Jazz /
Horoscope
** Edition of 500 ** Horoscope is an Occult Jazz masterpiece from 1973, never before reissued on vinyl. In 1967, Matti “Rag” Paananen decided to compose his own vision of the Western astrological signs. Each one has its own composition on the 12-song theme album that was originally released in 1973. For the compositions he studied every astrological sign and made his own interpretation of how it would sound as music. Although the compositions were already made in 1967, they weren’t recorded unti…
Jappa: The Complete Jazz at the Polytechnicum Recordings 1967-1968
** Edition of 500 ** Svart Mondo presents Jappa: The Complete Jazz at the Polytechnicum Recordings 1967-1968 by Eero Koivistoinen with friends. By early 1960’s, jazz in its mainstream form had become the standard dance music for the student parties in high schools and several student union clubrooms in Helsinki. The Polytech union even organized matinée dances for high school students on Sundays. The change in the musical preference of young people’s dance music occurred with the arrival of Brit…
Black Art Notes
Published on the 50th anniversary of the original printing, Black Art Notes features writings by Tom Lloyd, Amiri Baraka, Bing Davis, Melvin Dixon, Jeff Donaldson, Ray Elkins, Babatunde Folayemi, and Francis and Val Gray Ward. “If there is one lesson the post–civil rights period has taught us, it is that those most likely to shape the destiny of Black Americans in the next decade are activists and artists, who may possess additional skills as organizers,” writes Ward in “The Black Artist—His Rol…
I Struck a Match on the Moon / Dreamsville
In 1961 Sun Ra took off from Chicago – where he had established the Arkestra, his dedicated ensemble and the vehicle for his mission to better the planet – and with a scaled-down version of the band he landed in NewYork. Their first recording session was in Newark in October of that year. The Futuristic Sounds of Sun Ra, recorded for the Savoy label, is a beautiful document of the material they'd honed during a long residency at the Wonder Inn at the end of the Chicago period. Among tracks left …
The Fire Still Burns
45 years after his debut album Valley of Search (1975/India Navigation), jazz saxophonist Alan Braufman returns. The Fire Still Burns has that gritty, forthright sensibility we hope to hear in sonic collaborations borne out of beauty and struggle, but there’s a populist ease that comes with age and reflection. Put simply it’s natural music – complementary, individual, and full of the sweet, hot taste of celebration.
Valley of Search
The first ever reissue of the 1975 free jazz album originally released on India Navigation. What we know of Downtown New York comes from the countercultural and creative flowering that emerged in lower Manhattan in the 1960s, attributable to cheap live-work spaces called lofts. These were often abandoned and disused small manufacturing spaces and they became a nexus for artistic practice and life. From a jazz perspective, lofts were alternatives to the club scene, and they gained notoriety in th…
Live At Kongsberg Jazz 1971
Edition of 250 * Following up on the legendary Club7 album from 1971 by this same group, here is a Webster Lewis Quintet's live recording made in August that same year at Kongsberg jazz festival in Norway. This Quintet from Boston plays a strong sense of seventies American groove-laden jazz but with a raw soulful rhythm and blues approach that is completely unique! Captured on tape in Norway at the time the band was there with George Russel, a few months after the legendary Club7 recordings. Her…
Distill
** 2021 Stock ** Centrifuga Records presents Distill by Rasmus Oppenhagen Krogh. The vinyl is pressed at the danish pressing plant Nordsø Records in an edition of 300, of which 250 will go for sale. High end quality product, for high quality music!
