Jazz & Improvisation / All styles

Johnny Cabildo's trio in Miami, 1974: keyboards, bass and a drummer on congas and timbales cover Latin jazz, funk fusion and Afro-Cuban grooves. The second of only three Cabildos LPs, made for library use.

Elisabeth Harnik, an Austrian based pianist and composer has created a multi-faceted body of work by blurring genre boundaries through various collaborations in the field of improvised music, interdisciplinary projects and contemporary compositional works. She studied classical piano and later – with Beat Furrer – composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Graz. As an improviser she works within an electro-acoustic inspired sound-world, using specific preparations and extended t…

What if the blue that I see is different from the blue that you see? This question is an infrastructure for my Afro-Surrealist Anti-Opera, Colla Voce. Often, when we think of Surrealism, we think of subconscious mental states, dreams, nightmares-those unexplored corners of our psyche. But Afro-Surrealism protests: what if that which one calls a ‘dream' is a nightmare to another? What if that which one calls ‘rational' is completely baseless to another? And surely, we must have varying ideas of w…

"‘Greyhound Days’ strikes a shared note of spontaneity and intention. Featuring pieces for tenor saxophone and digital keyboard, and accented by traces of additional instruments, these songs sound a fated exchange mutually effortless and expansive. Shiroishi and Kurek were first brought together to record new music for one of BBC Radio 3’s remote collaborative sessions, the fruits of which aired on Jennifer Lucy Allan’s Late Junction show on Groundhog Day 2024. The easy dialogue that quickly eme…

*2025 stock* A musical visionary, some outstanding instrumentalists, the 10th anniversary of the collective’s founding, a reflection on Polishness, and finally – a 4,000 km-long walking pilgrimage of 100 solo concerts in 100 temples. These events, symbols, experiences and facts have somehow been combined into one coherent whole – the Polska LP, the first release by Piotr Damasiewicz & Power of the Horns Ensemble since 2013.“Power of the Horns have the ability to captivate audiences of any festiv…

Piotr Damasiewicz opens for us the next chapter of his fascinating musical travels. This time, he comes back with his group/project Into The Roots, with whom he has already recorded two very well-received albums: Śpiwle and Watra. The records have not only met with splendid reception on the part of jazz and improvised music fans, but have also brought the artist and his group the grand prix of the Polish Radio Folk Music Festival “New Tradition”.

*2025 stock* Piotr Damasiewicz and Kuba Wójcik are jazz musicians from Poland, both known for their creative musical explorations and artistic independence. The intriguing connection between the trumpet and the guitar opens a space for an amusing and promising endeavor.  Blood is a connective tissue. It nourishes. Cleanses. Regulates. Only a living being can create it. Attempts to engineer synthetic blood have not been successful, to date. Thus, either we "produce" it ourselves, or there wi…

*2025 stock* The band Damasiewicz, Lesiak, Villavecchia, Reviriego, Trilla with SKAWA recording is the result of cooperation and friendship of five exceptional artists. The paths of these musicians have intertwined for many years. Each of them is characterized by a unique sound and the awareness of creating their own language, which is a bridge connecting artistic sensitivity, philosophy, mysticism and reality. Each of them blazes its own trail, often in difficult and untouched terrain. Constant…

*2025 stock* The album "On the Way" is the result of cooperation and friendship of four exceptional artists. The paths of these musicians have been intertwining for many years. Each of them is characterized by a unique sound and awareness of creating their own language, which is a bridge connecting artistic sensitivity, philosophy, mysticism and reality. Each of them blazes its own trail, often through difficult and virgin grounds. Constantly transcending themselves is the essence of their creat…

*2025 stock* This album has came into life as a result of the meeting trumpeter Piotr Damasiewicz and guitarist Kuba Wójcik in Poschiavo, Swiss Alps during prestigious „Uncool” Artist Residency. Inspired by local legends and magnificent mountains around the musicians worked on connecting their musical individualities to explore transcendental spheres of music. 
Damasiewicz’s original interaction with sound, often experimenting with acoustics, objects and instruments meets Wójcik’s minimalistic a…

*2025 stock* Heard in the Carpathians, "Watra" is a word of Wallachian origin which refers to a large bonefire with a wooden construction set up. Burned and accompanied by singing and recalling the old times, it symbolizes the return to the roots and serves the purpose of glorifying the ancestors. Watra is also what we ourselves associate with inspiring meetings bustling with stories of tradition, travel and music from around the world, when, by the fire, different musical worlds of jazz and fol…

*2025 stock* "The trumpet and the vibraphone - these are the instruments that resonate throughout the album recorded by Piotr Damasiewicz and Emilio Gordoa. For its creation, sculptures and installations as well as the gallery space in the Old Mine in Wałbrzych were adapted. The sculptures worked as instruments struck to bring out specific frequencies. This is how industrial trance was composed. Help yourselves to the sounds!" - L.A.S.

*2025 stock* Ethnicity, improvisation, jazz, melody, indigenous feeling and groove plus free natural expression are defined by Piotr Damasiewicz Ethno Trio. Recorded live in the old higlander family house.

