Jazz & Improvisation / All styles

Chihei Hatakeyama, who has become a leading figure in the ambient/drone music scene in Japan, has now announced his second collaboration with jazz drummer Shun Ishiwaka. The two had been sharing the stage together in live performances since meeting on a radio show recording, and in May 2024 they released the first of a two-part series, "Magnificent Little Dudes Vol.1", and this is the second installment.This album includes the album's opening track, “M3,” featuring award-winning British cellist …

2009 release ** "The Foot Job Band is a tough one to pin down, hard to label, and not easily put in box. You can’t tie up with a pretty red bow to be given as a present, even though producer/director Esmerelda Ronchi would love to receive such a risque gift! The ensemble, a true sextet in all senses of the word, take the listener through 14 tracks of lusty improvisation, deep composition and sensual spoken word. Some of the highlights: The drama kicks off on the the fiery 70’s tinged “Arpeggi” w…

1998 release (RARE) ** "This is a wonderful release capturing a live duo performance of percussionist Susie Ibarra and her mentor Denis Charles, who was active in free jazz from the time of recording on Cecil Taylor's earliest albums until his death just two months after this concert. Warm, intuitive, and often lovely, the music created by the two percussionists this day is worth sitting down and getting hypnotized by for awhile; a touching document of Charles and his legacy."

2005 release ** "Founded by Village Voice icon Greg Tate and co-led with Dayton Ohio monster bassist Jared Michael Nickerson since 1999, Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber is a sprawling band of musicians whose prodigious personnel allows them to freely juggle a wide swath of the experimental soul-jazz-hip hop spectrum. Burnt Sugar was originally conceived as a forum for the New York area improvisational musician to compose, record and perform material which reflects the breadth and depth of Ameri…

2004 release ** "Founded by Village Voice icon Greg Tate and co-led with Dayton Ohio monster bassist Jared Michael Nickerson since 1999, Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber is a sprawling band of musicians whose prodigious personnel allows them to freely juggle a wide swath of the experimental soul-jazz-hip hop spectrum. Burnt Sugar was originally conceived as a forum for the New York area improvisational musician to compose, record and perform material which reflects the breadth and depth of Ameri…

2010 release ** "This project originates from a pleasurable Roman afternoon spent by yours truly with Hubert Bergmann, who – having known that this writer’s spouse is, in essence, an atypical songwriting specimen – thought that some experimentation using her vocalism would have constituted an intriguing attempt to do something singular. Files of Bergmann’s duets with Udo Schindler were emailed, and in a matter of several months Yellerwood recorded and “assembled” a number of parts, adapting them…

Donald Byrd was an American jazz and rhythm & blues trumpeter, vocalist, composer and bandleader. In his early career he was one of the few hard bop musicians exploring funk and soul while remaining true to his jazz roots. His 1973 album Street Lady was produced by Larry Mizell and contains the classic jazz-funk tracks "Lansana's Priestress" and "Street Lady". Personnel playing on the album include Fonce Mizell (Larry's brother) on clavinet, trumpet, vocals and Harvey Mason on drums. Some of the…

Hans Dulfer is an internationally acclaimed Dutch jazz musician famous for playing the tenor saxophone. Since he was only seventeen years old, he was playing the saxophone professionally. In 1971 Dulfer released his album El Saxofón, which features members of Ritmo Natural. Together with Ritmo Natural, they released three albums in total, with El Saxofón being the last out of three. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of this rare, but iconic jazz album, the album is being released on colored viny…

2025 stock The Danny Thompson Trio, with John McLaughlin, live in session November 1967. The Danny Thompson Trio existed briefly inside of 1967 and by that time, it recalled a much earlier time and place. The trio came together from numerous jazz/R&B avenues featuring now iconic names in Graham Bond, Alexis Korner, Brian Auger, Duffy Power, Georgie Fame, Herbie Goins, and many more. Their combined journeys to this point in November 1967 reveal a who's who of British blues, R&B, and jazz icons, b…

After his six years with the seminal John Coltrane Quartet, the master drummer Elvin Jones signed with Blue Note in 1968 and began building his own career as a bandleader. His first two albums for the label were spare trio outings—Puttin’ It Together and The Ultimate—both featuring saxophonist Joe Farrell and bassist Jimmy Garrison. For his next album—1969’s unfettered post-bop exploration Poly-Currents—Jones expanded his ensemble with additional woodwinds and percussion while still maintaining …

Recorded in Paris in 1966, this double album by Cecil Taylor explores avant-garde free jazz improvisations with Jimmy Lyons, Alan Silva and Andrew Cyrille. Taylor, with his percussive playing, goes beyond the limits of traditional jazz, offering an intense and revolutionary sonic experience, marking his contribution to the genre. Double LP in blue and white, limited to 1,000 copies.

