Jazz & Improvisation / All styles

Japanese label P-Vine sure know how to pick out the essential spiritual jazz reissues. This is another gold standard that came originally on Strata East in 1974. Vocals feature throughout and often soar to the highest of heights and make it a charismatic album. Sample hounds and hip hop lovers might well recognise the track 'Optimystical' which has been pillaged by Detroit great Andres before now. Elsewhere there is real freeform magic on 'Music Is Nothing But A Prayer', cosmic exploration on 'T…

TIp! *Tone Poet serie. Highly recommended audiophiles new master* Muscular tenorsaxophonist featured several times in recordings for the blue label, Harold Vick signed only one album as leader for Blue Note: here it is, and it is a fine album. The company was of the most inspiring: Blue Mitchell (another underrated...) on trumpet, the tandem of friends Grant Green (on guitar) / John Patton (on Hammond organ) and Ben Dixon on drums. An album to rediscover.

TIp! *Tone Poet serie. Highly recommended audiophiles new master* An album as representative as ever of the most avant-garde wing within that extraordinary laboratory called Blue Note: the reinventor of the vibraphone Bobby Hutcherson here (this is 1966) joins Joe Henderson on tenor sax, McCoy Tyner on piano, Herbie Lewis on double bass and Billy Higgins on drums to record a memorable album, including original compositions and a danceable 'Una muy bonita', a well-known Tex-Mex flavour track by O…

This release presents one of John Coltrane's last preserved live performances ever. Taped in Philadelphia with excellent sound quality, this set presents Coltrane playing probably the freest version of Naima, along with readings of two more of his compositions: Crescent and a powerful version of Leo. Coltrane died shortly after this performance at the age of 40 on July 11, 1967.

Radio broadcast of a daytime performance at The Penthouse, Seattle, Washington, September 30, 1965 taped by an amateur fan.

Sublime solo piano from Masaru Imada – a Japanese player with talents in a range of different styles, but who sounds especially nice up-close here in an intimate setting! Imada's got a way of letting a tune really find its way organically – almost as if the songs here are little flowers opening up in his fingers on the keyboard of the piano – although never in a style that's "flowery" at all, because Imada's a master of finding just the right notes at the right moment – never embellishing things…

Imada's second outing for Three Blind Mice, recorded across two January days in 1973 at Tokyo's Aoi Studio under Takeshi "Tee" Fujii's production. The record's structure follows from a negotiation between artist and producer: Masaru Imada had proposed a straight solo ballad recital; Fujii agreed to the conception but pressed him to balance the standards programme with a working-trio half devoted to his own writing. The LP that resulted is deliberately split — four solo readings on side one (Mist…

Japanese free jazz pioneer and trumpeter Itaru Oki, who passed away in August 2020, was active mainly in Europe. He was one the key players in the development of a distinctively Japanese take on free jazz in the Tokyo scene of the late 1960s and early 70s, leading his own power trio and collaborating with other formative names like percussionist Masahiko Togashi and bassist Keiki Midorikawa. His last recording (recorded live on October 7, 2018) was a 75-minute improvisation with legendary Masahi…

Tip! For the 8th edition of Mats Gustafsson's NU Ensemble, Gustafsson focused on the current state of the world, „Hidros 8 Heal" is an attempt to rise and find the questions about the state of things. there is an extreme unbalance on local and global levels at the moment — from ideological, economical, cultural and political perspectives – and we need an equilibrium of some sorts very soon. can it heal ? what can make it all heal? and for how long can it heal? Anna Högberg - alto and baritone sa…

For most though, this Detroit Soul Jazz veteran will likely be unknown, and unfortunately so because not only was Sanders a great saxophonist with his own warm and lyrical post-bop sound, he was an important fixture of historical significance in the Detroit jazz . "Prior to forming Visions, Sanders and trumpeter Marcus Belgrave fronted a band with pianist Harold McKinney called the Creative Profile. Belgrave and Sanders would continue to perform together, often with Sanders' big band, the Pionee…

