★Corbett Vs. Dempsey
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…
Opinions
Torbjörn Zetterberg’s new record, Opinions, is not a conventional “solo” outing. It doesn’t represent the bassist, composer, and bandleader stepping away from all that to prove his mettle as a virtuoso unaccompanied improvisor. Anyone familiar with Zetterberg’s small group recordings needs no confirmation of his prowess. And anyway, strutting his stuff is not his vibe. Certainly not the vibe of this record, where the bassist plays more than bass, a solo venture on which he is occasionally joined…
Let Our Rejoicing Rise
*2022 stock* In the year that Juneteenth was finally declared a national U.S. holiday, 2021, Joe McPhee and Tomeka Reid united for a live concert in celebration. Multi-instrumentalist McPhee was deeply moved by the historical nature of the circumstances, the incredible freight of that history of oppression and liberation represented in the legislation, both the insanity of its overdueness and the joy of its institutionalization. As a preamble to the music, McPhee led off with two poems, read wit…
Eight Pieces for Two Cellos
*In process of stocking* Repertoire for cello represents a little-explored niche of the greater jazz songbook. In 2013, cellists Tomeka Reid and Fred Lonberg-Holm turned their arrangerly and composerly attention to this terrain, assembling a selection of four originals (three by Lonberg-Holm, one by Reid) and four works by other composers. The latter include “Pluck It” by pioneering jazz cellist Fred Katz, member of the Chico Hamilton Quintet and soundtrack composer for Roger Corman films; “In W…
Left / Right (Book)
Peter Brötzmann's catalog for an exhibition held at Corbett vs. Dempsey July 27 – August 17, 2013 Includes an essay by Jim Dempsey
Globe Unity
*Limited edition of 500 copies.* In 1966, pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach assembled his first large ensemble to play his compositions “Globe Unity” and “Sun.” This 14-piece band, which brought together some of the leading figures in European improvised music, would eventually expand – incorporating not only Europeans but also American and Asian musicians – and assume its rightful name: Globe Unity Orchestra. In its nascent outing, beautifully recorded at Ariola Studio in Cologne, Schlippenba…
Chirps
Limited edition of 500 copies.* What could possibly happen when two ultimate masters of soprano saxophone square off for their only recording of duets? Chirps is the only place to find out. Steve Lacy – the one who planted the flag for soprano saxophone in the ground of modern jazz, who established its iconic status, who devoted himself to the axe with monkish devotion, who brought shakuhachi breath and stairstep melody into its upper-register antics. Evan Parker – arguably the one who pushed th…
Bonobo Beach: Some More Guitar Solos
*Limited edition of 500 copies.* Subtitled “some more guitar solos,” Bonobo Beach was German guitarist and instrument inventor Hans Reichel’s fourth and final record of solo guitar works. After this record, Reichel would turn much of his attention to the bowed wooden-tongued instrument he created called the daxophone. Reichel recorded the six tracks at his home in Wuppertal in April, 1981, and in the process made what might be his masterpiece. These are not just some more guitar solos. Concentra…
Pink Pong
*In process of stocking. Limited edition of 500 copies.* German pianist Georg Gräwe, one of the most impeccable and imaginative improvisers in contemporary free music, made his debut recording, New Movements, in 1976, under the auspices of Free Music Production, the legendary Berlin-based organization run by Jost Gebers. At FMP’s Jazz Now festival, in April of that year, Gräwe presented his working band, a classic hard-bop configuration with trumpet, saxophone and rhythm section. Indeed, some ve…
New Movements
*In process of stocking. Limited edition of 500 copies.* German pianist Georg Gräwe, one of the most impeccable and imaginative improvisers in contemporary free music, made his debut recording, New Movements, in 1976, under the auspices of Free Music Production, the legendary Berlin-based organization run by Jost Gebers. At FMP’s Jazz Now festival, in April of that year, Gräwe presented his working band, a classic hard-bop configuration with trumpet, saxophone and rhythm section. Indeed, some ve…
Sweet Nothings (for Milford Graves)
*In process of stocking.* Two masters of wind instruments blowing in from the Windy City. In 2003, as part of the seventh annual Empty Bottle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music, Joe McPhee and Evan Parker squared off for a round of intimate dialogues. The resulting recording is just the second time they had played as a duet, the previous also being in Chicago, at a studio in 1998, where the limited their instrumentarium to tenor saxophones, resulting in the Okka Disc classic Chicago Tenor Duets…
