Jazz /
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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…
Arcanum
The Scandinavian project Arcanum brings together four artists all well-known to followers of directions in music at ECM: Arve Henriksen, Trygve Seim, Anders Jormin and Markku Ounaskari. They’ve played together in many permutations over the years, but this is their first album as a quartet. Compositions by Anders Jormin and Trygve Seim, the Finnish traditional “Armon Lapset” (Children of Mercy), and Jormin’s arrangement of Ornette Coleman’s “What Reason Could I Give” are slotted into a programm…
East Coasting
Recorded in 1957 this is one of Charles Mingus's lesser known sessions. Here the master was at the head of an awesome band including some of his regular sidemen. Jimmy Knepper - trombone, Shafi Hadi - alto saxophone, tenor saxophone and Dannie Richmond - drums, along with nothing but Bill Evans on piano! This is dense, lyrical and very stimulating music deeply rooted in the bop tradition yet with an open ear to other sound territories.
Tomorrow Is The Question!
This was definitely a perfect title for Ornette Coleman's second and last album for Contemporary before switching on Ertegun's Atlantic label. Originally released in 1959 "Tomorrow is the Question" was an early evident step towards the revolution to come. An adventurous yet accessible, bluesy album with Coleman and Don Cherry tasting for the first time the freedom of a pianoless rhythm section featuring Percy Heath or Red Mitchell on bass and the great Shelly Manne on drums.
Cymbalism
A legendary album by one of the masters of modern jazz drumming! Recorded by Rudy Van Gelder in 1963, Cymbalism is among the albums Roy Haynes provided for Prestige's New Jazz series. This session features the drummer leading an acoustic quartet with Frank Strozier (alto sax, flute) Ronnie Mathews (piano) and Larry Ridley (bass). An unpredictable Hard Bop-Post Bop transitional album with different colors and moods. From the primary influence of Charlie Parker through a kind of expanded sound ins…
In a Minor Groove
'Dorothy Ashby was the very best and most swinging performer on the multi-stringed instrument associated with the gates of heaven. Here on Earth, Ashby adeptly plucked and strummed the harp like nobody else, as evidenced on a single reissue containing her two best LPs for the Prestige and Prestige/New Jazz labels from 1958 -- Hip Harp and In a Minor Groove. Alongside her prior efforts for the Savoy label, they collectively represent a small but substantive discography for the Detroit native in s…
Cry! Tender
Although his main instruments were the tenor saxophone and the flute, Yusef Lateef was known for his innovative blending of jazz with Asian music. In addition to the oboe and bassoon (which are both unusual in jazz), he played various instruments. Lateef began recording as a leader in 1957 for Savoy Records, a non-exclusive association that continued until 1959. The earliest ofhis albums for the Prestige subsidiary New Jazz overlap his Savoy Recordings. Cry!-Tender was one of these early albums …
Mingus Plays Piano
One of Mingus' most straightforwardly beautiful recordings, there is a meditative calm found in Mingus' piano work, touching on shades of Debussy, Satie, Bill Evans, and Duke Ellington. There's no showboating, and not an ounce of amateurism considering Mingus was primarily known as a bassist. Making its way through standards, original compositions, and the blues, Mingus Plays Piano is a true document of the man's inherent musical genius, and a crucial LP for anyone wishing to dig a little deeper…
Looking Ahead
Looking Ahead is the debut album by American jazz musician Ken McIntyre, recorded with fellow alto saxophonist Eric Dolphy in 1960 and released on the New Jazz label in January 1961. From the beginning Mr. McIntyre considered himself part of the avant-garde or ''new thing'' movement in jazz, as spearheaded by musicians like Ornette Coleman, Bill Dixon and Cecil Taylor, although his own music was considerably more traditionally melodic than theirs. He played a whole fleet of reed instruments, inc…
Coltrane Plays The Blues
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Released by Atlantic in 1962 from earlier sessions, "Coltrane Plays the Blues" showcases the quartet’s innovative blend of blues, jazz, and avant-garde, earning cult status and critical acclaim.
Jazz Composers Workshop
Charlie Mingus’s 1956 Jazz Composers Workshop showcases his visionary blend of hard bop, classical, gospel, and avant-garde. The album captures Mingus’s restless innovation—by turns explosive, tender, and genre-defying.
Ornette On Tenor
Ornette Coleman’s "Ornette On Tenor" marks a pivotal moment in jazz, featuring his switch to tenor sax and the addition of Jimmy Garrison on bass. The album’s earthy, darker soundscape, collective improvisation, and absence of fixed themes highlight Coleman’s ongoing musical revolution.
Itinerary
1991 release ** "Recorded at the Listen to Lacy festival in Vienna, 1990, this large ensemble recording is really the Steve Lacy Sextet plus ten. One of the dectet members is Franz Koglmann. Although some of Lacy's other large group experiments met with mixed results, it is not so here. Itinerary, with its seven selections, is an orchestral work on par with at of Gil Evans' (to whom this record is dedicated) Out of the Cool sessions for Impulse, and of course the Gil Evans and Ten recordings tha…
35th Reunion
2000 release (no OBI) ** "It may be unfair to compare this recording to the seminal album recorded on ESP almost 35 years earlier, but such comparisons are hard to resist. In truth, the group -- now with Amiri Baraka (formerly LeRoi Jones) assuming an expanded role and bassist Reggie Workman substituting for the late Lewis Worell -- sounds as fresh and, yes, revolutionary as it did back in the heyday of 1960s radicalism. To be sure, each member has changed, but the sounds here are surprisingly r…
Through Acceptance Of The Mystery Peace: The Music Of William Parker
1998 release ** "This recording is an important part of bassist William Parker's early discography and comprises four ensemble pieces. The sound quality is slightly subpar, but the raw, 1960s feel of this album should appeal to those who appreciate the unassuming brilliance of this giant of the string bass. Each of the four tracks features different groups, with Parker composing all the pieces and appearing on all four. The two larger ensembles presage some of the large bands Parker was to lead …
The Environmental Control Office
2003 release ** "An important release is not necessarily a great release, and while the rare Environmental Control Office recording of legendary Swedish saxophonist and clarinetist Bengt Frippe Nordström is a significant contribution to the discography of Swedish jazz, his lengthy improvisations remind the listener of Albert Ayler on an off day, which when you think about it is a complement of sorts. Nordström squeezes a primitive sound from his horns, his tenor sounding precisely how drummer Pe…
Take Some Risks
1989 release ** "On November 23, 1986, at the Galerie Maximilien Guiol, a small art space in Paris, Alan Silva, Roger Turner, Misha Lobko, Didier Petit, and Bruno Girard shared the stage for the first time. They knew each other well, since they had all performed alongside one another in various groupings, but as a quintet, as this quintet, it was their first concert. From the moment Turner starts hitting his metal scraps, they all dive in and begin to Take Some Risks. A satisfying session, focus…