Jazz /
No Stranger, Not At All
Gisburg's debut release is "imaginary movie music" by an extraordinary young vocalist and composer, including dramtic text and Chinese and African traditional instruments. Gisburg was born in Austria in 1966 and has lived in New York since 1992. In Berlin, she performed in the ensemble of Dieter Schnebel and in the Vocalduo Allii Gaa with Anna Clementi. She has recorded with Anthony Coleman/Roy Nathanson and Michelle Kinney among others.
Blue Marble
Produced and arranged by enigmatic mystical traveller Eyvind Kang, Blue Marble is a CD of surreal folk songs by singer/songwriter Aiko Shimada. Born in Japan and now based in Seattle, Aiko’s music is fresh, original and heartfelt. For this latest release, Eyvind has brought in an unusual team of proto-hippies and music freaks keying off of Aiko’s moody melodies and lyrics. From noise to string orchestra, drum machine to toy piano, Blue Marble is an unforgettable emotional ride through Aiko’s exo…
Babel
After the release of the celebrated The Storyteller, saxophonist and bandleader Uri Gurvich's widely acclaimed debut on Tzadik, he became quite busy as a sideman, with Chris Potter, John Zorn, Joe Lovano, Dave Liebman, and others, as well as becoming a member of his drummer Francisco Mela's Cuban Safari. For BabEl, Gurvich brings back the same international ensemble: the Cuban-born Mela, Argentinian keyboardist Leo Genovese, and Bulgarian bassist, Peter Slavov. The guest spot this time out is fi…
A New Life (Private, Independent And Youth Jazz In Great Britain 1966-1990)
Thought you knew about British jazz? Think again. Diving into the unknown world of the private pressing, Jazzman Records presents some of the rarest and wildest British jazz ever recorded! The major stars of British jazz such as Stan Tracey, Michael Garrick, and Joe Harriott are now rightly recognized as the giants they were, and the legendary Brit jazz recordings of the 1960s are amongst the most highly-prized of all collectable records. But what happened to jazz in the UK when the recording in…
Echoes of Africa
Highly recommended, a true Revelation! After a long hiatus since the homonymous 2006 release on Schema Records, The Invisible Session is back with Echoes Of Africa to be released on the newly-launched Space Echo label. Initiated in 2006 by Schema Records’ co-founder and musician Luciano Cantone, The Invisible Session’s influences are rooted in Black music. Written in collaboration with trombonist and multi-instrumentalist Gianluca Petrella, and with lyrics by poet, rapper, and MC Martin Thomas P…
Blues In My Mind
The great bassist Oscar Pettiford live in Hamburg 1958, second chapter. Fine mélange of modern mainstream, cool jazz and hard bop, with Jimmy Pratt (dr), Hans Koller (ts), Dusko Goykovich (tp), Michel Hausser (vib), Attila Zoller (g), Roger Guerin (tp) and Armin Rusch (p), Comes as carefully mastered longplay-CD and 2-LP vinyl set (gatefold), including photos of the event by Susanne Schapowalow and new liner notes by Arne Reimer, with Goykovich and Hausser sharing their memories of the time. Cer…
We Get The Message
Newly unearthed live recordings of jazz bass and cello legend Oscar Pettiford and his quartet from Hamburg in 1958, featuring the great Kenny Clarke (dr), Hans Koller (ts), Attila Zoller (g) & guests in front of an excited audience. Eight tracks full of bluesy modern jazz, with a gloomy version of Friedrich Gulda`s “Dark Glow” or the cheerful “Gertberg Walk”, written by Pettiford especially for the occasion. Excellent sound quality, carefully mastered in 2015, comes with new liner notes and unse…
Echoes
Mats Gustaffson and the Fire! Orchestra return with an album recorded in the company of Jim O'Rourke entitled Echoes and to be released on 14 April 2023 by Rune Grammofon. For the 14th anniversary the Fire! Orchestra presents itself with a gigantic line-up of 43 elements. Within the big band we also find the confirmation of singer Mariam Wallentin, as well as the addition of the voices of David Sandström and Joe McPhee (also present as tenor sax).
Echoes is a new chapter within the discography o…
Ethiobraz
“Ethiobraz” documents the meeting of Paal Nilssen-Love’s Large Unit big band and Ethiopian dance/music ensemble Fendika at Molde Jazz Festival in 2018. Joining them as a special guest is guitarist Terrie Ex, who was a key component in getting making the meeting happen with his long involvement with the Ethiopian music scene. And, Paal Nilssen-Loves’s first travel to Ethiopia was with The Ex in December 2009. This changed his life. Paal’s first travel to Brazil was in June 2013. This also changes…
In a Violent Way
BPJ producer Matt Parker's debut concept recording, finally receiving an official release. Created using the techniques of legendary jazz producer Teo Macero, and inspired by a love of Sci-Fi and progressive jazz and rock. Featuring guest appearances from Stone Foundation members Rob Newton and Anthony Gaylard.
