Jazz & Improvisation / All styles

2019 Small Repress Electronic duo Spring Heel Jack return with a collaboration with the legendary American trumpeter and Pulitzer Prize nominee Wadada Leo Smith. Wadada was born in the Mississippi Delta and became immersed in the music of the great blues masters as a young musician. He then moved to Chicago and became an early member of the AACM alongside the likes of Muhal Richard Abrams, Anthony Braxton, Malachi Favors and Roscoe Mitchell.Recorded last year in London, this LP sees Smith’s auth…

**100 copies** Improvising duo Ed Lucas and Graham Dunning explore texture, timbre, dynamics and drones.Ed Lucas plays trombone, sometimes augmented with controlled feedback, and has had many associations with improvising musicians in London and beyond.Graham Dunning uses turntable with field recordings pressed to dublate, along with snare drum and objects, focusing on tactile soundmaking.End of a Cable is their first album together. Graham Dunning: turntable, snare drum and objectsEdward Lucas:…

**100 copies** Caura is a long-distance collaboration by Masayuki Imanishi (Osaka, Japan) and Marco Serrato Gallardo (Sevilla, Spain), which takes the form of two long improvised tracks made with double bass, field recordings, contact microphones and manipulated speakers.  Masayuki Imanishi: field recordings, speaker, contact microphoneMarco Serrato Gallardo: double bass Recorded in Sevilla and Osaka by Masayuki Imanishi and Nacho García, December 2018 / January 2019.Mixed by Masayuki Imanishi, …

**100 copies** Tsss Tapes is a new tape label from Italy and this is their first release. Snares, bells, sticks, cymbals, pinecones, rattles, brushes, bass drums, mallets and other objects that make a sound if you hit them, stroke them, let them bounce. A compilation of improvisations by twelve percussionists from different parts of the world mastered by Nacho García. Includes tracks by Claire Rousay, Rie Nakajima, Chris Dadge, Håkon Berre, Ted Byrnes, Tim Daisy, Will Guthrie, Simon Camatta, Kev…

**Available next week** "The original concepts of vocal and instrumental music are utterly different. The instrumental impulse is not melody in a 'melodious' sense but an agile movement of the hands which seem to be under the control of a brain centre totally different from that which inspires vocal melody. Altogether, instrumental music, with the exception of rudimentary rhythmic percussion, is as a rule a florid, fast and brilliant display of  virtuosity... Quick motion is not merely a means t…

Last copies...Joseph Jarman (1937 - 2019) was a saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist best known as a founding member of trailblazing avant-garde jazz group Art Ensemble of Chicago. Jarman was responsible for the Art Ensemble’s signature face paint and elaborate costumes as well as the pioneering theatrical and multimedia elements of their shamanistic performances, which could include dance, comedy, performance art, surreal pranks, and—notably—the recitation of Jarman’s poetry. In 1977, Art Ense…

Nirvana is an album by jazz flutist Herbie Mann with The Bill Evans Trio featuring Chuck Israels and Paul Motian. The great jazz pianist Bill Evans rarely recorded with flutists, but this exception marked a great collaboration. The musical synergy between Mann and Evans is amazing, as they always become one on each track. It's a relaxing album, with both some softer as upbeat songs by the four. Fans of either Herbie Mann or Bill Evans will want to acquire this enjoyable record.

It was in 1973, on the 14th of October, late in the afternoon; on a pretty Sunday under the Big Top in the heart of the “Parc de la Pépinière”, in Nancy; it was the “premiere”, the world first hearing, and it has so far remained the only one commissioned by composer and trumpet player lvan Jullien, for the first international Nancy Jazz Pulsations festival.In order to complete this work of composition and orchestration, Ivan asked the great Eddie Louiss on organ, and chose to do without a double…

Gong’s fourth album for Virgin Records has been remastered from the original Virgin masters for the very first time by the original producer, Simon Heyworth at Super Audio Mastering and has been expanded with a second disc containing a previously unreleased concert recorded live at the London Marquee in September 1975, plus 3 previously unreleased edits.

