Jazz /
Cherry Jam
* Cardboard sleeve with Japanese replica obi strip and fold out liner notes sheet * Never-issued work from Don Cherry – and a really key piece of the puzzle in the career of this legendary trumpeter! The recordings were done for Swedish Radio, with great fidelity – more than just live tracks captured in a club, and instead some really thoughtful material that marks an early pairing of Cherry's talents with the Swedish scene that he would soon call home! Don plays cornet, and the music is maybe …
Mitochondria
Tip! Spectacular live recording from 1986 of two seminal figures of the Japanese avantgarde - Akira Sakata on saxophone and Takeo Moriyama on drums. Mitochondria captures the reunion of the two free jazz masters, who started playing together in the Yosuke Yamashita Trio in 1972 until 1975. For both, the experience with the trio was an important step in the development of their own career and musicianship. The recordings are a remarkable performance in which each successfully highlights the essen…
Japanese Jazz Spectacle Vol.I
Tip! “Japanese jazz has been recognized and celebrated by music lovers worldwide for decades. The origins of this trend may be traced back to the rare groove movement that flourished in the 1990s, but its current deep and wide popularity seems to be connected to the fact that Japanese people have been reevaluating their own jazz since the mid-2000s, locally referred to as WaJazz ("Wa" meaning Japan but also the Shōwa emperor period, from 1926 to 1989). Since the beginning of the 2000s, there has…
Astragaloi
This trio didn’t know how lucky they had it. They were certainly happy to perform again when this concert was recorded at the ArtActs Festival in St Johan Austria in early March 2020. Although their first outing was back in 2013 in Harnik’s hometown of Graz - a live concert broadcast through the Austrian National Radio/ORF, the band has had a sporadic performance history. So the opportunity to reunite for this festival performance was already special. Little did they know what lay ahead though, …
Filet De Sole (Philly Of Soul)
* 2022 stock * Recorded at the Studio Jazz Unité in Paris, France, on June 19, 1981, Filet de Sole / Philly of Soul was the only recording made by brilliant drummer Philly Joe Jones with this exact octet formation.The group plays a variety of tunes, including well-known pieces by Tadd Dameron, Benny Golson, Randy Weston, and the tandem of John Lewis & Dizzy Gillespie, plus an homage to Tadd Dameron composed by the group's tenor saxophonist Charles Davis (a regular with Archie Shepp and Sun Ra), …
Dance With Me Montana
* 2022 stock * "The main point of interest of this album is its session date. Recorded in 1982, this is one of the very few documents of the late Sonny Sharrock's playing between his classic work with Pharoah Sanders and Don Cherry as well as on his own and his re-emergence with Last Exit in 1985. Bill Laswell had already utilized his talents on Material's Memory Serves release from the prior year, but here is Sharrock in a simple trio, playing several of the pieces that would become part of his…
Open Systems
* 2022 stock * "Drake and Tsahar were in Paris as guests at a friend’s wedding. Turning the celebration into a busman’s holiday, the two subsequently went into a studio with veteran German bassist Peter Kowald and American trumpeter Hugh Ragin, who were specifically invited to take part, and produced Open Systems. It’s more than 72½ minutes spread among seven compositions that relate as much to hard core energy music of the late 1960s as the former disc does to spirituality...... Take the saxman…
The Big Picture
* 2022 stock * Rob Brown's Big Picture Quartet includes William Parker, Hamid Drake, and Roy Campbell, the band responsible for the sublime Raining on the Moon with Lena Conquest, recorded as the William Parker Quartet, as well as playing together in different configurations yielding some of the most vital and essential recordings of the last decade. In the grand jazz band tradition (think Sonny Greer and his Memphis Men), the music's flavor and quality maintains whoever's name shuffles forward.…
Mixolydis
* 2022 stock * Recorded in 2001 and originally released by Marge in France. Sonny Simmons (born in 1933 on Sicily Island, Louisiana), who has shown his vitality in recent years by releasing new works on QWest and CIMP, is an excellent free alto player with a hard-edged and profound spiritual style. This time, the quintet with Eddie Henderson and John Hicks is more into the new mainstream hard bop style. The quintet's music is a well-balanced mixture of the bright, crisp, Dolphy-like new jazz wor…
Spirale
Released way back in 1974, the lone, self-titled effort from Spirale is an album notable for its lack of electronic instruments. It also has some of those loveable low-budget production flaws that are so often heard in obscure 1970s Italian progressive music, and the bass quite often seems charmingly out-of-tune. But this was an earnest and quite energetic jazz-rock ensemble excursion, with excellent brass arrangements and improvisation. Other instruments used include violin, drums, piano and va…
