Jazz & Improvisation / All styles

2026 stock Louis Moholo-Moholo returned to South Africa to a rapturous reception in 1993 with his band Viva-La-Black. They embarked upon a series of concerts and workshops, performing in Capetown, Port Elizabeth, Durban and Johannesburg. This album affords a glimpse into the exhilarating experience, one which Claude Deppa describes as "musically speaking, it was the tour of a lifetime."

English jazz musician John Surman’s three albums for Deram, dating from 1969, 1970 and 1971. A talented saxophonist, clarinet and synthesizer player, Surman made his name playing and recording with the likes of Mike Westbrook, Graham Collier and before being signed to Deram. Recording for a variety of labels, Surman signed for ECM in 1979 and is still with them to this day. Digitally remastered and slipcased. Extensive new notes by Charles Waring.

CD version. "Every now and then I meet a bull who announces itself with its horns ('Le Corna'). But it doesn't scare me, it moves and dances, it runs away. Archery ('Tiro') is its favourite ('Rito') hobby, and my bull likes tea. It always eats round roti ('Chapati') together with its bull ('tori') friends who all have bristling hair like hedgehogs and succulent plants. My bull keeps different things in the vegetable gardens ('Orti') and in the wineskins ('Otri'). Then there is the tail ('la coda…

2026 stock Condor, Autumn Wind is a live album released in 1998 by American jazz trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith in collaboration with his wife, poet Harumi Makino Smith. Recorded in Durham, it showcases Smith's avant-garde improvisation style through mostly solo trumpet performances enriched by mbira, percussion, wood flute, siren, and vocals.​ The album blends Smith's episodic trumpet solos—boldly shaped phrases that evolve piece by piece—with Harumi Makino Smith's evocative poetry recited in Engli…

Two 1970s’ CTI albums and 1980’s ‘Skagly’ make up this triumvirate from trumpeter Freddie Hubbard. Amongst those sidesmen featured on these albums are Billy Cobham, George Duke, George Benson, Hubert Law and Jeff Baxter. ‘Keep Your Soul Together’ and ‘Polar AC” both made the US Top 200. Digitally remastered and slipcased with extensive new notes.

Recorded in Paris in 1965, Don Cherry’s Togetherness is a five‑part live suite where pocket‑trumpet chants, Gato Barbieri’s searing tenor, vibes and a dancing rhythm section turn early free jazz into something fiercely open yet strangely joyful.

With With a Heartbeat, Pharoah Sanders and Bill Laswell ride the amplified pulse of the human heart into a slow, glowing trance, fusing tabla cycles, electronic drones and cornet smears into four long arcs of cosmic late‑period Sanders.

Alvin Singleton’s (b. 1940) approach to music-making has all along been involved in an interplay with listeners and their psychology. While this does not mean he has been centered on simply pleasing his audiences, his work seems to constantly draw his audience into confronting challenges of listening, and they tend to end up pleased. Therefore, with so many of his pieces, they might be extremely complex and masterfully crafted, but seldom do you feel he presents the listener with something they …

With Notebook, Lukas Ligeti turns a band, a method and a score into the same thing: four pieces where intricate design and on‑the‑spot decision‑making fuse into chamber music that thinks aloud in real time.

Terrific session just released in 1974 on influential independent Muse. A modal masterpiece verging on spiritual jazz with a series of excellent players: from Richard Davis and Cecil McBee on bass to Ray Mantilla on congas and percussion, through Harold Vick distinctive flute and tenor sax. The major voice on this record belongs to the traps of Joe Chambers. The enormous potency combined with complete authority and tonal clarity that Chambers brings to the drums has made him one of the more dist…

Special discounted Bundle. Two of the most important and exciting free jazz reissues of 2026, together in a single bundle. Both belong to Charly Records' extraordinary ongoing audiophile initiative dedicated to BYG Records' legendary Jazz Actuel series - one of the single greatest bodies of avant-garde jazz documentation ever assembled - and both finally receive the presentation they have always deserved, fully restored and remastered from the original BYG master tapes. Jacques Coursil's Black S…

On The Call, Bellbird turn their namesake’s piercing cry into a manifesto: an explosive yet intimate quartet music where twin saxes, rhythm‑led structures and “ugly” beauty carry climate grief and solidarity into a single, ringing shout.