Invisible City Editions reissues a highly sought after and impossibly rare 1986 private-press spiritual jazz LP from Washington D.C. harpist Jeff Majors. Majors was a devoted personal student of Alice Coltrane’s for three years as a teenager, taking harp and spiritual instruction at her home in the Bay Area just before she established her renowned ashram in Huntington, California. Following his tutelage with Coltrane, he returned to the East Coast, joining Sun Ra acolyte Brother Ah's ensemble Th…

In the late '90s three young musicians in the Oslo jazz scene – Paal Nilssen-Love, Ketil Gutvik and Eivind Opsvik – hooked up with two legends – Carl Magnus “Calle” Neumann and Bjørnar Andresen. Neumann and Andresen were extremely important in the development of Norwegian free jazz in the late '60s and early '70s, playing with Jan Garbarek, Arild Andersen, Svein Finnerud Trio, Terje Rypdal, George Russell and many others.The project was named The Quintet and it was the meeting of two generations…

**250 copies** Two instruments linked, calling to each other, leaping around, recalling and fooling around with the music of Joëlle Léandre, improviser, composer and double bass player, and Alexandra Grimal, composer, singer and saxophone player. With chaos, a joyful mess of unique moments, bright, plural and playful, the two musicians have no care for determinism: the music just is, and they simply follow it.

Since 2016 Sfyria Trio is the Chicago/NY free improvising trio of tenor saxophonist Sam Decker (Shorve, Logan Strosahl Team, Green and Grass), bassist Charlie Kirchen (The Few, Rooms, Charlie Kirchen Quartet), and drummer Matt Carroll (Ohmme, Typical Sisters, Rooms), performing their unique improv idiom incorporating elements from a wide range of musical perspectives.

Exploring human relationships and self perception through the use of physical objects and their potential sounds, San Antonio drummer Claire Rousay, who has worked with Jacob Wick, Ken Vandermark, Brandon Lopez, etc. recorded these six solo drum performances in the studio, developing each in a way that shows her strong technical skills and narrative voice on the drums.

Two basses and a lower-end saxophone from the trio of Damon Smith on double bass, Andrew Durham on electric bass, and Danny Kamins on baritone sax, Durham also adding effects and "Radio Manipulation" to their deep sound, Durham & Kamins the core of Carl with Damon Smith adding extra underpinnings to their slowly developing, sometimes pensive, sometimes cantankerous, profound improvisation.

The debut recording of New York double bassist Sean Ali's improvising string trio with violist Joanna Mattrey and cellist Leila Bordreuil, having worked together since 2015, each brings impressive technique and a somewhat twisted approach to their strings in a diverse set of extended improvisation from pensive and spacious to formidable density.

Desert Encrypts Vol. 1, is a two-part suite based on observations from the desert in and around Marfa, TX. It also explores Rob Mazurek's ongoing fascination with social, psychological, and physiological structures, both terrestrial and extra-terrestrial. The composition includes written music and graphic scores for improvisation.For Desert Encrypts Vol. 1 Mazurek has put together an awe-inspiring new ensemble featuring Kris Davis on piano, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten on bass and Chad Taylor on drums…

**500 copies** Rodrigo Amado and Chris Corsano need no introduction. No Place to Fall is a studio recording from July 2014 at Manouche Studios, Lisbon. The title of this album captures faithfully the urgent and restless atmosphere of this meeting. Amado and Corsano soar instantly into dense, turbulent stratosphere like there is no tomorrow. Both play with boundless energy, relying on their deep understanding of the art of the moment and super-fast instincts. They fill the room with their busy, m…

**300 copies** "This recording, a document of a live concert, was originally supposed to have taken place on February 12, 2017. We’d been on the road for a week in Canada and had had cold but clear weather the whole time. That couldn’t last. Sure enough, by the time we got to Kingston, Ontario on February 9, it was snowing peacefully. The snow ended up sticking. I remember sitting in my hotel room when Glenn Siegel, the presenter from Northampton, called. The forecast called for more and more sn…

**300 copies** Named after a sun deity appearing in a Kurt Vonnegut novel, Borasisi is a team up between two saxophonists (Patrick Shiroishi and Vinny Golia) and two drummers (Dylan Fujioka and Alex Cline). While the cover art exhibits the signature retro feel of the Astral Spirits label, the music only nods toward the past and is, in essence, a forward-looking spontaneously creative effort. And the album is a grower. Once you get to the fifth or sixth listen, the soulful and outside power of th…

