Jazz & Improvisation / All styles

It’s been four years in the making but is finally now available to pre-order with a release date of early October. A remarkable new and groundbreaking study from Jazz In Britain’s very own Matt Parker.  Subversion Through Jazz examines the beginning of the British progressive jazz (BPJ) movement from 1956 to 1964, attempting to identify and plot the progress of its coming into being. This eight-year period of inception was set against the backdrop of two specifically relevant world events: the f…

**Beautifully packaged 180g vinyl. Flip-back sleeve. Strictly limited pressing run of 300 copies worldwide ** Those already familiar with the output of Jazz In Britain to date will by now have a fair idea of our modus operandi, but for the uninitiated there is no better place to start than with this collection. Whilst none of these recordings could be considered ‘reference’ standard audio, our aim is always to present them in the best possible light, and offer the optimum listening experience to…

Double CD Edition. Recorded at Ronnie Scott's, London, on either the 17th or 18th October 1972. Double CD in digipak with 24 page booklet containing previously unseen images and an extensive essay researched and written by Simon Spillett. From the Ron Mathewson tape archive. This previously unissued live recording features one of the final appearances by the ‘classic’ Tubby Hayes Quartet featuring pianist Mick Pyne, bassist Ron Mathewson (who made the original recording) and drummer Tony Levin, …

Elisabeth Harnik, an Austrian based pianist and composer has created a multi-faceted body of work by blurring genre boundaries through various collaborations in the field of improvised music, interdisciplinary projects and contemporary compositional works. She studied classical piano and later -- with Beat Furrer -- composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Graz. As an improviser she works within an electro-acoustic inspired sound-world, using specific preparations and extended…

George Lowen Coxhill, generally known as Lol Coxhill, was an English free improvising saxophonist and raconteur. He played the soprano or sopranino saxophone. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he was a member of Canterbury scene bands Carol Grimes and Delivery and then Kevin Ayers and the Whole World. He became known for his solo playing and for work in duets with pianist Steve Miller and guitarist G. F. Fitzgerald. Coxhill collaborated with other musicians including Mike Oldfield, Morgan Fishe…

South Africa’s lost jazz history contains many an overlooked classic. But even within that hidden tradition, there are few albums that suffered such an unlucky fate as Spring, the monumental 1968 debut album by pianist Ibrahim Khalil Shihab, formerly Chris Schilder. Though Shihab was only twenty-two when Spring was recorded, he was already a lynchpin of the Cape Town scene, and the album was to be his first major statement as leader and composer. It is a magnum opus gilded by the presence of the…

Live was mostly recorded on November 1st, 2019, at Haus der Berliner Festspiele in Berlin, Germany, during the 2019 edition of JazzFest Berlin. For Angel Bat Dawid and her band Tha Brothahood – which includes Deacon Otis Cooke, Viktor Le Givens, Xristian Espinoza, Norman W. Long, Dr. Adam Zanolini, and Asher Simiso Gamedze – it was the first stop of their first European tour.  Forty-eight hours before the show, Angel and members of the band were on their way to the airport in Chicago when they r…

* 2LP Box, with a 12-page booklet * Archimedes Badkar was started by Per Tjernberg in 1972 and between 1975 and 1979 released four LPs. Recently, three of the original members plus four newcomers gathered in Silence's legendary studio in Koppom. There were two CDs and LPs, 102 minutes of music, mostly from lively first shots. They looked around the world early, absorbed music from different parts of Africa, Central Asia, India, America, Europe, but they also listened to contemporary composers su…

Unique and beautifully recorded, with a breezy feel brought by the synthesizers, Sacbé could be likened to what Azymuth was doing at the same time in Brazil. Available as a vinyl-only limited pressing Deluxe Tip-On LP, coming with its original printed innersleeve. Sacbé was composed of Eugenio Toussaint (keyboards), Enrique Toussaint (electric bass) & Fernando Toussaint (drums), three brothers hailing from the huge Mexico city, and their friend and sax player Alejandro Campos. Growing up in a fa…

**2020 stock, few copies available** Rare live remastered recording. Alice Coltrane’s Harp performance in Warsaw, Poland. On the 23rd of October 1987 in Warsaw, Poland at the Jazz Jamboree festival, Alice Coltrane played a improvised harp solo that lasted over 9 minutes. The harp belonged to harpist Anna Faber. It was made in Russia she had acquired it in a most unusual barter;bags of white potatoes in exchange for a Russian pedal harp. Anna, said the harp had a great tone but was mechanically v…