2025 stock 180g virgin vinyl limited edition - the complete LP + 2 bonus track. The only album ever reuniting pianist Cecil Taylor and saxophonist John Coltrane, Stereo Drive was released in 1959. Taylor wanted to use Ted Curson on trumpet, but the recording company insisted on using Kenny Dorham. Relations between Taylor, who favoured a very avant-garde approach, and Dorham, who verbally disapproved of Taylor's "way-out" tendencies, were strained, and the session is a unique tour the force.

2025 stock Trading Places present a reissue of Gilli Smyth's Mother, originally released in 1978. The London-born vocalist and former Sorbonne lecturer Gilli Smyth became known as the "space whisperer" for the poems she performed in Gong, formed in Paris in 1967 with her Australian-born partner, Daevid Allen of Soft Machine, with whom she also performed. Debut solo album Mother, released by French label Charly in 1978, featured her breathy suppositions on motherhood, the cosmic lifeforce, and th…

*2025 stock* No Base Trio presents their brilliant self-titled debut album. This recording features an energetic and imaginative set of entirely improvised music by one of Puerto Rico’s most creative bands. No Base Trio is the union of alto saxophonist Jonathan Suazo, guitarist Gabriel Vicéns, and drummer Leonardo Osuna focusing on creating music without barriers and consistently pushing boundaries of sound and improvisation. After 10 years of performing at many important venues in Puerto Rico, …

*2025 stock* No Base Trio releases their spectacular and completely improvised works in their second studio album, "NBT II.". The experimental ensemble continues its musical journey by releasing this immersive double album under the radical label Setola di Maiale. Following their 2020 critically-acclaimed eponymous debut album, Setola di Maiale proudly presents Puerto Rico-based experimental ensemble No Base Trio's latest recording, "NBT II." This album features a collection of intuitively power…

The 1968 debut album from Norwegian guitar legend Terje Rypdal stands as a significant entry in the late 1960s jazz landscape, exemplifying the transition from psychedelic rock to a more intricate, freeform blend of jazz elements. Collaborating with legendary musicians like Jan Garbarek, Rypdal's work on this album showcases his innovative talent. Recorded during three sessions in Oslo in 1968, Bleak House marks Rypdal’s departure from the psychedelic group The Dream as he ventured into new musi…

Several important jazz groups and projects emerged in the early 70s, among them were Platina, featuring Arale Kaminsky and Roman Kunsman, and Jazz Workshop. Jazz Workshop are best known for their landmark fusion of jazz, Hebrew and Arabic musical forms on the album 'Mizare Israel Yekabtzenu', released in 1972. Another key group that emerged during this crucial febrile period was Oasis, fronted by jazz guitar maestro Avery Sharon. He was joined by bass player Yossie Menachem, drummer Ickie Levy &…

Tip! By the 1960s, the popularity of big bands had waned considerably. The heyday of the 30s and 40s big bands had been superseded in the 1950s by smaller modern and traditional jazz units, skif e and, ultimately, rock and roll, and the prominence they once enjoyed were a fading memory. Although there were still several very ne big bands playing and recording during this time, the economics of the big band in the age of the pop group always put it at a disadvantage. There was, of course, the lea…

Far Out Recordings proudly presents a landmark discovery in Brazilian jazz: the long lost album by drumming pioneer Edison Machado. Recorded in New York City in early 1978 but never released, Edison Machado & Boa Nova captures a pivotal figure in Brazilian music history at the height of his artistic powers. Combining North and South American jazz traditions with Machado's revolutionary samba innovations, Edison Machado & Boa Nova represents a triumph against the odds. After facing persecution un…

A limited edition book of Michael Gregory Jackson's poetry. Limited to 200 copies

