★Nessa Records
Silver Cornet
On Silver Cornet, Bobby Bradford and Frode Gjerstad turn a one‑night Baltimore stop into a fiercely conversational blowout, their quartet with Ingebrigt Håker Flaten and Frank Rosaly mapping free jazz as living, mobile history.
Spontaneous Music Ensemble
On this meeting with the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, Bobby Bradford steps into John Stevens’ London laboratory and, alongside Trevor Watts, Julie Tippetts, Bob Norden and Ron Herman, turns free improvisation into a fiercely alert, shape‑shifting cham…
Numbers 1&2
On Numbers 1 & 2, Lester Bowie joins Malachi Favors, Joseph Jarman and Roscoe Mitchell in a pre‑Art Ensemble crucible where AACM discipline, raw timbral play and open‑form swing coalesce into a blueprint for the Chicago future.
Eftsoons
2025 stock Eftsoons (august 1981) was a collaboration by Hal Russell with tenor saxophonist Mars Williams.
Air Time
On Air Time, Air - Henry Threadgill, Fred Hopkins and Steve McCall - hit their 1977 stride, stretching from tightly coiled themes to wide-open improvisation, turning the sax-bass-drums trio into a restless, three-way imagination engine.
Signaling
On Signaling, Nick Mazzarella and Tomeka Reid compress a wide slice of Chicago’s creative music history into intimate alto–cello dialogues, tracing a clear line from Hemphill/Wadud’s 1970s duets to a present tense that feels urgent and newly carved.
All the Numbers
On All the Numbers, Lester Bowie’s first sessions as a leader catch the future Art Ensemble core in 1967 workshop mode, running multiple takes of two pieces that keep splintering into different shapes, energies and internal logics.
Early Combinations
On Early Combinations, Art Ensemble history is still in wet cement: Roscoe Mitchell’s proto‑Ensemble and Joseph Jarman’s quartet collide in two long 1967 tapes where themes for cancelled gigs and failed auditions already sound like future classics.
Saga of the Outlaws
On Saga of the Outlaws, Charles Tyler turns his Albert Ayler-honed fire into a single, 36‑minute “polyphonic sonic tale,” driving a rough-riding Rivbea band through chants, stampedes and long, wind-scarred horizons of sound.