Jazz /
The Call: For A New Life
* Edition of 300. Spectacular four-panel gatefold cover * Since the early 1980s, the Nexus creature has represented one of the most interesting realities of the Italian jazz scene. Daniele Cavallanti (Aktuala) and Tiziano Tononi (Moon On The Water and D.O.M Alia Orchestra) realize a sensational mix of orchestral praxis and impro-free jazz. The strength lies in the ensemble's variety of timbres, in that precise hybrid of styles reminiscent of the cross-sectional experiences of the 1970s of Zappa,…
Live At Schauburg Bremen 1986
Recorded live on tour in Germany in 1986, here we have "Mystery Mr. Ra" leading a quite rare tentet version of the Arkestra featuring the historical reed section of John Gilmore, Marshal Allen, Eloe Omoe, Danny Ray Thomson and James Jackson, plus trombonist Tyron Hill and an electric rhythms section featuring Marvin "Boogaloo" Smith on drums. This is a beautiful document from an era when Ra, in addition to his usual sound explorations and space hymns, began to introduce a good number of jazz sta…
A Railroad Spike Forms The Voice
*2023 stock* "Don’t follow.” That’s the admonition saxophonist and composer Roscoe Mitchell (b. 1940) was known to give his students at Oakland’s Mills College in one-on-one sessions. In musical communication and creation, not following or directly responding to others is central to Mitchell’s philosophy and approach. As he said to me in a recent conversation, “I just let things develop with my intent, with my work, and I’ve never been a person that went around looking for people to play with. I…
Soft Samba Live! Jazz From The Penthouse
From the great cache of tapes recorded at Seattle's storied Penthouse nightclub comes The Gary McFarland Quintet, recorded live in the summer of 1965. McFarland could usually be found in the recording studios of New York arranging for everyone from Stan Getz to Lena Horne, but his 1964 bossa-jazz classic LP Soft Samba was such an unexpected hit that it afforded McFarland the opportunity to hit the road with fellow Berklee School of Music alumni Gabor Szabo on guitar and Sadao Watanabe on flute a…
Dedication
Gordon Micky Mfandu was the original leader of “The Clan”, founded as a sixteen-piece band by trombonist Reuben Boy Radise in 1970. This 1973 recording was made following the untimely murder of Mfandu outside his home in Pimville, Soweto. The last track written by Peter Segona and Dimpi Tshabalala is dedicated to Mfandu. Mfandu was also the drummer for the Soul Giants’ “I Remember Nick”, recorded in 1968. According to the band, their music is no carbon copy of somebody’s. ‘We’re trying to be ou…
I Dream I Was An Earopean
Temporary Super Offer! "Only ghosts don’t make footfalls (another Beckett title!) that we can hear, don’t need to open and close doors to effect passage. These men together are enacting over a longer duration a strong sense of life- as-lived. They are conspiring, not in the political or legal sense, but simply breathing-together. It isn’t forbiddingly abstract music. It simply enacts our various ways of living together. Take a deep breath and enjoy." - Brian Morton
Aleksi Heinola Quartet
The Aleksi Heinola Quartet presents a new take on vintage hard-bop with their latest record, featuring original compositions and reinterpretations of works by iconic jazz greats. Impeccable musicianship, groovy swing, and a distinct sense of style are on display, with Gábor Bolla on tenor sax, Jukkis Uotila on piano, and Daniel Franck on double bass. This quartet date is not to be missed!
The African OmniDevelopment Space Complex (Book)
Bassist Ubadah McConner recounts the evolution and history of this home based cultural, educational, and music center in Pontiac, Michigan that embraced the revolutionary spirit of the 60s and 70s Black artistic renaissance through all night sessions of fire music, mutual support and conversation.
McConner’s weekend sessions lasted thirty years, until 2002, and were open to everyone so there is name-dropping galore, but the reader may not be familiar with many of the names. As patrick brennan n…
Ethiopian Urban Modern Music Vol. 4
The 2nd volume of Ethiopian hit-parade. The hottest tracks of 1972. Original LP Reissue. The follow up to the highly acclaimed reissue of the first volume, Ethiopian Hit Parade. The track layout is identical to the original record released in 1972. "After releasing around fifty 45 rpm singles and his first 33 rpm album (Ethiopian Modern Instrumental Hits AELP 10, re-released by Heavenly Sweetness HS092VL), Amha Esthèté set about compiling his best 45s on a series of now legendary albums (the or…
Sketches
"If music really is a form of rapid transportation, then I have found my mode of transport. Suspense brings apprehension before something happens. It’s a fact. The next time you’re in a snappy nightclub, tap your foot to the memories of your day fading out under the blue lights. The fiercest way to walk anywhere is on your toes. “Here I am,” you blurt out, but everyone already knows you, because a bass is a foghorn that guides us out of exhaustion. The days are doing a little number on us all of…
Yasmina, A Black Woman
Iconic musician and political activist makes a typically thought-provoking statement on historic 1969 recording.