Lau Nau (Laura Naukkarinen), Linda Fredriksson and Matti Bye enter the We Jazz Records realm as Kiri Ra! with their new album nen (out 22 May 2026). Kiri Ra! is a trio that creates their sound slowly, in a process of improvisation and discovery. Filtered through the musicians' long-standing friendship and collaboration, Kiri Ra!'s music is a testament to the joy of creation and invention. Their sound together draws from each of the the artists' work before, while creating new world of sound. The…

The Outskirts came together as a working band during bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten’s three-year stint as a Chicagoan from 2005-2008. They played regularly at all of the working venues for improvised music in Chicago at that time, including The Hungry Brain, The Velvet Lounge, The Hideout, and Elastic. They even made a live recording in April 2009 that they were eager to release. But unfortunately, the multi-track audio files were lost in a hard drive mishap, leaving only a barely usable rough m…

Originally released in 1981, Mr. Circle’s Thi Nam should really have been recognised decades ago as a jazz dance classic. A beautiful example of European jazz fusion at its most sophisticated and optimistic, the album is immersed in the sonics and rhythms of pan-Latin fusion and Brazilian samba, but with one foot in the upful jazz fusion exemplified by Roy Ayers or the Mighty Ryeders. Remastered from the original tapes at Abbey Road, Outernational Sounds is proud to present a true lost gem of Eu…

The rhythm team by Rashied Ali and Reggie Johnson (with former Sun Ra member Ronnie Boykins adding texture on "Capricorn Moon") establishes a solid foundation, complemented by Alan Shorter's sharp trumpet, while Benny Maupin's close expressions in monophonic form also support it. The fact that pianist Burt Green recorded an almost unnoticed ESP album (just a month later) with Brown as a sideman illustrates how fluid and negotiable musical activities were within this nascent community. Although R…

The album "Spirits," released by a debut label based in Copenhagen, marked the first opportunity for Ayler to record his "free music" in February 1964 in New York. The musicians selected by him included notable figures such as Cecil Taylor (with drummer Sunny Murray), members from Sonny Rollins' band (bassist Henry Grimes), and musicians from his Cleveland period (trumpeter Norman Howard, bassist Earl Henderson). This work also represents his first focus on his own compositions, which includes H…

On Hot Five & Hot Seven at 100, Louis Armstrong’s seminal Chicago sides are reborn in vivid new mastering, letting his trumpet solos, daring rhythms and easy charisma speak afresh as the very moment jazz pivots into a true soloist’s art.

On Concert A Prades Le Lez, Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra turns Tusques’ radical internationalism into exuberant sound: a border‑smashing live suite where New Orleans, Brittany and North Africa collide in dance‑charged, militant joy.

On Concert A Prades Le Lez, Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra turns Tusques’ radical internationalism into exuberant sound: a border‑smashing live suite where New Orleans, Brittany and North Africa collide in dance‑charged, militant joy.

On Concert A Prades Le Lez, Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra turns Tusques’ radical internationalism into exuberant sound: a border‑smashing live suite where New Orleans, Brittany and North Africa collide in dance‑charged, militant joy.

On Awofofora, Marion Brown folds funk, reggae and Afro‑Caribbean rhythm into his mature structural language, using grooves not as decoration but as architecture for golden‑toned alto lines and quietly radical collective improvisation.

On Live at Hachioji Alone, Shudan Sokai document Tokyo free jazz at the moment it moves to the city’s western margins: exuberant quartet music where loft‑sharpened fire, song forms and nursery‑rhyme mischief collide in a tiny Hachioji club.

"The title Looking for Consonance popped into my head one day as I began thinking about a name for this collection of music. This title immediately felt important, so I kept sitting with it. I thought I knew what consonance meant in music, but I also knew it carried other meanings—ones that extend well beyond sound. Webster’s Dictionary defines consonance as “the harmony or agreement of sounds produced simultaneously, resulting in a pleasing and stable auditory experience.” The word that stands …

Three of downtown’s most dynamic performers join forces to form Mephista—one of the first all women supergroups (Susie Ibarra, Sylvie Courvoisier, and Ikue Mori). Separately these three have worked with some of the most important musicians in new music (Derek Bailey, Wadada Leo Smith, Pauline Oliveros, William Parker, John Zorn, Fred Frith, Mike Patton, Dave Douglas, etc.)—together they have created a whole new kind of music spanning the worlds of rock, classical, jazz and electronica. Sensitive…

Frank London, a major voice in today’s Jewish music renaissance, who has worked with the likes of LLCooI J, LaMonte Young, Jane Siberry and Gal Costa, is a trumpetist, composer, arranger and musical scholar of startling range and creativity. The Debt is the first collection of his work for film and theater, and contains a wide variety of his musical obsessions: Latin grooves, Mingus-style jazz arrangements, classical chamber compositions, moody sound pieces, funky bachelor pad music and a gorgeo…

Haino Keiji is a mysterious psychedelic minstrel who has been performing his peculiar blend of rock, medieval music and improvisation since the early 1970’s. Incredibly prolific, he has headed dozens of bands and released hundreds of CDs on a variety of labels around the globe. His latest project is a wild duo with Ruins mastermind Yoshida Tatsuya, the undisputed master drummer of the Japanese Underground. Featuring Haino’s unique singing and screaming style as well as his best guitar playing to…

Anthony Braxton, Milford Graves and William Parker are quite literally three of the most important virtuoso instrumentalists in new music, each a vivid conceptualist as well an influential composer/perf o rm e r. This intense improvisational outing features them at their best: excited, inspired and in complete communication. Recorded and mixed by musical alchemist Bill Laswell, sparks fly in this important and historic meeting of creative music masters.

