Jazz /
Entupadas
1988 release ** "Sometimes with a touch of disdain, but it’s merely poetic, political reflection on an incomplete world—the only one we know. Beauty and cruelty, joy and sorrow. The piano, mastering every language, responds to the glowing voice of the singer: Romansh, German, English, French. Sweet, strict, harsh, thrilling, playful."
Gravity
Joona Toivanen Trio returns to We Jazz Records with their new album "Gravity", out 31 January 2025. A landmark work for the long standing group, the album showcases the forward-looking sound of the band, moving way beyond the basic scope of the "piano trio". There’s a startling sense of telepathy and intimacy at work in the music of the Joona Toivanen Trio, something you can glean from the opening moments of their latest album, Gravity. It’s that rare synergy that can only come with years of tim…
Out Of Self and Into Others
Helsinki tenor saxophonist Jussi Kannaste's debut album as a band leader has been a long time coming. A top musician in the local scene revered by his contemporaries and sought after as a band member, Kannaste now presents his new work Out Of Self and Into Others on We Jazz Records. His quartet, Kannaste4, brings together Finnish musicians Tomi Nikku (of Bowman Trio) and Joonas Riippa, plus Berlin-based Swedish bassist Petter Eldh (of Koma Saxo / Post Koma and Y-OTIS), and features an all origi…
Unknown Music 1: Alien Letter
2005 release ** "Painter, guitarist, composer, and free author Steffen Basho-Junghans lives in Berlin and Thuringia, Germany. He has been highly influential on the eastern German guitar scene since the late '70s. Largely a self-taught artist and musician, his style is best categorized as eccentric and highly personal. Junghans uses steel-string acoustic guitars, combining archaic sounds with altered tunings and a plethora of divergent connections. Traditional European, American Indian, and Asian…
Beyond a Dream
"Beyond a Dream" is a live jazz album by saxophonist Pharoah Sanders and drummer Norman Connors, recorded on July 22, 1978, at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland and released in 1981 by Arista Novus. The album showcases a blend of spiritual and free jazz elements characteristic of Sanders' style, complemented by Connors' dynamic drumming. A reviewer from Dusty Groove described it as "a dream of a record from this legendary spiritual jazz duo."
Marion Brown In Sommerhausen
Alto saxophonist Marion Brown was an initially underrated hero of the jazz avant-garde. It was only after he moved from Atlanta to New York and joined John Coltrane that audiences and critics took notice. Dedicated to discovering the far-reaching possibilities of improvisational expression, Brown possessed a truly lyrical voice. In the early seventies, he played with Anthony Braxton, Andrew Cyrille, Bennie Maupin, Jeanne Lee, and Chick Corea, among others. On this recording he was accompanied by…
SoundScapes Festival # 4 Berlin 2023
"Finnish saxophonist Harri Sjöström has been calling Berlin home for nearly 40 years, and for over 10 of them, he has been organizing concerts at venues around the city, featuring a who-is-who of the city's rich improvisation scene and beyond, under the title "SoundScapes." Starting in 2016, he extended the concept and held the first two SoundScapes Festivals in Helsinki, followed by one in Munich, and then, finally, in his adopted hometown. SoundScapes #4 was held over two mid-autumn nights in …
Hipp Hipp Hooray
"Remedy’s “Hipp Hipp Hooray” honors the 100th birthday of pianist and composer Jutta Hipp, born February 4th, 1925, in Leipzig, Weimar Republic. Consisting of nine compositions loosely related to Hipp’s life story and output, the goal wasn’t to emulate the sound of her day but to get to the essence of Jutta Hipp’s spirit and tell her story through our artistic lens. A multi-level pioneer, Hipp was known as “Europe’s First Lady of Jazz,” the first woman ever to record as a leader for Blue Note Re…
Assemblage
Simon Nabatov - piano, live electronicsMark Helias - bassTom Rainey - drums
All music by Simon Nabatov (GEMA) except collectively improvised tracks 4,8,10,12
Ouelele Souskai
Marius Cultier was born in 1942 in Fort-de-France, Martinique. He was recognised a highly talented and gifted child who, at the age of nine, conducted with the L'Office de Radiodiffusion-Télévision Fançaise, the French national public broadcasting organisation. He also cut his teeth as a radio presenter, hosting a popular show 'Punch en Musique', a rapid and precocious rise that further cemented his name as a musical prodigy.