Anglo American Jazz Phase 1
*300 copies limted edition In process of stocking* Jazz classics featuring Hampton Hawes on piano. Released,1971. John Denis Hawksworth, British pianist, bassist, composer, and arranger. He worked with the "Ted Heath Orchestra" from 1951 to 1965. Hampton Hawes, American jazz pianist.
Haut-Coeur
"Always at the helm, the sound magician Jean-Marc Foussat offers us four new releases from his catalogue. In April 2022 in Le Mans, this champion of combinations between electronics and acoustics brought together Emmanuelle Parrenin on the hurdy-gurdy, a very old instrument that is sometimes considered the ancestor of the synthesizer (!) and Quentin Rollet on the saxophones, an "impossible" trio if ever there was one. Yet these instruments are in perfect harmony, blending and harmonising in the …
Periferia
"Periferia is an ancient greek word which dérives from the verb perifero,i.e, to bear, bring about; Periferoalso means to let someone know or makesomething known to people, therefore to spread and communicate.
Periferia as a specific area is the perimeter of any closed system. But the1ine of letter Фcuts like a sword the circumference of the solid circle. Periferia symbolizes the fact that you are always far from the center, thatyou follow paths which will never bring you towards the center — yo…
L'Aile D'Icare
"Is it the fall of Icarus, whose vertiginous stridulation we hear from the very first notes of this album, to which Jean-Marc Foussat once again mixes his AKS synth and his voice? A sharp whistle has just pierced the atmosphere and is lost in the urban bustle where the police sirens can easily be distinguished. It is with this scene worthy of a Michael Mann or Christopher Nolan film that this trio recording opens, bringing together saxophonist Urs Leimgruber, who has already signed a magnificent…
Off Course !
"There is a landscape of sonic ideas, of banging, of entity, of new forms of stimulating the body and of prehension moved by our human, urban, maybe even cubist surroundings, or by the big wild country where, we say, music does what it wants. Unless, we misread and “music knows what it wants.” Both! With one stroke, knowing and doing unanimously converge into one. A point of intersection - there are so many - between the desiredl iberties and sublime agitation provoked by the embrasure of paths …
Live At The Berlin Jazzbühne Festival 1982
“In the afternoon we performed in a rather austere theatre in East Berlin. Then I remember we crossed Checkpoint Charlie that evening to play in a club in West Berlin. The atmosphere was completely different. I felt as though we were living in a black and white spy movie.” Nicolas Fiszman recalls that chaotic day of 13 June 1982. Two outstanding guitarists, Philip Catherine and Nicolas Fiszman, who at the time was only seventeen years old, were taken from one side of Berlin to the other in pouri…
Another Way Of The Heart
*2023 stock* "A few rare albums fit perfectly into your emotional state of mind and capture the fragility of our impermanent lives so beautifully as Another Way of the Heart by Norwegian reeds and trumpet player Torben Snekkestad and Danish pianist Søren Kjærgaard. Both Snekkestad and Kjærgaard were associated with the Danish label-musicians cooperative Ilk Music but, unfortunately, their discographies, especially in recent years, don't match their great creative potential.
Snekkestad and Kjærga…
Future Moons
*2023 stock* The trio of Kieran Adams (sampler, drum machine, drums), Matthew “Doc” Dunn (keyboards and electronics), and Andy Haas (reeds and electronics) is a subset of Toronto spiritual jazz practitioners The Cosmic Range. Where their parent-group tends to anchor itself with a firm pulse, the trio veers into various flavours of abstraction. Some pieces furnish nervy ambient waft, whereas others are more gestural—sometimes violently so. Meanwhile, on the title track, a synth bass ostinato lays…
727 / 16
*100 copies limited edition. 2023 sock* When Christopher Shannon (of bands Bart and Possum) and Benjamin Pullia started High Alpine Hut Network, the intention was to explore cosmic extensions of house music. However with the addition of Jason Bhattacharya on drums, HAHN's recording sessions rapidly became a site of experimentation where members would generate raw material through structured improvisation and sheer spontaneity. Through this process, the project eventually evolved into a collabora…