A Monastic Trio
A Monastic Trio is the first solo album by Alice Coltrane. Recorded in 1968, she intended it to be a tribute to her husband, John Coltrane, who had died the year before. It originally featured the message: "This music is dedicated to the mystic, Ohnedaruth, known as John Coltrane during the period from September 23, 1926 to July 17, 1967Alice Coltrane - harp, pianoPharoah Sanders - flute, bass clarinet, tenor saxophoneJimmy Garrison - bassRashied Ali - drumsBen Riley – drumsWhile John's spirit c…
Universal Consciousness
Universal Consciousness is the fifth solo album by Alice Coltrane, released in 1971 on Impulse! Records. Universal Consciousness builds nicely on albums that came before it. It grows out of the unbridled celebration of her late husband's life on A Monastic Trio and the soulful wanderings of her most well-known record, Journey in Satchadananda.In The Wire's "100 Records That Set the World on Fire," David Toop writes, "[Universal Consciousness] clearly connects to other dyspeptic jazz traditions –…
'Round About Midnight (Live At The Totem Vol. 2)
* 2022 stock * "Archie Shepp's 1979 quartet of American and European musicians (Clifford Jarvis, drums; Seifried Kessler, piano; Bob Cunningham, bass) put more fire under him as an improviser than anybody since Coltrane. These cats came to play, and they were playing for keeps. It's all Shepp can do to lead the band. Opening with a furiously paced "Donna Lee," with Shepp's solo winding all around the intervals and changing them in mid-phrase, Jarvis double times even his legato. For 16 minutes t…
Live At The Dreher
* 2022 stock * Marge Records presents Live at Dreher by Roy Burrowes Sextet featuring Mal Waldron Roy Burrowes (trompette & bugle), Richard Raux (saxophones ténor et soprano), Mal Waldron (piano), Patrice Caratini (contrebasse) & George Brown (batterie) - On two tracks : Roger Raspail (percussions) Recorded live on 10th march 1980 at Dreher, Paris.
Sunrise
* 2022 stock * New York-born drummer Stu Martin made a name for himself at the age of sixteen by playing with many of the great bands - those of Billy May, Jimmy Dorsey, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Maynard Ferguson and Quincy Jones, among others. In the 1960s he moved to Europe where he played with the greatest musicians of the time such as Jean-Luc Ponty, the Kühn brothers, Martial Solal or John McLaughlin. A very complete drummer adapting to all forms of jazz, he was part of the John Surman a…
Aigu - Grave
* 2022 stock * Sunny Murray's Aigu-Grave, a nominal quintet date with percussionist Pablo Sauvage appearing on two of the five tracks; the rest of the group features French tenor saxophonist Richard Raux, Bobby Few and Alan Silva. Its two leading tracks, “Happiness Tears” and “Tree Tops,” are memorable Murray compositions which are given free and satisfying treatments. The theme of “Happiness Tears” searches through some minor intervals before resolving in a cheerful major chord. “Tree Tops” is …
The Awakening
Tip! * 2022 stock * This 1979 date by tenor saxophonist Billy Harper is one of his most transcendent. Rife with his deep study of Coltrane's modalism, and his own deep knowledge of the blues and Eastern music, Harper and his quintet take on three extended pieces: "Soran Bushi-B.H." comes in at over 12 minutes, while "Cry Of Hunger," is over 20; both work out of extended harmonic architectures to place improvisation as a new element (remember, this was 1979), as an extension of the jazz "song." T…
This Feeling of Blue
* 2022 stock * This new trio proposes a gritty and daring jazz, around the melancholy and the evil of homo urbanus... The singer Caroline Faber, known for her rhythmic energy and her contagious good mood (with DeNduM, BA-YA), explores here a blues space: She interprets her texts "written from the tip of her soul" (Pierre Gros, Culture Jazz) on compositions by Richard Bonnet (recently acclaimed for his work with Hasse Poulsen and Tony Mallaby) or great classics borrowed from Afro-American music. …
Jade New Spiritual Music
* 2022 stock * Jade is an ambitious blend of jazz, abstract improvisation, and classical sacred music. Recorded at the Organ Studio at Sweden’s University of Gothenburg, the album features sax and trombone echoing regally against a backdrop of honest-to-goodness choral hymns, performed by a church organ and the 10-woman Volcanic Choir, led by mezzo-soprano Maria Forsström.
In slow movements, as if to cherish the sounds and moods being created, the album blends its influences beautifully, conveyi…
On The New Jersey Road
* 2022 stock * Futura Records presents On the New Jersey Road: Dany Doriz (vibraphone), Philippe Duchemin (piano) & Patricia Lebeugle (contrebasse) – Invité sur trois titres : Enrico Granafei (harmonica) Paterson (New Jersey – USA) Recorded on 26th and 27th september 2005 at Bioya Recording Studios, Paterson (New Jersey - USA)