Cultier recorded his debut album in 1969 and by the mid-70s was crafti…
Babs Robert & The Love Planet
"Despite its modest role on the world stage, Belgium has produced a number of internationally renowned musicians and composers. There is the iconic gypsy jazz guitar maestro Django Reinhardt, whose position remains unassailable, and guitarist/harmonica player Toots Thielemans, who became an internationally renowned artist performing and recording with Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, Shirley Horn and Quincy Jones. The other key Belgian figure is composer/arranger Francy Bo…
Sentiments
"Of all the American jazz artists who relocated to Europe and Scandinavia in the 1950s and 1960s, Sahib Shihab remains one of the most highly regarded and versatile, yet least celebrated. Although mostly known as a key member of the Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band, Europe's leading big band of the 1960s, Shihab had a career that lasted 40 years characterised by an adaptability and individuality that marked him out as a player of exceptional skill on the baritone, alto and soprano saxophones …
To Walk On Eggshells
"Christian Weber said in an interview for “Jazz’N’More": No matter how I move along the timeline, my attention is focused on what is to come. At the same time, I always keep in mind what happened before, without analyzing. This way, I avoid the improvisation becoming arbitrary. Both arbitrary openness and narrow restriction, neither suits me." And therein lies the whole secret of this record and ultimately the definition of great art: it is the ability of a musician to have control over space an…
About (or On), First Visit
"A standard takes on a new shape when it is realized through Trio New York’s methods. Their improvised preludes promote refreshed readings studded with bright accents and pungent embellishments, reinforcing the qualities that have enabled these tunes to endure, be it the sweet sentimentality of “Memories of You” or the devil-may-care of “Just One of Those Things.” By embracing the tenets of free improvisation – experimentation, discovery, and, on a good night, elucidation – Trio New York has tra…
News
2007 release ** "NEWS is a new work, whose ingredients, on the surface, are quite simple. Lukas Simonis wrote the music, while Takayuki Kawabata wrote the lyrics, which are featured on the CD cover, and also spoken or sung, in Japanese or in English. Simonis plays the guitar, which mostly appears as "sound" (the main exception being an arpeggio sounding halfway between Thinking Plague and Pink Floyd which appears more than once in the track titled Original NEWS), and also "effects", which judgi…
Music For Umbrellas
2006 release ** "This is the 2nd album by the incredible Polish Jazz ensemble Sing Sing Penelope, led by drummer Rafal Gorzycki and also including trumpeter Wojciech Jachna, saxophonist Tomasz Glazik, keyboardist Daniel Mackiewicz and bassist Patryk Weclawek. Violinist Sebastian Gruchot guests on one track. They play all original music, composed mostly by Gorzycki and Jachna or credited to the ensemble. Stylistically this is an incredible mixture of many elements from Jazz, Rock, Ambient, RIO a…
Luggage
2006 release ** "Avant garde jazz, it's all just a load of old guys making squeaky sounds with long pauses isn't it? Well yes, to a point it is but I think Rune Grammofon have taught us that it can, occasionally, be a lot of fun. Over two giant sprawling live improvisations (one 40+ mins and the other 30+), Bob Marsh and co proceed to learn and unlearn their craft, weaving in and out and creating some quite terrifying sounds. You don't need a degree in avant garde musical forms to enjoy this, b…
Trapping
2007 release ** "Trapping captures BTT virtually live in the studio - from memory, only the vocals were overdubbed - , and reveals a tight band which constantly rehearsed and modified it's music always with the next gig in mind. The recording covers the whole range of the band's music from free improv to RnB influenced pop. The disc kicks off with "Sanctified", which combines Pete and Paul's stop/start riff with a horn part I ripped off from John Lee Hooker's VeeJay recording of Green Onions ad…