**300 copies, 2019 stock** Soon after the catchy synth-bass line that opens Electroradiance, listeners will start to suspect they’re in for something different. The synth-bass line has a herky-jerky contour that does fit a basic pattern of power-rock bands over the decades, but the bass clarinet melody that follows? Not so much. And halfway through, when the bass line becomes a vamp, and the improvisation enters a realm of altissimo squawks and thrillingly convoluted deep runs – well, we’re not …

**300 copies** Performing in concert at Iklectik in London in 2017, the UK and Norwegian free improvising trio of Pat Thomas on Moog, Theremin and IPad based electronics, John Butcher on saxophones, and Ståle Liavik Solberg on drums and percussion, impress through a mix of masterful free playing and eclectic electroacoustic conversations, an adventurous and wonderfully unpredictable set.

**500 copies** Performing live at Lily Pad in Cambridge, MA, the trio of free jazz piano legend Burton Greene with bassist Damon Smith and drummer Ra Kalam Bob Moses, in six collective improvisations, with impressive playing from all three as they segway through the three parts of Life's Intense Mystery, taking exploratory moments and even some Kid Play in between.

**300 copies** Sydney, Australia, 2010: “Are you Charles Rumback?” A chance encounter, if such a thing exists, found the drummer / composer, jet-lagged on a barstool, post-soundcheck, on a Friday in a tiny Sydney club. Calling out of context, like an incredulous kid recognizing their grade school teacher in line at the grocery store, was renowned New Orleans bassist James Singleton, having recognized Rumback from a gig just 5 days prior at the Skylark way back in Chicago. Little did Singleton kn…

Saxophone jazz deviant Sam Weinberg joins with refugees from thrash jazz agent Little Women — Andrew Smiley, guitar; Jason Nazary, drums — to form a new trio, Bloor. It’s wild, acerbic and even a bit mathematical... Similar to the electric guitar-based free jazz units like Many Arms and Matta Gawa. Their new album Drolleries comprise of ten performances that are concise and never overlong. In contrast to another Weinberg project, W-2, there’s at least a sense of premeditated composition (seven o…

**200 copies, 2019 stock** Quoniam facta sum vilis (For I have become vile in the eyes of the lord) is the newest solo album of the award winning composer and virtuoso bassist, Brandon Lopez. Created, in part, as an answer to the musical "reason" of the Bach cello suites, Lopez seeks to create the inverse of what's hailed as musical logic. To create something florid and beautiful from the violent and erratic and to deny the supremacy of the wrote in favor of the intuitive. Recorded mostly in the…

**300 copies, 2019 stock** Contrary to the fabled image, they didn’t really throw rotten tomatoes during Shakespeare’s time at The Globe Theatre. Vegetables, yes, but there are no tomatoes on record in Britain for another seven-score years after Shakespeare. No matter. The title of this album by the Rempis / Piet / Daisy trio is my own flippant gesture to the listener: "Say what you will about this music; this is what we three offer you, unapologetically. If you are revolted by the madness of ou…

**500 copies** The trio of Chicagoans Josh Berman (cornet) and Jason Roebke (double bass) and English free improvisation legend Paul Lytton came together in 2016 for a short European tour. The trio presented music from Berman’s critically acclaimed recording A Dance and a Hop on Delmark Records. On the course of the tour, the music became freer and freer, finally arriving at a unique language where trad jazz and pure sound improv come together. It’s a truly fresh sound and context for these thre…

**500 copies** The Nick Mazzarella Trio was formed in 2008 and for several years remained one of the most active working bands in Chicago’s vibrant jazz scene, performing regularly at clubs and festivals across the city, and recording three albums before drummer Frank Rosaly moved to Amsterdam in 2016. When Rosaly returned for a visit in early 2018, Mazzarella composed a suite of six new pieces for a concert commemorating the trio’s tenth anniversary. That performance, given before a full house …

**500 copies** Chicago saxophonist Dustin Laurenzi, a touring member of Justin Vernon’s Bon Iver and one-third of the inventive Chicago improvising collective Twin Talk, first encountered the music of Moondog a decade ago, while studying at Indiana University. "Initially, I liked the quirkiness of the music and the lore surrounding him," he says. Until he relocated to Germany in 1974, Kansas-born Louis Hardin Jr. was a genuine New York City fixture —a tall and gangly blind man festooned in a hom…