**2020 stock** Considered to be one of Australia’s most iconic modern recordings, Eastern Horizons is the result of several jazz workshop sessions recorded in the mid 1960s Sydney. A pioneering exploration of eastern influenced modern jazz that represents one of earliest prototypes of the genre, arguably predating other more widely acknowledged international eastern influenced and indo jazz recordings of the late 60s and early 70s. Following in the footsteps of early 60s Coltrane and the exotic …

**2020 stock** A fantastic electric session from the 70s Polish scene – a record that not only features freewheeling trumpet from Tomasz Stanko, and sweet Fender Rhodes from Adam Mackowicz, but also includes some very inventive work on drums and percussion from the great Czelaw Bartkowski! All three players are at the top of their game here – artists who have a strong knowledge of the outside territory of jazz, but also often work a bit more inside – so that their music here can be open and expl…

One of the wonderfully creative 70s sets from Japanese stringman Isao Suzuki – an artist who also plays bass, but who works here on jazz cello – for a very unusual approach! The set has Suzuki's work on the light strings matched in a combo with lead guitar from Kazumi Watanabe – who's nicely restrained here, and falls in with Isao's strings at a level that's quite different than his own material of the time. Watanabe's lead is augmented by further rhythm guitar work by Kazumasa Akiyama, and the …

*2022 stock* Few, if any, international audiophile jazz recordings have maintained the kind of deep and profound influence over techniques and even entire label repretoire as Three Blind Mice's Blow Up, Midnight Sugar and Misty. Originally recorded in Tokyo in 1974, this Piano Trio release from TBM features Tsuyoshi Yamamoto on piano, Isoo Fukui on bass and Tetsujiro Obara on drums. The of-the-moment realism of Yoshihiko Kannari's recordings and production aesthetic of producer and label head Ta…

Now! by Masaru Imada was the second album released by the fledgling Three Blind Mice label and the pianist's first leader album for the label. All four tunes are Imada's original compositions. The two slow numbers – "Nostalgia" and "The Shadow of the Castle" show his lyrical, "quiet but emotional," qualities. "Alter" is an adventurous tune whose focus is on free improvisation while "Gehi Dorian" is a modal composition as the title suggests.

A fantastic electric album from one of the most unique bassists of the 70s – Blow Up is one of the most sough-after titles from the acclaimed Three Blind Mice catalog. Isao Suzuki's Blow-Up is virtuosity and class all rolled up into one. A great combination of upbeat blues and mellow grooves! The album was awarded "Jazz of Japan" Award and the Jazz Disc Award of "Swing Journal" in 1973."This adventurous set finds Suzuki and his band mates (drummer George Otsuka, pianist Kunihiko Sugano, and bass…

Bassist Isao Suzuki's popularity shot up to stratosphere with the release of Blow Up from the Three Blind Mice label. By the time he recorded this, fourth album for the label, he was actually the winner of the Swing Journal Readers' Poll. And this rather strangely titled album doesn't disappoint.Suzuki had a knack for surrounding himself with superb musicians and playing brilliant, groovy music that is firmly rooted in the jazz tradition. This time, he picked as the all-important horn player Ken…

Pianist Imada Masaru was 42 years old when he recorded this album in 1975. His adventurous spirit led him to use the electric piano for the first time in a recording, and thanks to his musicianship, he made it sound like he'd been playing the instrument for years. The program opens with the title track, a sophisticated urban funk. Guitarist Kazumi Watanabe plays a big role here. It is followed by a more intricate, fusion-like "Straight Flash." The all-original-composition program switches gear o…

Classic Japanese free jazz monster, originally released in 1972. Recorded live at Aoi Studio, Tokyo on 19 May 1972. The late 60s and early 70s was the time that Japanese free jazz began to lift off (see We Now Create LP of Togashi Masahiko with Takayanagi, Motoharu and other heavyweights releasing the 1st free jazz LP in Japan) and blossom into a fierce musical power to be reckoned with. Legendary combos such as Masayuki Takayanagi New Direction were soon responsible to be the originators of thi…

This special bundle collects the two latest LPs reissued by Souffle Continu, namely the following:Jef Gilson "Le Massacre Du Printemps" (1971)Sahib Shihab, Jef Gilson "La Marche Dans Le Désert" (1972) Jef Gilson "Le Massacre Du Printemps" (1971) * First ever vinyl reissue of this French free jazz nugget from Sahib Shihab & Jef Gilson Unit Remastered from the master tapes * Paris, February 1972. A few months after having released Le Massacre du Printemps, Jef Gilson was back behind his keyboards …

