Jazz /
Blood On The Leaf - Opus No. 1
2000 release ** "Founded by Village Voice icon Greg Tate and co-led with Dayton Ohio monster bassist Jared Michael Nickerson since 1999, Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber is a sprawling band of musicians whose prodigious personnel allows them to freely juggle a wide swath of the experimental soul-jazz-hip hop spectrum. Burnt Sugar was originally conceived as a forum for the New York area improvisational musician to compose, record and perform material which reflects the breadth and depth of Ameri…
The Rayvelles
All music written, recorded & mixed by Tuck Nelson & Ferj Gainsbourg at Echo Ray Studios, London, UK.
Music Is the Healing Force of the Universe
Music Is the Healing Force of the Universe is a powerful and often ignored 1970 recording from the American avant-garde jazz saxophonist, singer and composer Albert Ayler. Apart from the posthumous album The Last Album, this was to be Ayler's last studio album, recorded and released before his death in November 1970. The album was initially judged as too difficult by Down Beat, then recognized by the most as “an important portrait of a man facing a life and death inner struggle beyond the bounda…
Old and New Dreams Chapter-2
The second chapter of the project, "Break," marks the first encounter with Yosuke Yamashita & Hiroshi Yamazaki in 60 years since their first encounter at Ginpari. Guitarist/composer Otomo Yoshihide has been active all over the world, from movies, plays, TV shows to commercials, without being confined to the framework of free jazz. The live performance recorded on December 27, 2024 at Shinjuku Pit Inn, which has been his "core" since his teenage years, is not only a "milestone" in Otomo's career,…
Old and New Dreams Chapter-1
The opening of the pair of simultaneous releases, "Introduction," is a new wave of free jazz born from an intergenerational improvisation session with Takashi Sugawa (b) and Shun Ishiwaka (ds). Guitarist/composer Otomo Yoshihide has been active all over the world, from movies, plays, TV to commercials, without being confined to the framework of free jazz. The live recording of December 27, 2024 at Shinjuku Pit Inn, which has been his "core" since his teenage years, is not only a "milestone" in O…
Solhverv
Bomb! Danish pianist Tom Prehn was one of the first Europeans to deeply explore free music. With his quartet featuring Fritz Krogh on tenor saxophone, Poul Ehlers on bass, and Finn Slumstrup on drums, Prehn recorded Axiom in October, 1963, for Sonet, though it went unreleased until 2015 because the band felt that their music had moved beyond it already. To hear the music they were talking about, one could only turn to two privately-made reel-to-reel tapes, Centrifuga and Sohlverv, recorded in Au…
Spectrum
2025 stock Cobham's debut record after making a name for himself collaborating with Miles Davis and the Mahavishnu Orchestra remains a remarkable moment in progressive jazz. "Stratus" would later be sampled on Massive Attack's "Safe From Harm" and featured in Grand Theft Auto IV radio.