Two days after his 100th birthday, Marshall Allen started recording New Dawn, his debut solo album. A member of Sun Ra’s Arkestra since 1958, Allen assumed leadership of the band in 1995. Throughout his nearly seventy-year career, Allen has never released a solo album under his own name, and yet, instead of capping such a legendary output, New Dawn seems to herald a new beginning. A love letter to spacetime, it channels a century of musical intelligence into seven tracks, showing Allen at his mo…

Delivering a career-defining statement from the Italian electroacoustic composer and saxophone player, Laura Agnusdei, Maple Death returns with “Flowers are Blooming in Antarctica” - a startling, multifaceted journey through imagistic sonorous worlds resting at the juncture of spiritual jazz, fourth-world minimalism, tropical electronics, tribal futurism, and rigorous electroacoustic experimentalism - rooted in thrilling ecological ideas, that marks the launch of Opale, a new suite of releases c…

This fifth EMBand release from the studio of bassist / composer Guy Segers continues his concept of working with a huge pool of creative progressive musicians, with each track featuring a different combination. Somewhat more introspective and textural than its predecessor, Cosmic Light Clusters builds steadily from an opening trio of mood pieces through increasing activity and complexity as the album moves forward. Particularly engaging is the use of voices and poetry on this recording. A substa…

Named after a Jean-Michel Basquiat painting and inspired by the artists multi-faceted stylistic approach - known for its raw, expressive, and dynamic qualities, blending street art with neo-expressionism to create bold, thought-provoking work. The Exu make layered, intense, creative & beautiful, thought provoking, genre fluid improvised music. The trio brazenly draw their musical influences from the worlds of free jazz, grunge, death metal, hip hop, bebop, & experimental music. Kane says ‘we are…

First released in 1980 via the little-known Pick Up Records, Danish jazz-rockers Ariel's self-titled debut record sees an unlikely reissue via Jazz Room here. A worthy reintroduction of the quintet to the world at large - where before it wasn't well-known at all - it comes after the album was recently helped to by none other than Brownswood aficionado Gilles Peterson, whose encyclopaedic internal memory bank and capacity to chin-wag served the cascading recollection of the album by Jazz Room lab…

"In the quartet on this album, Paul Dunmall has returned to his first love: totally free improvisation based on interaction between the four players. Many aspects of Paul Dunmall’s playing are apparent on this album. His approach is to listen very carefully to what is happening around him and to react to it. If you see him play live, you will see how he concentrates on the flow of the music, often stepping back and allowing the music to develop before choosing the right moment to enter or re-ent…

Rob Mazurek’s creations, dedicated to these six artists offered to Tomeka Reid, Angelica Sanchez, and Chad Taylor, to interpret freely. A foundation laid for these improvisations in the foursome’s forays into Mazurek’s music with the larger ensemble. Here something becomes distilled. Interaction is direct. The unit is unitary, the dynamics are gently modulated, the sounds are tendered with deliberation love and inter-ensemble generosity.

Sven-Ake Johansson has referred to the book of compositions used for his Stumps project as the magnum opus of his small group writing. The top-notch quintet he assembled for the project includes some of his most trusted collaborators in trumpeter Axel Dörner and double bassist Joel Grip, complemented by the involvement of two younger but equally compelling French improvisers, pianist Simon Sieger and alto saxophonist Pierre Borel. A set of recordings made at the Berlin club Au Topsi Pohl were re…

We are excited to announce the first reissue of Tony Scott's iconic “Manteca” album originally released in 1973. This 180-gram vinyl audiophile edition captures the essence of a true master of contaminated jazz, allowing listeners to experience Tony Scott's vibrant artistry like never before. Originally described in the album’s liner notes by Sam Charters, "Manteca" embodies the spirit of the jazz musician’s journey—a testament to durability, warmth, and exuberance. Charters notes, “You have to …

“Embryo meets the world” is a new compilation with previously unreleased Embryo's Ethno Jazz from 1979/80, recorded on the German band`s trip to Asia and recently discovered in the archives. It includes seven unknown studio sessions from Kabul, Essaouira, Cairo and Athens, produced with members of the Kabul Radio Orchestra or oud players and singers from Eritrea, Syria and Iraq. Eastern meet Western musicians, improvising with an astonishing deepness over wonderful traditional melodies from Afgh…

Part of Rashied Ali’s artistic strength involved turning improbable sound combinations into unchallenged masterpieces. After the pattern established by John Coltrane’s Interstellar Space, and Duo Exchange with Frank Lowe, the drummer stepped into a rather unlikely duet with violinist Leroy Jenkins for Swift are the Winds of Life. Five years with the Revolutionary Ensemble had established Jenkins as a composer; he designed all the pieces played on these 1975 duets with Ali. That record is issued …

Rashied Ali stood as a magnetic force for the musical environment around him. In his last decades he sponsored rehearsal opportunities for young musicians, tightened up neighborhood street-corner drum circles he happened to pass, and for years would pull promising young talents into his orbit. One unique group that Ali led at the 2002 Vision Festival in NYC, along with with Frank Lowe, he also took into the studio—and the moment you hear on Sidewalks in Motion features Ali and Lowe along with yo…

