Jazz & Improvisation / All styles

2025 stock No better is this virtuosic ability heard than on New History Warfare, Volume 1, Colin Stetson's first full-length solo recording from Aagoo Records. On this album, the vast musical experiences that Stetson has accumulated over a short period of time have been crafted into 12 songs that defy genres, establishing a sound that is Colin Stetson in full bloom.

Cruelty Bacchanal, the second release from guitarist Matt Hollenberg’s group Shardik, is a ferocious statement of intent. Years in the making and issued on John Zorn’s Tzadik label, the album presents a volatile and politically charged fusion of modern classical structure, metal intensity, and free jazz unpredictability. Hollenberg’s compositions are marked by intricate rhythmic architecture and an uncompromising sonic vision, alternating between explosive virtuosity and dark, layered atmosphere…

"Best of..." (catalog number ART54) is a limited edition compilation LP by the legendary jazz innovator Sun Ra, released on white vinyl in 2024. This collection brings together 14 early tracks that showcase Sun Ra’s multifaceted genius as a bandleader, composer, arranger, and producer. The album is issued by Reel-To-Reel Music Company and stands out for its collectible format and carefully curated selection of tracks.

Legendary pianist Cecil Taylor enjoyed a month-long residen-cy in Berlin in June and July 1988, during which he began anartistic partnership with drummer Tony Oxley which lasteduntil Taylor’s final public performances in 2016. Recorded at theOutside In Festival in Crawley, UK in September 1988, FlashingSpirits is a high-intensity, extraordinarily beautiful piano-drumsduo, previously unreleased and a revelation even for listenerswho followed Taylor’s long and unceasingly exploratory career.

The third volume of duos between indefatigable tenorsaxophonist Ivo Perelman and adventurous trumpeter NateWooley is their most intimate encounter to date. Beginningwith mournful, almost undersea drones, it moves through avariety of subtly shifting moods, combining old-school jazzromanticism with the kind of nearly telepathic interaction thatonly a long-term creative relationship can inspire. Anyonewho’s enjoyed the first two volumes of this brilliant series willfind this latest dispatch to be a…

2025 stock The moment – hard to be in it, even harder to catch it. The Duo Ige*timer has dedicated itself absolutely to that search of the moment. Klaus Janek and Simon Berz let their music grow out of the situation surrounding them. They’ve been on a tour through the States and at the concerts in Baltimore, Philadelphia and New Orleans they switched their recorder on. The three pieces on Ice Cold Pop are a documentation of their perception of these cities. Nothing is preset and nothing ist reus…

We Jazz Magazine announces the release of Issue 15, "Forfolks," a stunning 128-page exploration of contemporary jazz's most innovative and boundary-pushing artists. This meticulously crafted summer 2025 edition positions itself as an essential document for serious collectors and adventurous listeners navigating the complex terrain of modern improvised music. At the heart of this issue lies an in-depth examination of Jeff Parker, the visionary guitarist whose work bridges experimental electronics…

Jinya Disc presents an essential collection celebrating the multifaceted genius of Masayuki Takayanagi, featuring three pivotal recordings that span different periods and approaches in his revolutionary career. Holy Holly Holly captures Takayanagi's final "Angry Wave's" project in a vital 1985 live recording, featuring twin double basses creating oceanic depths beneath his razor-sharp guitar work. Stardust reunites three Japanese jazz pioneers in an intimate 1979 session, showcasing rare warmth …

De la Catessen Records presents "Here Comes Everything," an 18CD debut by Pascoe & Martin. Inspired by Joyce’s Ulysses, each disc is a long improvisation, blending piano and saxophone in a virtuosic, playful exploration of experience and dialogue.

Reese and the Smooth Ones was captured during the same revolutionary Paris session as Message to Our Folks, but stands apart as a two-part, 40-minute odyssey of unchained invention.

