the appearances of L. Cedrón (Fiesta …

Dave Rempis and Tim Daisy are two musicians whose work together over the last 25 years has been the cornerstone of countless improvising bands: Triage, Vandermark Five, Rempis Percussion Quartet, The Engines, Earscratcher, and their longstanding duo, to name a few. Over the last decade they’ve purposely found ways to shake their interaction up, reconstructing and redefining the possibilities to keep the music moving forward. Part of that approach has involved bringing in countless musicians as g…

Jazz In Britain was very fortunate recently to receive a large collection of reel tapes and discover three early seventies Barbara Thompson sessions amongst it, sessions that we don’t believe have been circulated before. The label proposed to Barbara’s daughter Ana Gracey to produce an album using these three sessions as a way of raising extra money for Cure Parkinson’s.The audio fidelity of these sessions reflects the fact that they were recorded on a very low speed tape machine but they presen…

After the successful 7-inch release of Agip, Roman producer and composer Azzurro 80 is back on Four Flies with another triple-single that continues his love affair with dreamy synth-pop and Italian Eighties culture and society.

Dynamite cuts gives you a wonderful hard to find Jazz 45, from the Canadian P.M label. Bernie Senensky, a superb piano player, set the pace with this Hard Piano driven jazz groove. With a little treasure on the flips with Beloved Gift, a superb interlude that ends with Heavy bass hip hop vibes

Edited exclusively for Dynamite Cuts, this 1972 African rhythm takes you to a time of human percussion, and energy, of another time. The entrancing, hypnotic saxophone and extraordinary vocals fill your ears like liquid gold. Sensational. The Last Poets are a group of poets and musicians, rising from the late 1960s African American civil rights movement. Jalaludin M. Nuriddin, an Army paratrooper who chose to go to jail instead of fight in the Vietnam War, founded the group in prison after conve…

Dynamite cuts, loves a touch of Jazz.It's such a pleasure to release this 7" 45rpm by Dave Grusin, a well-known Jazz pianist & music arranger –in both jazz, soul and film scores. Dynamite Cuts have selected two of his early jazz gems which just stand out. First up is one of my favorite original jazz tracks written by Mr. Grusin "Kaleidoscope" and what a stunning jazz track it is. I can't help but smile and jazz step around, whenever I hear it. For me, it's one of the greatest all-grooving, class…

Back in the 80s I became a big funky jazzy and soulful vinyl collector. Which opened the world of the late great Mr. Weldon Johnathan Irvine music, I managed to collect all of his LPs and singles back in the day. All have a place in my heart, back in the 90s I was also lucky enough to meet him. Licensing & Compiling for a small label called Hubbub records. Mr. Irvine was such a calm and gently person who just oozed music. He sadly passed away in 2002, which was a shock. But now years later It is…

"Following my recent phone call with Prof. Benson, I left him to continue his 92nd birthday celebrations with his family. We’d talked about his life, his music, his achievements. Throughout our conversation it struck me what a kind, humble and pleasant man he was. I felt that I was in the presence of greatness – not the egotistical greatness that emanates so often from high achievers, but that of someone who had simply won at life.“I was a music teacher. I wasn’t trying to make a record to compe…

"Following my recent phone call with Prof. Benson, I left him to continue his 92nd birthday celebrations with his family. We’d talked about his life, his music, his achievements. Throughout our conversation it struck me what a kind, humble and pleasant man he was. I felt that I was in the presence of greatness – not the egotistical greatness that emanates so often from high achievers, but that of someone who had simply won at life.“I was a music teacher. I wasn’t trying to make a record to compe…

Recorded in November 1969 at the US Embassy, Live In Ankara saw the adventurous jazz trumpeter Don Cherry performing with saxophonist Irfan Sümer, bassist Selçuk Sun, and drummer Okay Temiz, with arrangements by trumpeter Maffy Falay, who had introduced Cherry to Temiz in Stockholm. Mostly comprised of Cherry originals and adaptations of Turkish folk songs, there are one-off takes of compositions by Ornette Coleman and Pharoah Sanders as well, the sparse musical ensemble giving Cherry ample room…

Black Editions Archive is ecstatic to announce the next chapter in the Milford Graves Archive series, the double LP Children of the Forest, previously unreleased 1976 sessions with Hugh Glover and Arthur Doyle that re-write the book on Milford Graves' ensemble music of the 1970s. Graves recorded these sessions himself in his legendary Queens basement laboratory and workshop in the months immediately leading up to the March 1976 session that produced what many consider his most iconic album, Bäbi…

Cult album of Brazilian music finally reissued. Official reissue of this real tour de force of Brazilian creativity, where the mighty Naná Vasconcelos is joined by his friends Nelson Angelo and Novelli (both members of the legendary Clube da Esquina) to create one of the greatest Brazilian albums ever recorded outside of Brazil. The three musicians grasp here for the kind of musical freedom that could then only be achieved outside of their country. A boundary-pushing experimentation that makes y…

For Anyone That Knows You, an album of mostly piano solos by Josiah Steinbrick, was recorded not for smoothness or posterity but to emphasize the piano as object, the person playing it, and the moment it sounds. On three of the pieces, the saxophone of Sam Gendel hovers over the piano like a faint change in the light, adding resonance and gentle reinforcement rather than counterpoint. Three others are delicate renditions: “Green Glass” interprets an untitled recording by Quechuan folk musicians …