2024 Stock. Minor signs of wear from long-time storage. ** "Britain's Free Jazz Quartet is comprised of trombonist Paul Rutherford, reed and woodwind man Harrison Smith, cellist Tony Moore, and drummer Eddie Prévost. Recorded in 1989 in Oxford, the offering here, a series of mid-length improv pieces, bears up well under the free jazz moniker and leaves all the "new music" clichés to another day. Here, the dictates of a European free jazz mapped out by Evan Parker, Tony Coe, Lol Coxhill, and othe…

2024 Stock. Minor signs of wear from long-time storage. ** "Recorded in 1994 at a concert in Manchester, England, Band on the Wall -- which is literally where they played -- features the divine dancing of Eddie Prévost's drumming in tandem with the piano of Marilyn Crispell, who was just then emerging out from under the shadows of her two mentors, Cecil Taylor and Anthony Braxton. Since Crispell was used to working with Gerry Hemingway, this set provides an amazing contrast for the pianist, in t…

2024 Stock. Minor signs of wear from long-time storage. ** The West Coast Rova Saxophone quartet in a 7 track studio album from 1995, from Jon Raskin on alto saxophone, baritone saxophone, sopranino saxophone, Steve Adams on alto saxophone, sopranino saxophone, Bruce Ackley on soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone and Larry Ochs on tenor saxophone, sopranino saxophone.

2024 Stock. Minor signs of wear from long-time storage. ** "This quartet date pairing alto saxophonist Rob Brown with guitar madman Joe Morris dates from 1993 with William Parker, the ubiquitous New York bassist in the avant-garde, and the lesser-known, but very able drummer Jackson Krall. Recorded by Tommy Tedesco (not the guitarist), this set has all the elements that many of Morris' other dates are missing: cohesiveness. Here he is merely part of the band. Sure, he solos, but no more or less …

2024 Stock. Minor signs of wear from long-time storage. ** "On this set recorded live at the Knitting Factory, George Cartwright (switching between various saxophones) and clarinetist Michael Lytle battle it out on three lengthy free improvisations."

2024 Stock. Minor signs of wear from long-time storage. ** "Alto saxophonist Christopher Cauley's debut recording as a leader carries with it all of the weight of a major talent announcing its "coming out" into a room full of aggressive challengers. To accomplish this, he has enlisted the assistance of a veritable tank of a rhythm section in drummer Gregg Bendian and bassist William Parker, and the occasional help of trombonist Steve Swell. Cauley's approach to improvising has been deeply inspir…

2024 Stock. Minor signs of wear from long-time storage. ** "A White Line is, in many ways, Austrian composer, arranger, flugelhorn player, and bandleader Franz Koglmann's most controversial work because in it, he dares to use race as a compositional element. His is not merely a cultural dissension but a musical one. A White Line is Koglmann's salute to the white lineage in jazz, from Bix Beiderbecke through to Chet Baker, and including perhaps even one of his guests on this recording: pianist an…

2024 Stock. Minor signs of wear from long-time storage.

2024 Stock. Minor signs of wear from long-time storage.

2024 Stock. Minor signs of wear from long-time storage. ** "Futterman's restless churning lines are countered by the questing trumpet of former Cecil Taylor associate Raphé Malik, who, along with drummer Robert Adkins makes The World Watched and Ask The Price enticing, thought provoking experiences. The collection's closing title, There Is Peace, provides the listener with a intensely swirling, though decidedly less harrowing, aural imagery."

Evan Parker's soprano and tenor saxophones with the voice of Sainkho Namtchylak, live at the Music Gallery in Toronto on 15 May 1996. Circular-breathed lines against throat singing, overtones and wordless cries.

2024 Stock. Minor signs of wear from long-time storage. ** "These "Ends to Slavery" Eugene Chadbourne refers to in his title are just that: the pieces he played to end his own cultural and musical slavery. To this end, in the liner notes, he discusses -- sometimes at length -- what happens in particular works, or, more interestingly, what they're about and who they're for. The opening track, "Amber," is about a family cocker spaniel who had to be gassed because of her age -- and the fact that sh…

Rare CD 2024 Stock. Minor signs of wear from long-time storage.

2024 Stock. Minor signs of wear from long-time storage. ** "One of the better albums in Rova's confusingly expansive discography, From the Bureau of Both features some of the quartet's most immediately rewarding moments, as well as a few on the opposite end of the spectrum. Rova can be surprisingly accessible when the group's free explorations are tethered to strong frameworks, and that's the case with much of this album. "Swang" became something of a signature piece for the group, featuring a j…

2024 Stock. Minor signs of wear from long-time storage. ** "Many listeners may think of ROVA (comprised of Bruce Ackley on soprano and tenor, Jon Raskin on baritone and alto, Steve Adams on alto and sopranino and Larry Ochs on tenor and sopranino), the most advanced of the saxophone quartets, as playing free jazz, but much of their music on this CD is actually written out, tonal and occasionally rhythmic. The term "avant-garde" does fit as long as one keeps in mind that these very lengthy explor…