In early 2002 Derek Bailey astounded the free music community with his gorgeous album Ballads, a radical and steely interpretation of the standard repertoire. It became an instant classic, hit a dozen best-ten lists and remains his best selling cd of all time. The recordings here were made just weeks after the idea was first born at an intimate Christmas gathering in New York—and two months before the recording of Ballads. Here Derek is working out his personal approach to the standard song repe…

Private recordings of incredible historical importance (practically the holy grail to fans of free improvisation), Pieces for Guitar presents the earliest known solo recordings of guitar innovator Derek Bailey. Dating from 1966 (possibly 1965) these pieces were recorded for personal study during a transitional period and include some of the only instances of him performing his own written compositions!! Under the influence of the music of Anton Webern, Bailey began working through a variety of t…

A rhythm-driven, analog-leaning record built from hypnotic basslines, warm synth textures, and layered percussion, "Simulacra" is the debut LP from Venetian bassist and producer Eric Demuro, a fully realized studio statement that brings his compositional voice into focus. The album moves through hazy jazz-funk, ambient passages, library psychedelia, and Brazilian rhythmic language without settling into revivalism. Fender Rhodes figures, hand percussion, and vintage keyboards drift through spacio…

On Ntsano, Mara & Naná Vasconcelos weave Québécois avant‑garde jazz into Afro‑Brazilian ritual: berimbau, winds and drums circling through slow‑burning themes that feel at once meditative, mysterious and fiercely alive.

On Ola Tunji, Ola Tunji channel a luminous strain of spiritual and free jazz: collective meditations where Ornella Noulet’s fierce, tender saxophone rides a young quintet’s searching interplay toward something like secular devotion.

This 2LP bundle includes the two latest Formalibera albums: John Tchicai "Wigmore Hall 1968", and John Tchicai, Peter Kowald "John Tchicai Quintet, John Tchicai Peter Kowald Duo".John Tchicai "Wigmore Hall 1968" (LP)* Edition of 300 copies. High thickness cardboard with opaque laminated cover. Comes with a printed insert.* John Tchicai (1936-2012) was one of the most visionary free jazz saxophonists of the 20th century - a rare artist whose voice stood apart even among giants. Born in Copenhagen…

In 1970s Jazz Fusion, critic Matthew Reed Baker reassesses a once‑derided hybrid, showing how the electric experiments of Davis, Hancock, Corea, Mahavishnu and others reshaped jazz, rock, soul and hip‑hop from the 1970s to today.

In As Serious As Your Life, photographer and historian Val Wilmer chronicles the free jazz revolution as a Black cultural vanguard, situating Ayler, Coltrane, Coleman, Sun Ra and others within the struggles, hopes and solidarities of 1960s–70s America.

In Cosmic Music, Andy Beta traces Alice Coltrane’s journey from Detroit church pews to avant‑garde bandstands and ashram altars, revealing a visionary composer, bandleader and spiritual teacher whose work radically reshaped the possibilities of Black American music.

*Edition of 300 copies. High thickness cardboard with opaque laminated cover. Comes with a printed insert.* John Tchicai was extraordinarily prolific during the late 1960s and early 1970s, and this second archival release from Formalibera captures two essential, previously undocumented chapters of his story. Side one takes us to Danish Radio House, Copenhagen, October 1969, where Tchicai leads a remarkable hybrid quintet fresh from a European tour: Danish collaborators Hugh Steinmetz and Pierre …

*Edition of 300 copies. High thickness cardboard with opaque laminated cover. Comes with a printed insert.* John Tchicai (1936-2012) was one of the most visionary free jazz saxophonists of the 20th century - a rare artist whose voice stood apart even among giants. Born in Copenhagen to a Danish mother and a Congolese father, his path to New York came through a chance encounter at a socialist youth festival in Helsinki, where Bill Dixon and Archie Shepp heard him play and urged him to make the mo…

An original member of the legendary Black Artists Group (St. Louis' counterpart to the AACM), and founder of the World Sax Quartet, Julius Hemphill was one of the most important composer/performers in creative music. His work is marked by a sharp, edgy melodicism steeped in the blues, contrapuntal complexity and a striking formal logic. One Atmosphere presents the full range of his compositional talents: a long, epic work for seven woodwinds (one of his greatest compositions, here receiving its …