Melt
** 2021 Stock ** Centifuga Records presents Melt, the first LP from Nicolai Kaas Claesson's Melt Quartet. 70's Free Jazz style, inspired by Ahmad Jahmal, Keith Jarrett, Sun Ra etc. Nicolai Kaas Claesson‘s quartet generates some serious intensity with the most casual delivery. It’s free jazz that’s laid back and cool, and yet hits like a right cross thrown by a pro. It’s got an old-school feel that brings out the nostalgia for the avant-garde 70s, when that particular phase of jazz’s evolution …
Corsano, Maranha & Youngs
** Edition of 300 ** If you’re reading this and know the incredible careers of Chris Corsano (US), David Maranha (PT) and Richard Youngs (UK) you can already imagine what you’re getting into… or maybe not. Opened up to virtually infinite possibilities, this is a blessed gathering by three of the most idiosyncratic and illuminated artists working in the sprawling field where the most defiant and unmapped music converge. Leading figures of the unnameable, each of them on his own has created a supe…
Conference of the Birds
**2022 Stock. Originally released in June 1973, audiophile pressing taken from the original analog tapes** It had been preceded by ECM duo albums with Barre Phillips and with Derek Bailey as well as the cooperative band Circle’s great Paris Concert, but Conference of the Birds, recorded in 1972, was Dave Holland’s first album as a full-fledged leader. An album of driving, progressive jazz it is also of historical significance as the only occasion when Sam Rivers and Anthony Braxton, two of the m…
Live
**CD Edition** Live was mostly recorded on November 1st, 2019, at Haus der Berliner Festspiele in Berlin, Germany, during the 2019 edition of JazzFest Berlin. For Angel Bat Dawid and her band Tha Brothahood – which includes Deacon Otis Cooke, Viktor Le Givens, Xristian Espinoza, Norman W. Long, Dr. Adam Zanolini, and Asher Simiso Gamedze – it was the first stop of their first European tour. Forty-eight hours before the show, Angel and members of the band were on their way to the airport in Chic…
Profile
**300 copies** “Profile” is the first and only Ken Rhodes LP as a leader. This intimate and rare recording captures an explosive concoction between a blues attitude, a jazz approach and a funky swing. Though an acoustic performance, this LP offers overwhelming grooves, breaks as well as introspective moments . The upbeat and funky title track “The Profile” foreshadows the raw grooves of the session.The composition is driven by a percussive and obsessive bassline which embraces the funky rhythms …
Newport, New York, Alabama, 1963, Revisited
John Coltrane played the long game. Longevity in life wasn’t his lot; his fortieth year being his final bow. That circumscribed career, particularly in its final decade, evinced a trajectory of creative ascendancy that was as indelible to improvised music as it was omnipresent in impact. Charlie Parker arguably wears the posthumous mantle of most influential saxophonist, but Coltrane suggests a close contender in terms of ineluctable clout on those who play the instrument.
Practice and the pursu…
Topology
**In process of stocking** BBE Music presents the fourth release in their acclaimed J Jazz Masterclass Series: Topology by Makoto Terashita and Harold Land. Originally released in 1984 on the cult Aketa’s Disk label, Topology captures a surprising yet fascinating and engaging collaboration between a young Japanese jazz pianist and an elder American statesman of jazz.Reissued by BBE Music for the first time since original release 36 years ago, Topology showcases the extraordinary compositional an…
Forget To Remember: Live Vol.2 1970
**Beautifully packaged lacquer-press 180g vinyl. Flip-back sleeve. Strictly limited pressing run of 500 copies worldwide. Extensive liner notes by legendary British music broadcaster and journalist Richard Williams** Jazz in Britain presents Forget To Remember: Live Vol.2 1970 by The Ray Russell Sextet featuring Harry Beckett. Previously unreleased live session recorded at the Aeolian Hall 2, New Bond Street, London on the 2nd January 1970. All tracks from the Ray Russell tape archive.
Fire Without Bricks
The duo of saxophonist Larry Stabbins and percussionist Roy Ashbury was a mainstay of the London improvised music scene in the early 1970s. They recorded their lone LP, Fire Without Bricks, in 1976, and issued it in a tiny edition on the cooperatively run Bead label. Stabbins has toggled between more pop-oriented projects like Working Week and Jerry Dammers Spatial AKA Orchestra and adventurous free music in bands led by Peter Brötzmann and Tony Oxley. Born in Wolverhampton and based initially i…
Into a New Journey
Unearthed by The Mighty Zaf for BBE Music, Into A New Journey by Ambiance is an impossibly rare and sought-after private label spiritual jazz masterpiece from 1982 with Latin, Brazilian and Afro overtones. Ambiance was the ‘nom de guerre’ of an ever-shifting jazz collective headed up by Nigeria-born, LA-tutored multi- instrumentalist, arranger, producer and photographer Daoud Abubakar Balewa.
Balewa studied composition and jazz improvisation at the feet of innovators such as Frank Mitchell (Art …
Black Fairy
Original Glued Prints on Thick Cardboard / handily gluing / Original Black and White Private Press artwork/ 100 copies limited edition worldwide. Legit reissue of this obscure privately pressed album from 1975. Black Fairy is a fairy tale, but not in the traditional sense. When writing this play, i did not want to re-create the types of fantasies which are so common in Childrens theater. There is no kind of magic that can relieve black children from the oppression that retards their development.…
Jazz En La Universidad
**2021 stock. In process of stocking** Jazz trios have an economy that makes them risky. Yet it’s that risk that makes them exciting; how to get the most out of three musicians. Trios made up of rhythm instruments – piano, drums and bass – are particularly special. In the case of Ruben ‘Baby’ López Furst, the Argentinian pianist, and the trio session for ‘Jazz en la Universidad’, that special feeling is abundant. The balance of lightness and air with muscularity and drive makes the album worthy …