Four contemporary saxophone concertos by Péter Eötvös, Georg Friedrich Haas, Vykintas Baltakas and Johannes Maria Staud, all premiered by soloist Marcus Weiss, with the WDR Sinfonieorchester, Teodoro Anzellotti and Windkraft Tirol. A WDR production.
Four works written for Trio Accanto by Beat Furrer, Brice Pauset, Misato Mochizuki and Rebecca Saunders, recorded in 2024 by Marcus Weiss, Nicolas Hodges and Christian Dierstein, a WDR production.
René Lussier conducts Vancouver's NOW Orchestra, recorded in February 1995: guitar and daxophone with Paul Plimley, Peggy Lee, Dylan van der Schyff and a full reed and brass section, in a suite of quick-changing vignettes.
Pino Minafra's Sud Ensemble in the studio in Milan, January 1995: trumpet, didgeridoo and ocarina with Carlo Actis Dato, Lauro Rossi and Giorgio Occhipinti, mixing southern Italian band music, free jazz and theatre.
André Duchesne's large ensemble live at the 1989 Victoriaville festival: three electric guitars, saxophones, cello, piano and drums, with Yannick Rieu and Claude Lamothe, in composed Montreal musique actuelle.
Hamiet Bluiett's baritone, D.D. Jackson's piano and organ, Kahil El'Zabar's drums, kalimba and voice. Recorded live in the studio in Montreal in October 2000 with no overdubs, The Calling runs on call-and-response, church organ and blues, with Bluiett switching to wooden flute and contra-alto clarinet.
Five years after Julius Hemphill's death, the World Saxophone Quartet records its farewell to him: four horns alone, no drums, at Studio Victor in Montreal in 1999. David Murray's title piece, three Oliver Lake tunes, a Jack DeJohnette opener. The Penguin Guide calls it one of the group's most accessible records.
Chicago, Steppenwolf Theatre, 1 March 1999. The World Saxophone Quartet plays a full concert and the tape stays in a drawer for three years. Justin Time released it in 2002 as Steppenwolf, and it turned out to be the last record John Purcell made with the group.
The WSQ mostly recorded in studios. A live album from this period is a different animal: the pieces stretch out, the four players introduce their own tunes at the microphone, and Oliver Lake reads a spoken narrative. Jim Santella at All …
Eight Jimi Hendrix songs for four saxophones, plus trombone, violin, electric bass and drums. Experience was recorded over three days, 13 to 15 March 2003, and released by Justin Time in 2004.
By then the World Saxophone Quartet had a new fourth voice. Bruce Williams, on alto and soprano, had replaced John Purcell alongside the three founders, Hamiet Bluiett, Oliver Lake and David Murray. For the Hendrix material they brought in a rhythm section: Matthew Garrison on electric bass, Gene Lake (Oli…
Leon Thomas's second album for Bob Thiele's Flying Dutchman, 1970: a horn section arranged by Oliver Nelson, Billy Harper, Howard Johnson, Billy Cobham and Roy Haynes, and two live spiritual jazz pieces, the eleven-minute Um, Um, Um and the side-long Pharoah's Tune (The Journey).
Berkeley Jazz Festival, 1974. Prince Lasha, the Fort Worth altoist and flautist who had made The Cry! with Sonny Simmons and Iron Man with Dolphy, with Hubert Eaves on piano, Ron Carter on bass, Roy McCurdy on drums and Kenneth Nash on percussion. Three pieces, including the sixteen-minute Mayflower.
Donaueschingen, October 1979. Karl Berger brought the orchestra of his Creative Music Studio from Woodstock to the German contemporary music festival, and Südwestfunk and MPS recorded it. The roster reads like the CMS guest book: Don Cherry on trumpet and bamboo flute, Lee Konitz on alto, Oliver Lake on alto, soprano and flute, George Lewis on trombone, Leroy Jenkins on violin, Trilok Gurtu on tabla and congas, Peter Apfelbaum on drums and baritone, Ingrid Sertso singing, Berger on vibes and pia…
December 1966, a month after the premiere at the Berlin Philharmonie: Alexander von Schlippenbach's Globe Unity, fourteen players, Brötzmann, Schoof, Hampel, Mangelsdorff, Dudek, Breuker, Kowald, Niebergall, Liebezeit, Neumeier. Two pieces, Globe Unity and Sun. European free jazz declaring itself.
Donaueschingen, 17 October 1970, and Berlin, 7 November: Sun Ra's first German concerts, commissioned by Joachim-Ernst Berendt, with the Black Forest Myth written for the astrological moment and never played again. Berendt cut five hours of tape into forty minutes. Der Spiegel called it cosmic chaos.
Five minimalist pieces by Al Margolis' If, Bwana, built from baritone saxophone, alto clarinet, hammered dulcimer, cello, violin and voice, modulated and looped into cosmic soundscapes and drones. Limited to 400 copies.
Guitarist Dustin Carlson's septet with Nathaniel Morgan, Eric Trudel, Danny Gouker, Matt Mitchell on Prophet 6, Adam Hopkins and Kate Gentile, recorded in 2017 and mixed and mastered by David Torn.
Fifth anniversary LP of Adam Hopkins' 2018 debut Crickets, the first Out Of Your Head release, on 180g black vinyl with redesigned TJ Huff artwork and the extra track Grounded, recorded remotely by the sextet in winter 2020-2021.
Merzbow, Mats Gustafsson and Balázs Pándi, recorded at Victoriaville in 2018 and completed with new recordings in 2025: electronics, bass and baritone saxophones and drums in brutal noise and free jazz.
Rova Saxophone Quartet's studio album of compositions from 2013 to 2017, recorded in Oakland: Bruce Ackley, Steve Adams, Larry Ochs and Jon Raskin moving between written structures and group improvisation.
Welcome to the second release in the Black Dot LP series. Black Dot albums are all recorded live at the White Spot performance space in beautiful downtown Nanaimo BC, a venue which Mats Gustafsson visited on June 23, 2019. Mats is many things to many people -- a doting father, a fancier of fine bourbons, an enthusiastic sport fisherman and a record collector of unparalleled passion. But he is probably best known as a musical performer/composer/explorer with world-gobbling intentions. On this eve…