First vinyl reissue since its original release in 1980! Track A2 - Cloudy is featured in our WAMONO A to Z Vol. I - Japanese Jazz Funk & Rare Groove 1968​-​1980 (Selected by DJ Yoshizawa Dynamite & Chintam) compilation.A rich groove crafted by a rhythm section featuring Harvey Mason on drums and eight trombones. This Jazz Funk/Fusion album is a mix of original compositions by Chikara Ueda and covers of Boz Scaggs' tracks. Drums: Harvey Mason - Trombone: Shigeharu Mukai (A-1, 2) - Flute, Sopran…

2025 stock Now we enter territories of smooth disco grooves and spicy samba rhythms as solid background for whipping melodies of the most charming kind. This is a lush late 70s disco production with an affinity for jazz that showcases a band lead by a truly gifted violin player. Elements of electronic dance and pop music and Latin sounds embrace each other and get tied together by sexy funky bass guitar lines. Samba, Salsa and whatever South America has to offer join forces with the Western club…

A collection of some of McCoy Tyner’s best Montreux Jazz Festival live performances!  The audio has Expertly restored and remastered in superlative HD audio; The Montreux Years is released on superior audiophile heavy weight vinyl and MQA quality CD. The release includes brand new liner notes and rare photos from his Montreux shows.

The intrepid free jazz pianist Cecil Taylor produced some of his best work for Blue Note Records, including his explosive 1966 label debut Unit Structures featuring Eddie Gale on trumpet, Jimmy Lyons on alto saxophone, Ken McIntyre on alto saxophone, oboe, and bass clarinet, Henry Grimes and Alan Silva on bass, and Andrew Cyrille on drums. Over the course of four extended original pieces by Taylor—“Steps,” “Enter, Evening,” “Unit Structure/As Of A Now/Section,” and “Tales (8 Whisps)—the band sca…

“The Way, The Truth, The Life” is the title of the album of the exceptional duo – Piotr Damasiewicz and Dominik Wania. The duo’s music is adapted by the musicians of songs by Artur Olender, who is both the producer and publisher of the project. The material was recorded in 2023 at the Witold Lutosławski Polish Radio Concert Studio S1. The album consists of 16 impressions, characterized by both a coherent whole and form. The music presented by the artists has a solemn character and fully harmoniz…

Sun Ra is better known to most as a musician than a poet, but he identified equally as both. My Words Are Music provides direct access to the sentiments of a poet who never called Earth home. The spoken word album hosts an inspired array of artists who personally chose their favorite Sun Ra poems to recite. Freed from the page, his poetry acquires an unexpected simplicity and poignance it possessed all along. This all-star and intergenerational lineup of artists conjure wisdom from his words: sp…

Since the first release 5 years ago, Jazz Room Records has released an eclectic and interesting selection of releases. From the Jazzy commercialism of the Take Vibe version of The Stranglers "Golden Brown" (5,000 vinyl single sales) to the 1960's Headshop Sounds of West Coast Fluteman Eric Ghost.Other notable releases on Jazz Room include the critically lauded album by Vibraphonist Khan Jamal "Infinity", a compilation of Japanese tough funk fusionists indigo jam unit put together by DJ Colin Cur…

Ingrid Schmoliner and Alex Kranabetter are pillars of the improvised and experimental music scenes inAustria stretching back more than a decade. Although the former is known primarily as a pianist and vocalist and the latter as a trumpeter, they both possess seriously expansive sonic palettes. Schmolinger works rigorously with sound direction to generate vibrant psychoacoustic and spatialized effects, while Kranabetter routinely deploys electronics to radically transform and expand his sound wor…

* Edition of 100 copies, silk-screened cover, hand numbered and intended for musicians and their families. High thickness cardboard with opaque laminated cover. Comes with a printed insert. Very Few copies available * Founded in 1969 by the pianist Ole Mathiessen, the bassist Henrik Hove, the saxophonist Jesper Nehammer, and drummer Jon Finsen, Tordenskjolds Soldater was one of the great - albeit short-lived - projects in Copenhagen’s thriving scene of free improvisation and jazz of the late 196…

1992 release ** "When it came out in 1992, Firestorm went quite unnoticed. Many missed this very strong, very untypical string-only free jazz date. Cellist Diedre Murray and bassist Fred Hopkins developed a profound musical relationship in the Henry Threadgill Sextet. This CD was the duo's first release. Murray favors a written-down approach; her compositions lay out melodies, phrases, and sections, but also include lots of improvisation and time stretching, and they require the kind of underlyi…

