Jazz /
Nigeria 70 (The Definitive Story of 1970's Funky Lagos)
*2022 stock. In process of stocking* Strut present a definitive vinyl edition of the groundbreaking compilation 'Nigeria 70'. Originally released in 2001, the collection set the benchmark for a new generation of archive labels and releases mining the vaults for rare Afro funk and Afro jazz fusions and helped to paint the wider picture of the 1970s Lagos scene beyond Fela Kuti's catalogue for a legion of soul, funk and dance music enthusiasts. Check!
Earscratcher
This newfound quartet was conceived in 2019, as a way to celebrate Austrian pianist Elisabeth Harnik’s 50th birthday in 2020. For the occasion, Harnik called on several longtime collaborators from Chicago with whom she’d connected at the Umbrella Music Festival back in 2008, on her first visit to the city. Since that time, she’s continued to stoke the fires she started there, not only in various collaborations with these three musicians, but also with Chicago legends like Ken Vandermark, Michael…
Byrd In Paris (Volume 1)
*2022 stock. In process of stocking* Trumpeter Donald Byrd spent a few months in France in 1958, and a Paris concert resulted in two LPs' worth of material. Byrd's quintet at the time included Bobby Jaspar (on tenor and flute), pianist Walter Davis, Jr., bassist Doug Watkins, and drummer Art Taylor. Byrd was just beginning to find his own sound in the late '50s and he is in excellent form on "Dear Old Stockholm," Sonny Rollins' "Paul's Pal," Jaspar's "Flute Blues," "Ray's Idea," and "The Blues W…
Jazz Sur Seine
A fantastic early recording from the great French tenor saxophonist Barney Wilen – best known as an artist who recorded famously in the soundtrack world of the French new wave, and with Art Blakey – but who's even more striking here on a rare small combo date from the 50s! The session's a monster – cut with rhythmic backing by Milt Jackson on piano (!?), Percy Heath on bass, and Kenny Clarke on drums – and two cuts feature additional percussion by Gana M'Bow, which gives the set a wonderful kick…
Dedications
One of the towering creative musicians of our time, a master drummer and multiple percussionist, Hamid Drake has anchored inumerable bands. As a hard working player, constantly touring the globe, he's collaborated with most of the major figures in improvised music and contemporary jazz, from David Murray and Peter Brötzmann to Pharoah Sanders and Don Cherry. Along the way, Drake has never had an opportunity to stop and make a solo record. Indeed, he's only performed solo on a few occasions. John…
To Dusk
Every day over the course of a year starting in June, 2020, in something she refers to as a "domestic ritual," Zeena Parkins recorded solo electric harp performances in her home studio. The brilliant improvisor and composer had, like most of her peers, been sidelined by the pandemic; unable to tour, she spent the end of each day at the harp, playing until sunlight waned, inventing and discovering new soundscapes, keeping her musical self together while the world seemed poised to crumble. Parkins…
La Muerte Es Muy Natural
Terzetto Garibaldi is the meating of three different strong personalities. Roberto Zanisi (Cosmofonia Rudimentale, Eloisa Manera ensemble, Radical Raptors) is a virtuoso musician playing all kind of instruments specialised in string instruments of eastern world. His roots are in ethnic music, jazz, r.i.o. Luciano Margorani (LA1919, Fracture, Artchipel Orchestra, Beauty is in the distance, OppaT) is a versatile musician going from r.i.o, improvisation to electronics. Carlo Actis Dato (Italian Ins…
The Loneliest Flower in the Village
For the past 20 years Nostalgia 77 has become a catch all for the musical life of Benedic Lamdin. His schizophrenic offerings range from songwriting sessions, soundtracks, excursions into Soul and in this case Jazz. The Loneliest Flower in the Village is an album that sees Lamdin reunited with longtime collaborator and arranger Riaan Vosloo and experienced veterans from a host of Nostalgia 77 projects. 'It had been a long time since we'd gigged or recorded so the idea was as much a little reunio…
STRG + X
Temporary Super Offer! 'The CD’s title is borrowed from computer language: STRG + X is the key combination for “cut to the clipboard” to be temporarily stored and pasted somewhere else at a later time. Perhaps the most important quality of this carefully thought-out yet anything but cerebral music: it is aware of its means and can twist and turn and rearrange them as it pleases, in which case improvised contexts create their own forms and play with original material in a fresh, new way. This is …
Monolog
Renowned Swedish musician Tomas Hallonsten’s debut solo recording started out as a Mark Hollis-influenced project featuring Hallonsten’s instrumental compositions sparsly performed with acoustic guitar,piano, bass and drums at its core. Gradually the music morphed and
eventually it turned out as a solo album where the compositions came to life mainly via Hallonsten’s unique treatment of drum machine and synths.