Renowned British saxophonist and composer Nat Birchall proudly presents his latest album, Liberated Sounds, a vibrant homage to the golden era of Jamaican ska. Drawing inspiration from the fiery horn instrumentals of the early 1960s, Birchall channels the spirit of legendary musicians such as Don Drummond, Tommy McCook, and Roland Alphonso—artists who helped shape the sound of groups like The Skatalites and Prince Buster’s All Stars. The album captures the energy, soul, and improvisational flair…

Kaze and Koichi Makigami Unleash Musical Mayhem on New Album Shishiodoshi.

Repressed for the first time in Limited edition. Licensed by Nippon Columbia. Issued with an obi strip.

2025 stock Happy Moods is a celebrated jazz album by pianist Ahmad Jamal, originally recorded in Chicago in January 1960 and reissued on vinyl by Waxtime. The album features Jamal’s renowned trio, with Israel Crosby on bass and Vernell Fournier on drums, and is widely recognized for its sophisticated blend of elegance, subtlety, and rhythmic inventiveness

Zorn’s compositions for classical soloists with rhythm section are among the most successful and powerful meetings of classical and jazz ever conceived—completely notated virtuosic scores for classical players augmented by improvisers who illuminate the music with surprise, support, and an imaginative unpredictability. Mining this magical world since 2010, the project reached its apotheosis in the acclaimed 2021 release “Heaven and Earth Magick.” Here that same quartet divides into different gro…

With “Suite for Piano” in 2022, Zorn began exploring classical forms in the context of the jazz piano trio. The second CD in the series was a beautiful collection of “Ballades,” released in July 2024. This third project presents nine Impromptus—freewheeling forms that unfold like brilliantly imaginative short stories. Brian, Jorge, and Ches outdo themselves here with telepathic interplay, endless creativity, and a courageous ability to go places that have never been discovered before. With each …

2025 stock The overlooked pianist/composer Cedar Walton (1934-2013) recorded this marvelous debut album with his band Eastern Rebellion in New York City on December 10, 1975. The currently hard-to-find ‘Eastern Rebellion’ contains some inventive playing from every member of the quartet and this inspired modern jazz session is a fitting memorial to Cedar Walton. With Walton (piano) were George Coleman (tenor sax), Sam Jones (bass) & Billy Higgins (drums) playing four band originals and one John C…

2025 stock Jan Erik Vold and Jan Garbarek, two of Norway's most prominent jazz figures, teamed up with bassist Arild Andersen, drummer Jon Christensen, guitarist Terje Rypdal and Bobo Stenson on keyboards on those two September days in 1970 to create a formidable jazz album that sells for thousands on the second-hand vinyl market. Two poems from Vold (‘Det alle vet’ from the poetry collection Mor Godhjertas glade version. Ja (1968) and ‘Dikt’ from Kykelipi (1969)) and long, slow instrumental sec…

Max Roach wasn't just one of the greatest drummers and percussionists in jazz history; he was also one of the greatest bandleaders in all of jazz, able to adapt his playing to an innumerable array of styles, from bop to free, and blessed with a keen eye and ear for talent. And he always, always kept pushing himself and his bandmates to find new modes of musical expression throughout his six-decade career. Speaking of modes, this 1968 release on the Atlantic label is one of his finest albums, a m…

This long-awaited LP reissue of a European jazz treasure released in 1969 and led by multi-reedist Sahib Shihab!