**Edition of 500** Born in Mississippi in 1937 and beginning to play the saxophone at 14, Billie Harris relocated to Los Angeles in 1965 after a 4 year stint in the Air Force, becoming one of the great, unsung forces of underground jazz in the city for many years (he later relocated to the Mojave Desert, where, at last record, he still plays in a church band). A Venice Beach street musician and longtime member of the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra - you can hear him playing on Live at I.U.C.C. and…

**Original, still sealed copies of this rare album! Few available** Likely one of the most underrated Nimbus albums. Horace Tapscott & Everett Brown Jr.'s piano and drums avant-guard jazz outing 'At The Crossroads'. Piano and Drums : raw, uncut, brilliant

Solo bass albums constitute a rare and demanding genre. The instrument's resonance, its sustain limitations, the absence of harmonic support - all conspire against extended solo statements. Yet Horace Tapscott's longtime bassist approaches the challenge with a structural intelligence that transforms apparent constraints into compositional architecture. Roberto Miranda's arco work on "Evolution On The Life Of Moses" demonstrates a command of overtones and microtonal shadings that recalls the medi…

The Tommy Tedesco case is singular in California jazz history. A session guitarist among the most sought-after in Hollywood - thousands of recordings, film scores, pop records - chooses for his most personal statement the company of Bobby Bradford on trumpet and Roberto Miguel Miranda on bass, with Onaje Sherman Ferguson on drums and Sartuse on percussion. Not exactly the context of those Sinatra dates. The result is a structurally sophisticated free jazz document. "The Doubleness of Three" supe…

Curtis Clark's Nimbus debut - and he brings the whole Los Angeles underground with him. Miranda and Theus: the rhythm section that powered Horace Tapscott's Arkestra, that held the floor at UGMAA meetings, that knew how to make a piano trio sound like a congregation. This is the connection - Chicago kid studies with Tapscott, absorbs the lesson, makes his first record with the master's own people. Side A: "Phantasmagoria" - one long piece, the title track eating up the whole side. Side B: "Bouqu…

Just two people. Piano. Voice. Nothing else. No bass, no drums, no safety net. This is where Clark strips everything away - no Amsterdam quintet, no Dutch improvisers, just 88 keys and one voice diving deep. "Rainbow Over Harlem" opens and closes the record. "Cosmic Minstrels." "Deep Sea Diver." "Farewell Gentle Spirit (For Rev. Frank J. Harper)" - a dedication that tells you where this music comes from. "Broken Mirror Reflections." "Amy Yvonne." Titles like chapter headings in a book of hours. …

Bomb! Drop the needle. Thirteen minutes and twenty seconds. "Daniel/Amsterdam Sunshine" - dedicated to Daniel Halifee - opens this record like a prayer. Not a quick prayer, not a polite prayer. The kind that takes its time, builds in waves, lets the spirit enter the room. Clark's piano states the theme, Moore's alto answers, Reijseger's cello pulls you deeper. This is spiritual jazz in the truest sense - music as ceremony, music as offering. A man from Chicago who studied with Horace Tapscott in…

Adele Sebastian was an Afro American jazz flutist and singer, active from the early 70s  (when she was still a teenager) until her untimely death at the age of 27 (!) in 1983 from a kidney failure. In fact she had been depending on monthly dialysis to stay alive for years. She lived through and for the music and you can hear it on her only solo album “Desert Fairy Princess” which was first issued in 1981. The mostly acoustic instrumentation brings a very natural and therefore rather retrospectiv…

LP version. 180 gram vinyl; Half speed mastered; Heavy sleeve and obi. We Release Jazz announce the official reissue of Ryo Fukui's final album, the very personal contemporary jazz offering, A Letter from Slowboat, sourced from the original masters. Known for his miraculous albums 1976's Scenery (WRJ 001CD/LP) and 1977's Mellow Dream (WRJ 002CD/LP), legendary Hokkaido pianist Ryo Fukui, with the help of his wife Yasuko, opened his very own jazz club in Sapporo in 1995, Slowboat. This is where Ry…

LP version. 180 gram vinyl; Half speed mastered; Heavy sleev and obi. We Release Jazz announce the official reissue of Ryo Fukui's New York sessions with Lisle Atkinson and Leroy Williams, the aptly titled album Ryo Fukui in New York, sourced from the original masters. Recorded in February 1999 at Avatar Recording Studios in New York and inspired by Ryo Fukui's idol and mentor Barry Harris, the fourth album from the famed Sapporo pianist captures memorable sessions with seasoned American jazz mu…