Following her successful debut album After Dark, new ideas have led Whiting to create Lost in Abstraction. More than the expected ethereal washes of sound, the album playfully embraces her many influences into a soundscape of modernity. With rhythmical energies and the indulgent richness of an instrument so often associated with Ashby and Coltrane, the album resonates, leaving the listener lost in abstraction. "This album explores so many elements of life. From my influences in music, to my own …

Universe in Blue is a rarity. After-hours music, showcasing Sun Ra's twisted take on the Blues, these live recordings from 1972 provide an intriguing glimpse of the Arkestra’s repertoire and virtuosity at the close of their first decade playing in New York, and brought him to the greater attention of the New York press and helped cement his reputation for audacious showmanship. Ra and his band performed at the famed East Village Slug's almost every Monday night for several years through the late…

Over the last half-decade Saxophonist and composer James Brandon Lewis has emerged as one of the most exciting figures in jazz and improvised music, a voracious listener who rejects stylistic hierarchies and one that has feverishly explored new ideas and embraced fresh motivations with every new project. Inspired by molecular biology, he develops a special system for a surprising and beautiful music with his Quartet with drummer Chad Taylor, pianist Aruán Ortiz, and bassist Brad Jones. He has ta…

Three improvisers having fun and taking risks. The classic piano-less jazz trio reinvented by mixing melodies, dirty sounds, noises, extended techniques and references to tradition with a quasi-punk approach.

An all-round musician, Cristiano Calcagnile defines his trio with these words: "Anchored low and hanging high, the trio vibrates in the belly like a single string". A trio with double bass and drums that takes into account the more modern sonorities of this classic formation but at the same time insinuates and welcomes sounds and attitudes that come from the freest experiences in the history of improvised music. Giorgio Pacorig pianoGabriele Evangelista double bassCristiano Calcagnile drums, per…

Tip! "It is my great pleasure to introduce you to the second volume of the "Japanese Jazz Spectacle" series. Following the first compilation which focused on recordings from the Nippon Columbia catalog, this time we are digging into the King Records archives. It is almost impossible to capture the whole picture of Wa-Jazz in a couple of compilation albums since it is such a broad and deep genre, however, by extracting tracks from the Nippon Columbia and King Records collections - both labels hav…

"Hey, there's this new guy around that plays like Herbie Hancock!!". When Chilean pianist Matías Pizarro arrived in Argentina fleeing Pinochet's dictatorship, word spread like wildfire in the local jazz scene. In the two short years that Pizarro spent in Buenos Aires, he became one third of the Viejas Raíces project alongside local jazz heroes Jorge López Ruiz and Pocho Lapouble, recorded with famed Italian trumpeter Enrico Rava and released his own solo album, Pelo de Rata ("Rat's hair"). Pizar…

Essential jazz from Argentina, originally released in 1971. Bronca Buenos Aires is one of the highlights in the career of Jorge López Ruiz, alongside El Grito and the much-acclaimed Viejas Raíces project. The album is jazz poem by López Ruiz to the city he loved, not just for its virtues but also its faults, and the recording was an ambitious project that gathered many of the prominent jazz musicians of Buenos Aires. However, due to the repressive political context of the time, Bronca Buenos Air…

South-african jazz-rock worshippers alert ! Assagai was an Afro-rock band, active in the early 1970s in London, whose relatively short career produced two albums recorded in 1971. It has been described as "the second best-known African group of the late 60s/early 70s in Britain" after Osibisa. The original band consisted of five members, three from South Africa and two from Nigeria: drummer Louis Moholo, trumpeter/flautist Mongezi Feza, alto saxophonist Dudu Pukwana, tenor saxophonist Bizo Mngqi…

2025 Repress. Dorothy Ashby album from 1961 that also features female vibes player Terry Pollard. Comes with a version of The Skatalites 'Guns of Navarone' which is a pretty surreal listening experience. From the original liner notes: "Dorothy Ashby may not be the first jazz harpist (Caspar Reardon) or the first female jazz harpist (Adele Girard), but her good feeling for time and ability to construct melodic, guitar-like lines, mark her as the most accomplished modern jazz harpist (...) Accompa…