Songs In Heat
*In process of stocking.* While Dredd Foole would stamp his legend as a foundational figure in the New Weird America free folk underground of the 1990s and 2000s, that is just the second half of the story. Forty years ago, in February 1982, Dredd entered the studio with Mission of Burma, stepping off a remarkable decade of post-punk activity that drew comparisons to The Stooges, Tim Buckley, and various outsider musicians. They would never tour and lacked ambition, so their powers were largely w…
Ultraman vs. Alien Metron
Tip! In the first years of its existence, starting in 1997, the Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet worked as a collective, inviting all and any of its participants to contribute compositions to the band's repertoire. Eventually, the Tentet would jettison scores and pre-planned structures altogether, opting for free improvisation, but on their early tours and initial recordings they played pieces written by the various band members. A marathon set of summer studio sessions in 2002, just off a U.S. …
McPhee Marker
Chicago-based saxophonist and clarinetist Ken Vandermark was invited to arrange a set of seventies music for a concert in 2019, and among the pieces he chose were tracks by funk legends Parliament and post-punk iconoclasts DNA. On this 12-inch 45rpm EP, Vandermark's band Marker presents a unique take on "Night of the Thumpasorus Peoples," drawn from Parliament's 1975 LP Mothership Connection, and DNA's "Egomaniac's Kiss," which first appeared on the classic 1978 Brian Eno-produced collection No …
Route 84 Quarantine Blues
Joe McPhee’s response to the challenge of making a new CD of solo music during Covid was to go at it head on, to address the present in its starkest aspects, to reach for comfort in the music of great composers, and to speak directly to the virus in no uncertain terms. The result is unlike any other of McPhee’s many records, a variety show of improvisations, favorite compositions, field recording, multi-tracking, incantation and recitation. After searching for the right studio-like setting wit…
The Field Within A Line
With his riveting performance in the inaugural Sequesterfest online festival in April 2020, Ken Vandermark inspired the Black Cross Solo Sessions. Already in the early days of lockdown, making good on the promise – or threat – of protracted off-road time, Vandermark had dedicated himself to the creation of a new book of works for solo reed instruments, which he debuted that day. The result of this watershed moment for the Chicago-based improvisor and composer was a body of works that reassert …
Every Single Night
From a time before Covid, Brazilian singer/songwriter/producer Moreno Veloso began singing his children to sleep. After the virus set in, this habit took on added significance, a father's reassurance. The music he chose for these nocturnes was drawn from friends and heroes, a selection of beautiful tunes and lyrics that began to form itself into a songbook of sorts, and Veloso started recording these pieces after the kids were tucked in. Gently surrounded by the night sounds outside his apartmen…
나를 (Na-Reul)
Extremely personal and passionate, cellist Okkyung Lee recorded this album after separation from her instrument for months; the 9 pieces are layered with strings, instrument sounds, voice and with profound timing, creating an intensely beautiful album reflecting the anguish and loss of the time.
Corona
A grand reunion of sorts in Berlin on the first day of November, 1996. Under the auspices of Free Music Production, Cecil Taylor, the great pianist and one of the premier musical minds of the 20th century, joined forces with his early comrade, drummer Sunny Murray, for a set of improvised duets. Murray was part of Taylor's important groups starting in 1959, including the trio with alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons, with which Taylor toured Europe in 1962 and 1963, recording the seminal Nefertiti, the…
Centrifuga
Danish pianist Tom Prehn was one of the first Europeans to deeply explore free music. With his quartet featuring Fritz Krogh on tenor saxophone, Poul Ehlers on bass, and Finn Slumstrup on drums, Prehn recorded Axiom in October, 1963, for Sonet, though it went unreleased until 2015 because the band felt that their music had moved beyond it already. To hear the music they were talking about, one could only turn to two privately-made reel-to-reel tapes, Centrifuga and Sohlverv, recorded in August, …