Jazz /
Carnegie Hall '71
Kicking off what will be an Alice Coltrane year with more releases to come in the next 12 months, is a previously unreleased, killer live recording from 1971. Recorded live, by Impulse! at a charity gala given at Carnegie Hall for the benefit of the Integral Yoga Institute in 1971, this incredible set never saw commercial release until now. The gala concert was one of two halves with the first two transcendental tunes by Alice taken from the album she had just released on Impulse! and then two …
Music Frees Our Souls, Vol. 3
Leo Genovese - Piano, saxWilliam Parker - BassFrancisco Mela - Drums
Recorded November 13, 2020 by Jeremy Loucas at Douglass Recording, Brooklyn, New YorkAssistant engineer: Juanma TrujilloMixed and mastered by Jeremy Loucas at Sear Sound, New York City
Motions, Vol. 2
Shinya Lin: Piano, prepared pianoFrancisco Mela: Drums
Recorded October 24, 2021 by Yushu Bao and Hao Jen Lam at Berklee College, Boston, MARecording assistants: Qi Wang, Yimu Feng, Ziyan WangMixed and mastered by Yushu Bao
The Art of Not Playing
Master pianist, New York-based, originally from Argentina, Leo Genovese, just won a grammy as a ‘Best Improvised Jazz Solo’ - an award considered by many as ‘mainstream’. This certainly did not stop his creative path, only to encourage him towards further researching creative music. His debut album ‘The Art of Not Playing’ with fellow musicians John Lockwood on bass and drummer Nat Mugavero proves it. The trio celebrates the practice of disappearing during the process of creating. Trusting the ‘…
Teiku
"Teiku arranges our unique family Passover melodies into vehicles for sonic exploration. This ancestral music, much like the tradition of Creative Music through which we interpret it, is liberation music. As its humble stewards we offer it as a call for justice for all oppressed peoples; as Jews, we decry the senseless violence, displacement, and killing perpetrated in our name." - Josh Harlow and Jonathan Barahal Taylor, bandleaders Teiku’s origin story feels almost pre-ordained. Co-leaders pi…
Words Unspoken
The album title – Words Unspoken – alludes to the instant musical understanding found by the members of this nimble quartet assembled by great British reedman John Surman. „My idea was to put together some musical ideas that would offer a collective sense of purpose but still be open enough to allow each of us to suggest other ways of developing the material together. Everything fell into place immediately. But I soon realized it wasn‘t so much the musical ideas that made it work, it was the mus…
Song Of Innocence
*2024 stock* David Axelrod (1931-2017) was a producer, arranger and A&R at Capitol Records in Hollywood in the 1960s, working with artists Cannonball Adderley, Lou Rawls and David McCallum amongst others, alongside the infamous group of L.A. session musicians known as the Wrecking Crew. In 1967, for Reprise Records, Axelrod composed and “ghost-produced” the psychedelic rock album Mass In F Minor under the guise of The Electric Prunes. This surprise hit earned Axelrod a new audience, and the oppo…
Splashes (Tribute To Wilbur Little)
Bluesy, aggressive, typically expressive. Splashes (subtitled Tribute to Wilbur Little) is an album by saxophonist Archie Shepp's Quartet which was recorded in Holland in 1987 and released on the L+R label. With Horace Parlan (p), Harry Emmery (b), and Clifford Jarvis (d). It's one of those deep European records that gets missed because Shepp was recording so much and in so many ways overseas in his later years. The style here is a great distillation of the modes he was exploring in the years a…
The Fifth Of May
Archie Shepp, a saxophone tenor icon, collaborates with keyboardist Jasper Van't Hof - of Toto Blanke's Electric Circus (it was while with Blanke that van't Hof co-founded a group called Association P.C.)in a creatively innovative record. Jasper incorporates elements from his 70s electronic work into the song, blending them with acoustic piano in a way that resonates well with Archie's spirit, a departure from his previous style.