The inventive jazz pianist and noted Miles Davis collaborator Bill Evans made lasting impact from the mid-1950s. After a New Jersey childhood disrupted by his father’s alcoholism, Evans obtained a scholarship to study composition in Louisiana. Arrivinging in New York in the '50s, he began working with composer and multi-instrumentalist George Russell, releasing his debut solo album, New Jazz Conceptions, in 1956. Evans' true breakthrough came through his membership of Miles Davis' sextet, where …

Those already familiar with the classic 1970 Lansdowne Recordings album Greek Variations & Other Aegean Exercises by Neil Ardley, Don Rendell and Ian Carr will immediately recognise the four compositions on this EP from the closing segment of that collection. The versions included here however, are taken from a separate session recorded around the same time and reveal that Rendell had a grander vision for them than simply to round off a collaborative album. Not only are the tracks here nearly 20…

Strut continues their work from the archives of Idris Ackamoor and The Pyramids with a first ever vinyl release of Ackamoor’s debut avant-garde / Afro-jazz recordings from 1971 with The Collective, based out of Yellow Springs, Ohio. The group was formed after Ackamoor had returned to Antioch from a spell in L.A. under the wing of influential saxophonist Charles Tyler. Pianist Lester Knibbs had been appointed to the Antioch college music department as an assistant professor and had followed a sim…

Limited Edition Gatefold Double Vinyl (includes two artprints of Sun Ra and Marshall Allen by Damon Locks, on special gilded 300 gr paper by Black Monument Ensemble’s Damon Locks, 180 gr 2LP in black, obi strip, special cut vinyl sleeves, gatefold jacket, double sided insert sheet, gold foil stamped cover art.) For more than two decades, the disciple that has most visibly carried on Sun Ra Arkestra’s legacy and sound is their musical director, alto saxophonist Marshall Allen, the iconic fire br…

4x CD Box set in printed fold-over CD case release from Strut Records. With a 32-page b&W info booklet featuring extended interviews with The Pyramids by Francis Gooding and a host of unseen photos.  A brand new 4CD 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 Birth / Speed / Merging alongside the first ever vinyl issue of their live session for K…

Uniquely orchestrated with all three members bringing a trove of objects & percussion, the trio of Martin Küchen on saxophones, Agustí Fernández on piano and Zlatko Kaučič on drums are heard in this two-part live concert at BUMF festival in Smartno, Slovenia, for a superb example of intent listening and use of space around confident, stunningly creative & virtuosic playing.

Dedicated to the memory of reed & wind players Perry Robinson and Mark Whitecage, both of whom have passed since they took part in this tremendous 2015 live recording recorded at the 20th VisionFest in NYC, in a quartet with bassist Ken Filiano and drummer Lou Grassi for three collective free jazz, particularly the extended first improvisation dedicated to late trumpeter Roy Campbell.

The 3rd album from the touring trio of Joe McPhee on trumpet & tenor sax, John Edwards on double bass and Klaus Kugel on drums, following their previous NotTwo releases A Night In Alchemia and Journey To Parazzar, here captured live at FreeJazzSaar 2019, in Saarbrucken, Germany for a boisterously exciting set of three collective improvisations, including a tip of the hat to Charles Gayle.

Not Two presents the latest recording by The Nu Band: Thomas Heberer - trumpet, Kenny Wessel - guitar, Joe Fonda - bass, Lou Grassi - drums & percussion. May 16, 2022, at Tedesco Studios, Paramus, NJ

** 2LP exclusive 25th Anniversary release **  Finally this day has come - Not Two Records together with Wschodnie Triady and No Earplugs proudly present you special edition of Ground Zero Plays Standards 2-LPs exclusive 25th Anniversary release! Legendary Ground Zero Plays Standards has been released in 1997 for Nani Records, then reissued for DIW (2000) and ReR (2002). So far it has only been released on CD, until this day. Vinyl edition is available now in limited copies. The vinyl master was …