For Future Reference
Never-before-released early 1980s sessions by a band of top British players and composers which never released an album, led by drummer Trevor Tomkins. This is, in effect, the late Trevor Tomkins debut album release as leader, as well as his memorial. We were working on this with Trevor when he died last last year and it's now released with the help and support of his family.
Little Sunflower
*2023 stock* From Wales, the home of the harp, Amanda has taken her classical roots and forged them in the path of jazz harpist Dorothy Ashby.
She has toured extensively with Matthew Halsall and the Gondwana Orchestra performing at Jazz festivals around the world. More recent collaborations have included recording with DJ Yoda and Chip Wickham and touring Wickham's latest album including upcoming appearances at Ronnie Scotts and Le Petit Halle, Paris.
Whiting's first album was recorded as a trio…
Egypt Strut / Kahn El-Khaleely
*2023 stock* Drummer and multi-instrumentalist Salah Ragab was a central figure in the history of jazz in Egypt. A sometime collaborator with Sun Ra, Ragab founded the Cairo Jazz Band in 1968, the same year that he became the head of the Egyptian Military Music Department. The Cairo Jazz Band was Egypt's first big band, mixing American jazz with North African music, combining jazz instrumentation and musical style with indigenous melodies and instruments, like the nay (bamboo flute) and the baza…
Touchless
Co-released in 2011, this 7" features alto saxophonist Paul Flaherty, a major American alto saxophonist active since the 1980s, and Bill Nace, head of Open Mouth, an experimental label in the same country. Includes two improvised tracks with alto and guitar, DL code included.
Jazz For The Jet Set
“In much the same way hippies can be an iconic symbol of the late ’60s, the early ’60s might be represented by the world of the Jet Set. The Jet Set was a carry over from the Café Culture of the ‘50s and first popularized in such films as Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (1960) and Edward’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961). The women were beautiful, glamorous, and sexually available. The men were slick, sharply dressed, and talking the fast hip lingo. The alcohol flowed, cigarettes burned, and the music alw…
Deeper In Black
Deeper in Black was inspired by the 1969 Blue Note recording of American trumpeter Blue Mitchell entitled Collision in Black and took its name from Pillay’s cover of the album’s Peggy Grayson composition. Pillay’s album featured another two compositions from Collision in Black by way of the Monk Higgins track “Keep Your Soul,” with distinct arrangements straddling Side A and Side B, and Vee Pea’s “Jo Ju Ja” closing out the set. Although the source material was over a decade old when Pillay recor…
Thrust Too
Thrust barely made a blip in the marketplace; it was mostly available around the Akron area. But Niles was undeterred. He returned the following year with the just-as-good Thrust Too, which is a touch more muscular, more precise — partly due to being recorded in a slightly upgraded studio meant for jingles. What Thrust Too loses in atmosphere, it makes up for in deep grooves, like on “Hang Ten,” “Parrott City,” and “Machelle.” McNeal — the namesake of the latter — appears on the final track, “Su…
Thrust
At the makeshift Man-Ray Studios in Akron, Ohio, where barrels of soap were rolled away to make room for recording, guitarist Wilbur Niles and his then-girlfriend, Machelle McNeal, recorded "Ja Ja." Niles, a history major, titled it after King Jaja, who rose from slavery to become a wildly successful broker of palm oil in the 19th century. The humid tranquil track would lead off the pair's first and only album together, 1979's Thrust. It begins with an elliptical little electric-piano hook by Mc…
Plum And Cherry
Following the April 2022 reissue of the album Shrimp Boats, We Are Busy Bodies presents companion titles Plum and Cherry and Deeper in Black to round out a Lionel Pillay and Basil Mannenberg Coetzee “trilogy” as part of the label’s As-Shams South African jazz archive series. The connection between these three albums is tight as the 1987 release Shrimp Boats compiled unreleased recordings from both the 1979 session for Plum and Cherry and the 1980 session for Deeper in Black. These two rare recor…
Requiem for Jazz
Composer, clarinetist, singer and educator Angel Bat Dawid announces the release of a new work, Requiem For Jazz. A 12-movement suite composed, arranged, and inspired in part by dialogue from Edward O. Bland’s 1959 film The Cry of Jazz, the album is a wide-ranging treatise on the African American story from one of its most astute narrators.
Itself an incisive critique of racial politics in the USA, The Cry of Jazz draws formal comparisons between the structure of jazz music and the African Ameri…