BeingFive
"A project called ‘BeingFive’ might be motivated by a search to know the nature of being and, by extension, what it means to be together. In this way Montreal clarinettist Lori Freedman set up at once an atelier and a laboratory where both a group music could be made of practically nothing and a social organism could uncover both its organising principles and, perhaps, their limits. Here are exceptionally gifted improvising musicians –– hand-picked by Freedman for a Berlin residency project, a "…
Step!
*2022 stock* Naosuke Miyamoto Sextet's Step!, originally released in 1973. A fantastic modal jazz album, led by Naosuke Myamoto on bass, with Masayoshi Yoneda on the piano and Takashi Goto on saxophone. On One For Trane, the group delivers a strong and amazing moment of spiritual jazz. Also features Kunji Shigi (trumpet), Takashi Furuya and Shoji Nakayama (drums). Produced by Takeshi Jujii. Recorded on August 25, 1973.
Cheval Rodéo
*Limited edition of 200* Cheval Rodéo by Trombe, Thomas Beaudelin (sax) and Erwan Cornic (drums), a really jazz-like energy album, with low dynamic sensibility and great interaction between the two musicians.
The Dark Side Of Success
The International Nothing is a Berlin-based psycho-acoustic clarinet duo formed by Michael Thieke and Kai Fagaschinski in 2000. They collectively compose multilayered sound sculptures using multiphonics, beat frequencies and difference tones as an integral part of their language. Both musicians are well known as improvisers but in this project they develop and perform exclusively their own compositions.
The duo’s progression from release to release is subtle, but with "The Dark Side Of Success t…
In Doubt We Trust
The International Nothing is a Berlin-based psycho-acoustic clarinet duo formed by Michael Thieke and Kai Fagaschinski in 2000. They collectively compose multilayered sound sculptures using multiphonics, beat frequencies and difference tones as an integral part of their language. Both musicians are well known as improvisers but in this project they develop and perform exclusively their own compositions.Every four years the duo releases an album on the Japanese Ftarri Label. In 2018 they are pres…
Standards
2026 Repress. Sublime release from Masaru Imada Trio. Imada's got a way of letting a tune really find its way organically – almost as if the songs here are little flowers opening up in his fingers on the keyboard of the piano – although never in a style that's "flowery" at all, because Imada's a master of finding just the right notes at the right moment – never embellishing things just to show off. Instead, his imagination finds all the best paths forwards, especially on his original tunes on th…
Alone Together
A piano-bass duo session cut in a single day at Tokyo's Onkio Haus on 24 October 1977, during one of the bassist George Mraz's rare passages through Japan. The format leaves nowhere to hide and the two players treat that exposure as the point of the exercise: Masaru Imada's voicings opened up to admit Mraz's lines as full equal voices, the Czech-American bassist drawing on the resonant, singing tone he had developed through his work with Tommy Flanagan and Stan Getz.
The programme alternates two…
Into The Silence
Tip! *In process of stocking. 2022 stock* Peter Evans believes that his music is closely related to the philosophical concept of "Wu Wei (literally means "doing nothing" or "inaction")" from China. He has also been studying how it reflects in different academic and cultural contexts. As a composer and improviser, Peter Evans talks about "Wu Wei" with his superb trumpet playing, and named his first album released in China "Into the Silence". It's worth mentioning that the artwork on the front cov…
Ketu
*300 copies limited edition* During the last decade Pedro Alves Sousa has been establishing himself as one of the most inventive and creative musicians of his generation. He is a self-taught musician and continues to learn how to play his saxophone every day. His label Futuro Familiar is born out of the idea that he needed to mark some of his creative evolutions and create more specific paths for his career. “Rahu” and “Ketu” were recorded in 2016 and 2017 with a group of musicians: Alex Zhang H…
Rahu
*300 copies limited edition* During the last decade Pedro Alves Sousa has been establishing himself as one of the most inventive and creative musicians of his generation. He is a self-taught musician and continues to learn how to play his saxophone every day. His label Futuro Familiar is born out of the idea that he needed to mark some of his creative evolutions and create more specific paths for his career. “Rahu” and “Ketu” were recorded in 2016 and 2017 with a group of musicians: Alex Zhang H…