The title of Tom Skinner’s first release under his own name is a reference to cellist Abdul Wadud’s ultra-rare 1978 solo album ‘By Myself’, which Skinner listened to repeatedly during lockdown. Wadud’s album was privately pressed on his own label, Bisharra, and whilst Skinner’s title uses the more conventional spelling of this common Arabic name, they both have the same intention or meaning: it translates as ‘good news’, or ‘the bringer of good news’. This is a classic-sounding record that conne…

Flowing water is an essential element of Earthly existence, a living force, a process of nature, a path-making which combines infinite sources mixing imperceptibly into a singular energy. It’s also a potent metaphor. A childlike wonder at flowing water’s presence and power, all the impressions it makes and creative neurons that it fires, happens to be a personality trait shared by Evan Shornstein (aka Photay) and Carlos Niño. The two producers/musical connectors may have grown up and reside a co…

*Limited edition of 555 copies.* Atalaya is new work by bassist Dezron Douglas, and it is alive. That is, ‘alive’ in all the ways that jazz is at its best – as a pure and personal expression of Black Music channeled through time-honored traditions by a group of musicians who practice sonic coherence through musical unity. As Dezron puts it in the opening statement of his liner notes for the album: “Mysticism, Magic, Faith, Love, Power, Discernment! These are words that embody the creative proces…

Gondwana Records present ‘Next Time Could Be Your Last Time’ – the debut album by Forgiveness, AKA Jack Wyllie, JQ and Richard Pike. Described as “not really jazz, not really new age, not really ambient or electronica”, instead they welcome you into a synaesthesia-inducing technicolour fantasy, full of wondrous emotive beauty. This genesis began with the sharing of music, burgeoning friendships, and the mutually-inspirational benefit of the collective power of a group dynamic, with each spurring…

100 copies on Yellow cassette shell. John kolodij - guitar, banjo, etc, anna rg - fiddle, sarah hennies - percussion Mastered by Stephan MathieuArtwork by Myste FrenchLayout by Tiny Little Hammers

First pressing of 200 on gold foil cassette shells. Tracks A1-B5 recorded July 5th & 6th, 2003 at The Black Eye by Jeff Ottenbacher, and mixed at Funsize Studio by Jeff Ottenbacher. Track B6 is a live improvisation by Vernacular & Black Ox Orkestar at the Grog Shop in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, in the Fall of 2004. J-card text: Thanks to Ed Sotelo, Jason Schafer, Cynthia Piper, Clinton Holley, and Jeff Ottenbacher. Extra special thanks to Amiri Baraka (rest in power), the members of Black Ox Orkes…

In 1970, the Virgilio Armas Trio released De Repente on the tiny Discos A&B label, very likely a one-off, self-financed project. Virgilio Armas recalls: “The nightlife in Caracas of the 1950’s and 1960’s inspired me to record an album in 1970, with songs influenced by the Jazz, Bossa and Latin genres. De Repente was created with my beloved Piano, and my long-time musical partners Rodolfo Buenaño (bass) and Guillermo Tariba (drums).” The style is very much influenced by the harder post-Bossa Nova…

We Are Busy Bodies announces the reissue of the rare and sought-after 1973 Venezuelan jazz album Espejismo ('Mirage') by Virgilio Armas Y Su Grupo, offering a fascinating snapshot of the thriving music scene in early 1970's Caracas, until now largely undocumented because of the musical dominance of Venezuela’s far larger southern neighbour, Brazil. Pianist and bandleader Virgilio Armas skilfully combined Latin Jazz, post-bossa swing (Balanço), with home-grown variants of Son Cubano, Montuno, Mer…

We Are Busy Bodies reissues Sadayasu Fujii Trio's 1977 album, Like A Child. Led by pianist, Sadayasu Fujii, the album includes jazz standards "A Sleepin' Bee" and "If I Should Lose You", along with original compositions.

The music Coltrane, Tyner and others did back in their prime made a sizable ripple in jazz. Many went on to emulate their style well after the originators either died or moved on. For the most part I find these emulator (or keepers of the flame, to be more polite) to be either alright or great. Kohsuke Mine Quintet is one of those greater ones. They're relatively obscure from what I gather, releasing only a few albums back in the 70s and a resurgence album in the 90s but their music is much more…