2025 stock In the ever-evolving landscape of European improvised music, Groet stands as a testament to the restless creativity and sly wit of pianist Guus Janssen and drummer Han Bennink. Released on the Dutch label Data in 2005, this album captures two of the Netherlands’ most idiosyncratic voices in a dialogue that is as unpredictable as it is deeply musical. Janssen and Bennink, both veterans of the Dutch avant-garde, approach the piano-drum duo format with a sense of play that borders on the…

2025 stock In the ever-evolving landscape of European improvisation, Apa Ini stands as a testament to the restless creativity of saxophonist Tobias Delius and his ensemble. Released on the Dutch label Data Records in 2003, the album brings together a formidable quartet: Delius on tenor saxophone, Hilary Jeffery on trombone, Wilbert de Joode on double bass, and Serigne C.M. Gueye on percussion Apa Ini is not an album that seeks easy answers or comfortable resolutions. Instead, it thrives on the t…

2025 stock In the early 1980s, the Dutch improvisation scene was a crucible of restless invention, and Cellotape & Scotchtape stands as a quietly radical document from its margins. Released on the small but influential Data label, this collaboration between cellist Ernst Reijseger and Scottish percussionist Alan "Gunga" Purves is a study in playful, tactile exploration—music that feels as if it’s being assembled in real time from the detritus of the everyday. Reijseger, already known for his uno…

2025 stock In the late 1970s, Amsterdam was a crucible for radical improvisation, and Mistakes—the collaboration between South African saxophonist Sean Bergin and Dutch cellist Ernst Reijseger—stands as a vivid document of that era’s restless energy. Released on the Data label, the album captures two musicians at the threshold of their creative powers, forging a dialogue that is as unpredictable as it is intimate. Bergin, who had recently relocated from Durban, brings a raw, searching lyricism t…

2025 stock Elastic Jargon is an album by Dutch composer and violist Maurice Horsthuis, released in 2007 on the Data label. The project brings together a unique ensemble of string players, with Horsthuis as the sole composer, exploring the boundaries of what can be achieved with string instruments alone.

2025 stock In the shadowy interstices of contemporary jazz and free improvisation, Slang by Elastic Jargon emerges as a document of restless inquiry and coded communication. Released on the Dutch label Data in 2010, the album is a cryptic dispatch from the margins, where genre boundaries are not so much blurred as actively subverted Elastic Jargon—true to their name—stretch the language of jazz until it snaps, then reassemble the fragments into something at once familiar and alien. The group’s a…

2025 stock In the ever-mutable landscape of Dutch jazz, Joost Buis’s Astronotes stands as a testament to the playful collision of composition and improvisation. Released on the Data label in 2004, the album finds Buis—trombonist, composer, and bandleader—at the helm of a vibrant ensemble drawn from the heart of Amsterdam’s creative music scene. From the opening bars of “The Eggs,” it’s clear that Buis is less interested in adhering to tradition than in subverting it with wit and invention. The b…

American percussionist Jeff Arnal and German pianist-composer Dietrich Eichmann’s two-decade partnership fuses polyrhythmic structures and vibrant textures in dynamic, improvised soundscapes. "Tides of Unrest" captures their creative synergy in a 2023 session, blending innovation, tradition, and collaboration.

"What we have here is a result of an idea ignited almost 15 years ago with its roots deep in the era of subculture 1990s, when its teenage protagonists started listening to records. But the comradeship between the three of us started in the early 2000 when I was pursuing my first Utopian idea of an art commune in the form of a counter-festival in the Southeastern Slovenian countryside on the border with Croatia. An idea from which, years later, another Utopian project was born - an international…

Bomb! Estonian multi-instrumentalist Misha Panfilov returns with Days As Echoes, a sophomore release that channels the expansive spirit of Krautrock through the lens of contemporary ambient and spiritual jazz. Part of Panfilov's ever-expanding musical universe, the Misha Panfilov Sound Combo delivers six compositions that function as both individual meditations and a cohesive sonic narrative about hope, journey, and human connection. Drawing from an impossibly diverse palette that includes Ethio…

Acclaimed Belgian duo Poor Isa (banjoists Ruben Machtelinckx and Frederik Leroux) present their third album, evolving their minimalist style by collaborating with saxophonist Evan Parker and percussionist Ingar Zach. The result is a rich blend of introspective textures and dynamic improvisation.

