Jazz & Improvisation / 60s

Villingen, 27 and 28 June 1968. Barney Wilen, the tenor of Ascenseur pour l'échafaud, with a young Joachim Kühn on organ and piano, Aldo Romano and Wolfgang Paap on two drum kits, Mimi Lorenzini's guitar and Günter Lenz's bass. Ode to Billie Joe, Res…

1967, SABA. Tony Scott, the clarinettist of Music for Zen Meditation, with Bubi Chen's Indonesian All Stars: Jack Lesmana on guitar, Marjono on saxophone, gamelan gongs under the rhythm section. Jazz standards and Indonesian songs, with Summertime an…

Another of Berendt's meetings, SABA 1967. George Gruntz, the Basel pianist who would later run the Berlin Jazz Festival for twenty years, with Sahib Shihab on saxophones and Jean-Luc Ponty on violin, and a group of Tunisian musicians: a bendir and da…

Villingen, 23 October 1967. Irène Schweizer's trio with Mani Neumeier and Uli Trepte, a year before Guru Guru, meets Dewan Motihar's sitar, tabla and tambura, with Manfred Schoof and Barney Wilen. Three pieces, two of them long, and the seventeen-min…

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 Uni…

CD eissue of Don Cherry's classic Eternal Rhythm Group, recorded at the Berlin Jazz Festival, 1968. An amazing line up of: Cherry (cornet, gender and saron [gamelan], flutes), Albert Mangelsdorff (trombone), Eje Thelin (trombone), Bernt Rosengren (te…

Albert Ayler did it once, and only once. On February 24, 1964, in New York, on the same day as the session that would become Spirits, he recorded a program of spirituals and standards with no screaming, no glossolalia, no demolition of form: "Goin' H…

*Back in print!* First released in 1964 under the expert production of Blackwell for Island Records, this remarkable album captures the essence of Jamaican soulful jazz through the extraordinary talent of Ernest Ranglin. As a pioneering guitarist and…

Following his striking 1968 debut Ghetto Music, the radical trumpeter and composer Eddie Gale presented an extension of that vision continuing to seek truth and justice through his music on his magnificent 2nd Blue Note album Black Rhythm Happening, …

“Bloque 6” (1968), by Juan Carlos Calderón, is a landmark recording in the history of modern jazz in Spain, markedly different from the albums Calderón would record just a few years later under the influence of funk, disco music, and even flamenco. J…

*Warehouse find* After the convincing performance at the fifth Jazz Festival di Sanremo 1960, Basso and Valdambrini realized for Jolly the third album, adding to the original formation of the quintet that has recorded the album LPM 2079, the promisin…

On BBC Jazz Club Session April 1965, Don Rendell and Ian Carr capture a historic broadcast moment where British modern jazz finds its new voice. The debut of pianist Michael Garrick within the quintet injects modal colour and compositional bite into …

Two sessions from the white heat of mid-sixties New York, drawn from the ESP-Disk archive and returned to full clarity in the new Reference series from AlAy, the Basel imprint curated by Werner X. Uehlinger. The Call brings together the only recordin…

The second volume in the Reference series from AlAy, the Basel imprint curated by Werner X. Uehlinger, gathers twenty two sides that document one of the great partnerships of modern jazz: trumpeter Fats Navarro and composer, arranger and pianist Tadd…

Endless Happiness reissues the 1968 British jazz classic Phase III by The Don Rendell/Ian Carr Quintet, showcasing their creative peak and innovative spirit.

Freddie Hubbard’s Goin’ Up brings listeners into motion from the very first notes—an electrifying statement of swing, power, and musical imagination. Brimming with bold improvisations and masterful ensemble interplay, the album captures the spirit of…

Celebrated as a standout in the jazz canon, Lee Morgan’s “Lee-Way” returns with fresh momentum, reaffirming its power to thrill with its melodic immediacy, rhythmic drive, and unmistakable personality. The album showcases Morgan at the peak of his cr…

*2026 repress* Joao Gilberto's self titled third album, is the fruit of the collaboration between Gilberto and the great composer and arranger Antonio Carlos Jobim and Walter Wanderley and his ensemble. This is one of the greatest pieces of work in t…

In 1963 and 1965 Oscar Peterson performed at the Kulttuuritalo in Helsinki. He was the leader of what was then considered one of the most closely-knit bands in the history of jazz, made up of Oscar himself and two other fabulous jazzmen, Ray Brown on…

Norio Maeda ignites this trio date with raw, thrilling momentum — one of his most electrifying records. Stripped-down and urgent, the music bursts with kinetic energy: tight, swinging interplay that sparks like vintage 60s bossa bands yet barrels in …