Freigeweht
Released in 1981, the debut of the legendary keyboardist from Eberhard Weber’s Colours band and later the Jan Garbarek Group, Freigeweht presented Rainer Brüninghaus as a highly original and idiosyncratic sound sculptor in his own right, accompanied by ECM stalwarts Kenny Wheeler on flugelhorn and drummer Jon Christensen as well as oboist Brynjar Hoff. In a review of the album from the year of its release, the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung traced Rainer’s influences and minimalist …
Amaryllis
Return of the great American jazz trio that delivered the poll-topping "Nothing Ever Was, Anyway" in 1997. Material heard on "Amaryllis" is by turns thoughtful, touching, joyous and viscerally exciting. Some of the songs are well known – almost classics of new jazz – including Crispell’s "Rounds", Peacock’s "Requiem" and "December Wings, Motian’s "Conception Vessel". There are also a number of startlingly effective free improvised ballads. As leader Marilyn Crispell says, "There’s a great depth …
Skrifum
From the very first note, Norway’s Jon Balke proposes a new sonic dimension with Skrifum, continuing a line of inquiry begun with Warp (2016) and Discourses (2020), solo piano albums which also processed the acoustic environment in which the music was heard. Skrifum (the Icelandic word for “write”) takes things a step further. With the aid of electronic audio tool the Spektrafon, which he helped develop, Balke is now able to directly manipulate ambient audio sound from the piano while playing –…
Preludes And Songs
Pianist François Couturier and violinist Dominique Pifarély, major figures in French improvisation, have played together in many projects over the last 30 years, including their duo, which made its recording debut for ECM with the remarkable Poros in 1997. Preludes and Songs, carries the story forward, with its programme including music by both players as well as pieces by Jacques Brel, Duke Ellington, George Gershwin and J.J. Johnson. With sensibilities informed by jazz and contemporary composi…
Relations
Musical messages from Oslo, New York, Basel and Lugano – recorded between 2018 and 2022 – are juxtaposed and recombined on an absorbing recording that features Norwegian drummer Thomas Strønen solo and in a series of duets . With such partners as Craig Taborn, Chris Potter, Sinikka Langeland and Jorge Rossy, the musical frame of reference is very broad. Elements from Langeland’s’s archaic-sounding folk to Potter’s post-Coltrane saxophone and Taborn’s whirlwind modernist piano each find their p…
Blue Train: The Complete Masters
2025 stock To mark the 65th anniversary of the album’s recording, Blue Train will be released in two special editions on September 16 as part of Blue Note’s acclaimed Tone Poet Audiophile Vinyl Reissue Series. A 1-LP mono pressing of the original album will be presented in a deluxe gatefold tip-on jacket, while the 2-LP stereo collection Blue Train: The Complete Masters will include a second disc featuring seven alternate and incomplete takes, none of which have been released previously on vinyl…
The Awakening
Ahmad Jamal is a jazz giant and The Awakening is his iconic masterpiece. The landmark deep trio session - recorded in NYC and released on Impulse! in 1970 - is an essential album and perennially sought-after on vinyl, so Be With Records are delighted to make it available again. As a “Zen master of jazz piano” and one of its greatest innovators, Jamal evolved his elegant sound with this adventurous record. The Awakening showcased his fast, richly melodic chops in remarkable variation. A consummat…
Štiri Dela
"The CD surprised me because it could be listened to with many ears. At first I felt I could not separate it from contemporary composed music, soon after that I could still place it in the context of contemporary improvised music, and finally the fantasticness of a journey that takes the best both worlds have to offer revealed itself to me. Much of the merit can be attributed to the sensible arrangement of the four movements, which, despite being at least superficially similar procedures - mixin…
What About The Butterfly
There is something intensely alluring, almost addictive, about Kansas City-based artist Jackie Myers. Known for her innovation and fluidity on the keys and her sultry, bluesy vocals that could spark warmth in even the iciest of souls, she has a way of leaving all your flabbers ghasted and with a voracious appetite for more. Now, 577 Records is ecstatic to present her latest work of art, What About the Butterfly, a technical masterpiece born from the depths of this vocalist/pianist/composer’s bea…
A Black Op'era - Dedicated To Chairman Fred Hampton
2007 release (RARE) ** "A Black Op'era (dedicated to Chairman Fred Hampton), written, directed and performed by Ernest Khabeer Dawkins (one of Chicago's most famous improvisers and president of the well-deserving and celebrated AACM), leader of the Chicago 12, which includes some of the best and most famous soloists on the Chicago scene. Ernest Dawkins, one of Chicago's leading artists (he has collaborated with musicians and groups such as Ramsey Lewis, Muhal Richard Abrams, Richie Cole, Jack M…
Aktuala
Limited to 500 copies, hand-numbered. Gatefold cover, textured sleeve + printed inner. Red Vinyl. 1973 Aktuala debut, a stunning overall work where you can hear a lot of different musical influences : avant-garde folk, mediterranean blues ,jazz improvisation, minimalism, african percussions, indian ragas all played with a true psychedelic feeling. The album was recorded in a few days in a totally acoustic dimension and the line-up seems to be a quintet of contemporary music more than a progrock …