*2025 stock* 'From the early years of Norwegian jazz, few albums have stood the test of time as well as the venturesome and subtly psychedelic Plastic Sun. It was the Svein Finnerud's second disc, and was released on Sonet in 1970. Inexplicably for an album of such beauty, it has been a hard-to-find collector's item for decades, having only been reissued once before, in 1998, as a CD on the Norwegian Jazz Federation's Odin label. In April 2018, Odin have reissued it again, this time on CD and in…

One of the most outstanding Bossa Jazz productions from West Germany at the beginning of the 80s! These masterpieces captivate with their stylistic perfection and journey from Bossa Nova to Jazz to slight Disco´n Boogie influence. Its still on of the most DJ spinned Bossa tunes from W.-Germany in the last 30 years! The two highly talented, creative and sensitive artists Judy (Jude Enxuto) and Ximo (Ximo Gregorio) had lived in Germany since 1980 and performing in several clubs, small art stages a…

Sound Essence is more than proud to presents a very special production from East Germany of the early 70s! One of the TOP Soul-Jazz & Beat combos in the country led by bassist and singer Horst Kruger, recorded two previously unreleased, outrageously good titles here in the newly formed septet format. "Ich will die Zeit nicht bereuen" ("I don't want to regret the time") is probably by far one of the most crispy produced German-language soul beats numbers that existed in the GDR at that time! From…

Here comes a true South American Latin JazzFunk treasure from Argentina!!!  Sound Essence is more than proud to present these lost recordings from 1974 to music lovers again in all their glory. Carlos Franzetti, who has once again been in the spotlight in recent years thanks to the re-release of his strong late 70s JazzFusion record "Graffiti", was also in charge of this record called Dedos. The story behind: In 1974, after Carlos Franzetti was living in Mexico and worked as the musical director…

Here comes one of the most exclusive and sought-after recordings of a hotel band from the Caribbean Antilles. The resident and highly talented soul singer Lloyd Baptiste played there during the 70s with his group "The Joys" in the popular hotel called Divi Divi on the then Dutch island of Aruba. The finest soul, funk and disco filled the repertoire of this outstanding formation. This led to the hotel management sending them to the Pyramid Sound Studio, New York in 1976 for advertising purposes a…

Taken from Abdullah Ibrahim’s summer 2023 sold-out headline date at London’s Barbican Centre, the new album “3” follows suit and is spread across two performances – the first is recorded without an audience ahead of the concert straight to analogue on a 1” Scully tape machine, which had previously been used by Elvis at the famous Memphis-based Sun Studios. The second recording is taken from the evening’s performance itself with Ibrahim performing in a unique trio which includes Cleave Guyton (fl…

"This album is the most personal I’ve made to date. Named after an ancient Anglo-Saxon poem from the 9th century AD about the former glory of an unnamed ruined city, “The Ruin” is inspired by the feeling of living in England (“a country that feels like a living ruin”), the bleak landscape of where I grew up (Medway towns), and a kind of self-portrait reflecting how we all live amongst the ruins of our past selves both collectively and individually. All the musical material on “The Ruin” is taken…

This recording is an experiment in composing from percussion first. To feel movement in harmony and arrangement through the improvising senses of a percussionist. The melodic and harmonic elements appeared instantly after recording the percussion with Rama Parwata. The additional Tenor Saxophone of Cheryl Durongpisitkul (Sola) and Bass Clarinet of Flora Carbo (Sfondo and Mondo) were the final touches to bring life into the music. The result is a through-composed work, a narrative starting inside…

Organic Music Society is an album by trumpeter Don Cherry. Many critics consider this album the one which gives a fuller picture of Cherry as ensemble leader, spiritualist and cultural synthesizer. Indeed, Organic Music Society is a bold exploration of global musical traditions, reflecting Cherry's vision of music as a universal. Here, Cherry makes a significant shift from his free jazz roots toward a more expansive, world music fusion. Recorded in Sweden, the album features a diverse ensemble b…