In Memory Of
Trumpet superstar Chet Baker recorded a session with Archie Shepp in 1988, an unexpected collaboration given their different styles. At the time of the event, Shepp had adopted a more traditional approach, yet still retained an appreciation for the contemporary elements that characterized his earlier creations. Meanwhile, Chet had embraced a more modern style in his music, which differed significantly from Archie's direction, partly due to the physical transformations Baker had experienced. The …
Reunion
This lovely session from the 1980s features saxophonist Archie Shepp and pianist Horace Parlan, who both initially recorded in the United States but eventually discovered a more accommodating environment in Europe (they crossed paths many times while recording in Europe) Shepp began his career as a dedicated avant-garde player, but he eventually discovered the joy of applying his modern approach to more conventional material, such as these well-known ballads that Parlan paints with delicate, sou…
Dream Talk
German pianist Wolfgang Dauner's early session sounds as fantastic as the title suggests! The "dream talk" component comes from Dauner's gentle, yet modern approach to the keys, which is clearly learning from 50s modernists like George Russell or Bill Evans but is stretching out here in some of the bolder freedoms of the European scene at the time. It's a precursor to later modes on MPS and Saba, but performed here with more restraint. The record is acoustic and inventive, with a "set free" soun…
Cool Dogs & Two Oranges
An incredible early German bop session! In the 1950s, pianist Jutta Hipp recorded straighter sides for Blue Note in the US, but this first album features her with German contemporaries Joki Freund on tenor sax and Emil Mangelsdorff on alto, creating a dark, sharper sound than expected! Hipp leads, but Mangelsdorff and Freund's horn interaction on several song intros, slashing back and forth like a double-edged blade and then bursting forth into lovely compact solos, makes the record sparkle.
Yellow
*2024 stock*"Yellow brings together acclaimed LA-based musicians Kozue Matsumoto, Patrick Shiroishi, and Shoshi Watanabe. With total expressive command of their instruments, the trio unfurls a brilliant and impassioned free improvisation of the highest virtuosic caliber that is at once anguished, defiant, and vigorously hopeful. An astonishing musical work, Yellow is also a powerful political statement. The musicians came together on the basis of a mutual interest in exploring Japanese-American …
Fusion Global Sounds Vol. 2 (1976 - 1984)
"Favorite Recordings returns with the second edition of its compilation series: Fusion Global Sounds. Comprising eight rare and hidden tracks produced between 1976 and 1984 in various parts of the world, this hot-off-the-plate comp delivers a mighty-fine array of dynamic, soul-feeding jazz, soul, disco, jazz and funk delicacies. As a fine collector of jazz-funk and fusion for many years, curator Charles Maurice can be credited for sourcing the ingredients for and cooking up this fine spread of f…
With Strings Attached (1957-1965)
6LP box set containing original studio albums from 1957 - 1965. Remastered directly and lacquers cut from the original analog tapes, 180gm vinyl and housed in reverse-board deluxe sleeves. Extensive book with foreword from Brandee Younger, comprehensive liner notes by Shannon J. Effinger and previously unseen photographs and ephemera. Housed inside book-shelf style slipcase with silver-foil detail. New Land are proud to present the first multi-disc box set from one of the most overlooked artists…
Signals From Earth
* 300 copies, deluxe edition with two booklets, perfect replica of the original. * Joining their rapidly growing catalog of radical gestures of creative sound, Holidays Records returns with one of their most important releases to date, the first ever vinyl reissue of Pygmy Unit’s “Signals From Earth”, a towering private press obscurity, originally released by the band in 1974. Blending Native American references into a body of sonority that draws on free improvisation, experimental electronic mu…
Open Space (The Down Beat Poll Winners In Europe)
LP issued to celebrate more European artists than ever before winning the annual “Downbeat” polls in 1969. On this release they all perform as a unit. Jazz giants from six European countries coalesce to play wide-open music. One of Norway’s greatest jazz singers, Karin Krog has worked and recorded with Jan Garbarek and Clare Fischer. English multi-saxophonist John Surman and Krog have jointly won two Norwegian Grammys. Surman has played with Mike Westbrook’s Orchestra and John McLaughlin, as wel…
Noise For Vendor Mouth
"The Nigerian establishment labelled Kalakuta Republic inhabitants as — ‘hooligans’, ‘hemp smokers’, etc. Noise For Vendor Mouth is Fela’s indifference to that name calling because, for him, people in Kalakuta are really a bunch of hard working citizens, trying to survive in a society riddled with corruption and mismanagement. He adds that the real hooligans are those in authority who resort to political gangsterism, and sometimes military coups in order to resolve constitutional issues. He cons…
Excuse O
The deepest song here is the second track, ""Mr Grammarticalogylisationalism Is The Boss,” which ridicules the notion that speaking ""proper"" English demonstrates superior intelligence, and bemoans the fact that doing so is, unfortunately, a requirement for upward mobility. As the chorus repeats the line “Him talk oyinbo pass English man” (“He talks English better than an Englishman”), Fela lays it down: “The better oyinbo you talk, the more bread you get, school start na grade four bread, B.A.…