Roscoe Mitchell turned 80 on August 2020. At this occasion, we launch the following offer: 50 % discount for purchasing together the nine albums, 6 single CDs, two double CDs and one CD + DVD. These nine albums particularly illustrate the diversity of Roscoe Mitchell's music. Three duets, two with two other great figures of current jazz, George Lewis and Matthew Shipp, the third with a contemporary musician, David Wessel, two very different trios, one with West Coast musicians, James Fei and Wil…

Rogueart presents Joshua Abrams' Cloud Script. All compositions by Joshua Abrams. Recorded by Ken Brown on September 26th 2016 at Electrical Audio, Chicago, IL, USA. Joshua Abrams (double bass), Ari Brown (tenor saxophone), Jeff Parker (guitar), Gerald Cleaver (drums). “Sharp, deeply interactive, and soulful music; brilliant quartet!” - Rogueart

Joe Morris and Tomeka Reid offer a few new “standards” that are the fulcrum between a set of prepared instrument pieces where it is difficult to recognize either instrument and attention is absorbed by the overall density and character of sound, and a set notable for its sparseness as both Reid and Morris play primarily independent lines. Within that set, the effect, most apparent in the rare moments in which one musician briefly acknowledges the other then shifts onto a new independent line, is…

* Edition of 500 * Released on the occasion of Matthew Shipp 60th birthday. This double LP is the first vinyl Matthew Shipp recorded since his very first recording, "Sonic Exploration", a duo with Rob Brown, released on 1988. All compositions by Matthew Shipp. Recorded by Jim Clouse on November 10th and December 1st 2015 at Park West Studios, Brooklyn, NY, USA. Warning! Slowly remove contents from its package: while you think you are entering into new beginnings you are indeed beginning to reach…

Rare funk & Avant-Garde soul from a seven years old kid singer featuring the best of French and Cameroonian musicians diaspora, recorded in Paris in 1977. The album contains two nicely dramatic tracks: “Look Up in the sky (Negro nature)” is a stretched funk groove with psyche synth by Michel Morose, bubbling bassline by the great Victor Edimo, the famous Toto Guillaume on guitar, and a brilliant poetic song by Francis The Great, who at that time studied in Menilmontant (Paris). “Ravissante Baby …

* Contains 24 Pages Booklet-poster with photos and texts * For more than a decade, the versatile musician and composer Mirco Mariani has been pursuing a unique experimental journey on song-forms through the parallel projects he founded: Saluti da Saturno, eXtraLiscio and Fwora Jorgensen. Since 2014, AngelicA festival has produced and commissioned to Mariani several special projects of variation, extension and new arrangement of these groups’ repertoire. The record Shaloma Locomotiva Orchestra do…

"Heritage of the Invisible II" follows Navarro and Holmes’s rise to prominence as members of free jazz collective Irreversible Entanglements. In March of 2020 in "The Nation" writer Marcus J. Moore said "Irreversible Entanglements’ fearless music takes to task the police, American politics, capitalism, and racism." The revolutionary ethos that drives Irreversible Entanglements is no less present in Navarro and Holmes’s duo work, though their duo finds them much more wholeheartedly and jubilantly…

Originally recorded in 1971 at Abbey Road studios in just a few hours, 'Live!' is a collaboration between good friends former Cream drummer Ginger Baker and Nigerian multi-instrumentalist and Afrobeat pioneer Fela Ransome-Kuti and his band The Africa 70.  Featuring a live audience of 150 people who crammed into the studio with them, this is not only a piece of history with some of the most accomplished musicianship you'll ever hear, it's also a really fun party record and a great example of what…

Reissue of this long lost funky Afrobeat/Reggae classic from 1978. For fans of Fela Kuti, Peter Tosh, Bob Marley, Segun Bucknor. The year is 1978 and one hot thing from the musical underground is Reggae music from Jamaica, the USA or the UK, where most of the acts had musicians of Caribbean descent. Reggae had the groove, the rebel spirit, and the relaxed attitude all in one, to enchant a big part of the world’s inhabitants. And while at least Jamaica as a relatively poor and so-called "Third Wo…

Repressed, in process of stocking. "The Chicago-based string genius Joshua Abrams first talked to us about the idea of this album a while back. It took a couple of years to get together, but in a way, it's cool that it's being released in 2018 -- the 50th anniversary of the recording of the first free bass solo LP, Barre Phillips' Journal Violone. Issued by Opus One in the U.S., Music Man in the UK (as Unaccompanied Barre), and Futura in France (as Basse Barre), Phillips' groundbreaking album wa…