**300 copies, second pressing** Kuzu is a hard-charging but patient trio that came together in the fall of 2017, after saxophonist Dave Rempis, a stalwart of the Chicago improvised music scene, worked with both Tashi Dorji (guitar) and Tyler Damon (drums) individually as part of a lengthy solo tour of the U.S. that he undertook in the spring of that year. Dorji and Damon’s work as a guitar / percussion duo has become well-known, a highly refined and specific language developed through relentless…

**500 copies** A few years ago I had this crazy idea... Why not ask Obnox aka Lamont "Bim" Thomas to make a free jazz record? After seeing him on tour playing drums with Cleveland out-rock legends X_X, I just had to try and make it happen. Bim, who is no stranger to making out-there genre defying records, surprised me a bit by happily agreeing. It seems a bit of a cliche to try and get rock people to make jazz records, or jazz folks to make rock records, but what the hell? Of all people, Obnox s…

Two years after the death of his mentor and boss, John Coltrane, and just before signing his own contract with Impulse!, Pharoah Sanders finally got around to releasing an album as a leader apart from the Impulse! family. Enlisting a cast of characters no less than 13 in number, Sanders proved that his time with Coltrane and his Impulse! debut, Tauhid, was not a fluke. Though hated by many of the jazz musicians at the time - and more jazz critics who felt Coltrane had lost his way musically the …

**1000 copies** We’re proud to introduce the new Superfly reissue of mind-blowing session of Spiritual Jazz recorded in NYC in 1984 led by Haitian genius Alix Pascal blending traditional Rara elements with modal / spiritual melodies. Fantastic listen all through, stand out for us is Tribilasyon. As usual, beautiful quality repress with paste on covers made in Japan, Obi and 180grs vinyl. "Mystical, otherworldly, Haitian Rrara and Vodun Funk from composer Alix Pascal. Under the group Ayizan, Alix…

**1000 copies** We’re proud to introduce the new Superfly reissue of hardcore nigerian psychedelic Juju Funk recorded in the Acorn studios in Oxford, UK in 1977. If you are into the intense, raw, hypnotic funk sounds then this is for you. Check the funky anthem Africa Is Free For Us but the full album is a blast in the genre. As usual, beautiful quality repress with paste on covers made in Japan, Obi and 180grs vinyl!

"This multi award-winning documentary tells the story of jazz pianist Bill Evans' turbulent life and his contribution to jazz music. Features over 40 interviews, including several renowned musicians: Tony Bennett, Billy Taylor, singer Jon Hendricks and jazz drummer Joe LaBarbera. The film also compiles a wide range of historical information about the jazz pianist including his first TV recording which appeared on CBS Look Up and Live in April 1958, playing Come Rain or Come Shine. With the passa…

**300 copies** After two critically acclaimed albums with the Japanese avantgarde / noise icon Keiji Haino, Konstrukt return with a new inspiring collaborative mind: Ken Vandermark, who for three decades now has been a highly prolific musician in contemporary jazz and free improvisation. With various groups like NRG Ensemble, Spaceways Inc., The Vandermark 5, Made To Break and his latest project Marker or the Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet (to name just a few) and various spontaneous collaborati…

In 1964, John Coltrane and his quartet produced two great masterpieces in Rudy Van Gelder's studios, namely the albums Crescent and A Love Supreme. Between the two sessions the quartet entered the studio for another recording: the soundtrack of the French-Canadian film Le chat dans le sac. Today, the tape of that session has been found and remastered, so finally here's the third 1964 album: Blue World. The content is extraordinary: not only do we find the classic quartet (with McCoy Tyner, Jimmy…

On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of Blue Note, here comes the first releases of a new series of LPs, entitled Great Reid Miles Covers, that celebrates the extraordinary and famous covers created by graphic designer and photographer Reid Miles, the artist who gave an unmistakable image to the albums of the blue label and also wrote an unforgettable page in the history of graphic design of the 20th Century. For this series, the new masters were processed by Kevin Gray from the original anal…

On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of Blue Note, here comes the first releases of a new series of LPs, entitled Great Reid Miles Covers, that celebrates the extraordinary and famous covers created by graphic designer and photographer Reid Miles, the artist who gave an unmistakable image to the albums of the blue label and also wrote an unforgettable page in the history of graphic design of the 20th Century. For this series, the new masters were processed by Kevin Gray from the original anal…