1994 release ** "David Liebman is at his best in pastoral, ethereal situations. This trio session, recorded in 1992 and '93, contains both lengthy tunes and shorter works in which Liebman's intense soprano sax and flute and more robust tenor solos are nicely supported by Billy Hart's sensitive yet assertive drumming and Cecil McBee's bass work, which provides whatever is necessary, from interaction to competition. The three never become detached or predictable and don't allow the music to lose i…

2017 release ** "Sampler and Zither is a release from Difondo, the Cagliari duo of Sergio Camedda (sampler) and Giampaolo Campus (zither). The group’s name translates as “basically;” it’s a fitting name given their conceptual focus on returning sounds to the things themselves—that is, to the basic elements and materials of their instruments. The group’s specific interest lies in realizing the possibilities inherent in the divergent natures of the two instruments’ timbral profiles and properties.…

* Edition of 300 copies. High thickness cardboard with opaque laminated cover. Comes with a printed insert. * Founded initially as the The Beckerlee Quartet sometime towards the late 1950s and early '60s, a time during which time they went through various lineup changes before morphing into The Contemporary Jazz Quartet, in 1962 they began playing the Vingaarden club in central Copenhagen as one of the earliest European adopters of the emerging movement of free jazz. It was there that they came …

2025 stock What Does it Mean to Be American? is the eighth solo album by Margate, UK based composer & multi-instrumentalist Robert Stillman. Performed, recorded & mixed almost entirely by Stillman, the seven tracks on What Does it Mean to Be American? are experimental in the purest sense of the word; Stillman's composition & recording techniques rely heavily on improvisation, which often sends his music in surprising directions. Elements of jazz, drone, funk, blues, psychedelia, new age & chambe…

2025 stock Things don't always go your way, especially when your plans involve space travel. In the case of Captain Harrison Focus's expedition, it started innocently, but no one was prepared for an emergency landing on the mysterious planet Carmin. Only then did the real fight for survival begin. This record tells the story of a dangerous expedition into space that began on February 6, 2023. Twoosty Mayonez consists of Bartosz Wolert (drums) and Dominik Kaniewski (bass guitar and synthesizers).…

2025 stock 6-track album from a musician with a long list of credits including South African trumpet legend Hugh Masekela, afrobeat co-creator Tony Allen and Ethiopian jazz originator Mulatu Astatke as well as many Brit-jazz and other international roots artists. “It’s Time” blends Afro-jazz groove, free improv, spoken poetry and other-worldly atmosphere, with lyrics and titles hinting at unorthodox takes on reality and the times we live in.

2008 release ** "This album brings a performance by the Michael Bisio Quartet, led by the great bassist, with Stephen Gauci on tenor, Avram Fefer on tenor and soprano, and Jay Rosen on drums, and to my knowledge this is only the third release of the band, after their CIMP albums "Connections" and "Circle This" . In line with the Festival's positioning, the music is free, wild, driven by a muscular sensitivity, with emotional outbursts, velvet tonal subtleties, and more contemplative moments. Non…

2025 stock Altoist Marion Brown is perhaps best known for performances on albums by his contemporaries, such as Coltrane's Ascension, but Brown stands on his own as one of the most creative and important forces to come out of the 1960s avant-garde jazz movement. Porto Novo is widely regarded as one of Brown's best recordings, captured during a 1967 session in Holland at the peak of his creative powers, accompanied by bassist Maarten van Regteben Altena and drummer Han Bennink. Previously out of …

Tribe 2000 is a performance featuring Tribe Records founders Phil Ranelin (trombone) and Wendell Harrison (saxophone). The release is a celebration of Ranelin and his accomplished career, with four out of its five compositions being penned by him. Recorded in 2000, the session reunited the nucleus of the influential Detroit label at the behest of Harrison, while also bringing numerous seasoned side musicians into the fold to flesh out the arrangements. The project underscores the brilliance of o…

Sun Ra’s Arkestra was at its most radical during this period, alternating simple chants with very outside playing and dense ensembles. Although no precise date is given, these five cuts are thought to have been documented circa 1967-1968 by Sun Ra (piano) and his Arkestra in New York City, where the band was in residence at the time.First released in a limited edition color vinyl for Record Store Day 2014, this title is now widely available on audiophile-grade black vinyl, pressed at Pallas Grou…