Jazz /
Kirk's Work
*Limited edition of 300 copies.* Roland Kirk was one of the most creative, extravagant figures in jazz history. A master multi instrumentalist with no boundaries in terms of language, style and technique. Here we find him co-leading a strong studio session with organ specialist "Brother" Jack Mcduff. Backed up by Joe Benjamin on bass and Art Taylor on drums, Kirk and McDuff give voice to a soulful post-bop set full of groovy riffs and highly inventive instrumental ping pong. Recorded by Rudy Van…
It Might As Well Be Spring
*Limited edition of 300 copies.* Recorded in 1961 and released on Blue Note in 1964, "It May As Well Be Spring" is often considered as an ideal companion to Quebec's famous "Heavy Soul" . Here the saxophone player displays a relaxed set of standards, including classic songs from the American repertoire such as "Willow Weep For Me", "Lover Man" and "Ol Man River". Perfect material to express his warm, lyrical tenor sax voice while Freddie Roach on organ, Milt Hinton on bass, and Al Harewood on d…
Penguin Bids
*2022 stock.* Hot, hot and even hotter! Thrilling big-band recordings from the 1960s, made with the Polish Radio Dance Orchestra… The music is full of energy and swing, and is an evidence of Jerzy Milian’s artistry as an arranger, and above all, as a great vibraphone player.
After Edward Czerny took over the leadership of the Polish Radio Dance Orchestra in 1959, he took it to a level unattainable to his predecessors. Until 1974 he regularly performed with the Orchestra in Poland and in other Ea…
Fire Music To Mama Too Tight, Revisited
Temporary Super Offer! 'Jost may have had Fire Music and Mama Too Tight in mind when he suggested that by 1965 Archie Shepp spoke “basically two musical languages whose grammar and syntax had hardly anything in common.” This reflected the commentaries’s insistence that a chasm existed between free jazz and mainstream jazz practices, and, implicitly, between the New Wave in Jazz and the New Breed led by James Brown. What was revolutionary about Shepp’s music is that it rejected the underlying bin…
I Had the Craziest Dream: Modern Jazz and Hard-Bop in Post War London, Vol. 1
Another luminous compilation from London's Death is Not the End, this time examining the city's modern jazz and hard-bop scenes from the end of the 1940s until the early '60s.
Copenhagen, Denmark (Fm) October 25, 1963
*In process of stocking* "Recorded on the 1963 tour of Europe, this is the definitive John Coltrane Quartet at its musical peak. My edition of the Penguin Guide to Jazz suggests that the 1963 tour was ‘slightly anti-climactic’; on the basis of these tracks, I have to disagree. Although, compared with say, the Stockholm recording of the same tour, this set feels much stronger (even though the pieces are more or less the same, taken from the short set list that the Quartet toured in the October a…
Live Europe 1960 revisited
Temporary Super Offer! 'The Miles Davis Quintet of early 1960 was an endangered, embattled entity. Davis and his frontline foil John Coltrane had been drifting apart stylistically and temperamentally for months. United in the embrace and exploration of modal devices on the trumpeter’s seminal Kind of Blue album released the previous summer, bandleader and sideman were increasingly at odds as to where to go next with the celebrated innovations.' - Derek Taylor
Jazz From District Six
Impossible-to-find gem from 1969 finally reissued in a deluxe edition.
ULTRA RARE South African Jazz from District Six with legendary musicians Clifford Moses, Richard Schilder, Basil Moses and Basil Coetzee.
At The Blackhawk
*In process of stocking* The well-known 1962 performance by the celebrated Ahmad Jamal Trio with Israel Crosby and Vernel Fournier at the Blackhawk Club in San Francisco. This formation of the group wouldn't last long, as Israel Crosby died in mid-1962.
Jazz In The Space Age
George Russell was one of the most advanced composers and arrangers in the history of Jazz. A theorist and innovator who worked extensively between the 40's and the early 2000's. Originally released by Decca in 1960, "Jazz in the Space Age" was Russell's third effort under his name. A visionary work including music composed and arranged by Russell for various lineups featuring the likes of pianists Bill Evans and Paul Bley, trombonist Bob Brookmeyer, drummer Charlie Persip and others. This is ad…
With(Exit) To Student Studies, Revisited
Temporary Super Offer! 'Cecil Taylor’s whole career was a wave-front of exploration. The analogy with light is apposite enough. He evolved so fast most of us never quite caught up and relied instead on a few safe generalisations that momentarily applied around 1962 and only occasionally thereafter. Taylor rarely referenced the space programme, and admitted towards the end of his life that he had found the moon landings “banal”. Like Sun Ra, he was a cosmonaut of sound, breaking free of gravity a…
At Slugs’ Saloon 1966, Revisited
Temporary Super Offer! 'Among the jazz innovators, Albert Ayler is still considered a solitary figure to this day. From 1964 on he pursued his vision with firm determination. Like no other artist he used well-known melodies from military, marching, blues, gospel and minstrel show music as a starting point, and from these biographical earworm references he set out with the greatest expressiveness into an unconditionality that caused productive disturbance, which his music still does. On the one h…
The Hilversum Sessions
Our Swimmer present a reissue of Albert Ayler's The Hilversum Sessions, originally released in 1980. "Recorded in the Dutch city of Hilversum, The Hilversum Sessions presents Albert Ayler in all his blowzy, testifying glory, fronting a quartet that includes trumpeter Don Cherry, bassist Gary Peacock, and drummer Sunny Murray. The repertoire includes five Ayler originals, notably his signature tunes 'Angels,' 'Ghosts,' and 'Spirits.' It's easy to forget how starkly original Ayler was, given the u…
Karma
Acoustic Sounds Series edition Karma is a jazz recording by the American tenor saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, released in May 1969 on the Impulse! label. A pioneering work of the "spiritual jazz" style, it has become Sanders' most popular and critically acclaimed album. It is among a number of spiritually-themed albums released on the Impulse! label in the late 1960s/early 1970s. The album's main piece is the 32-minute-long "The Creator Has a Master Plan," co-composed by Sanders with vocalist Leo…
The Prophet
In 1954, during his first trip to Paris, the adventurous pianist and be-bop pioneer Thelonious Monk recorded a handful of songs for French radio, later issued as The Prophet. Unencumbered by bass, drums or other a companiment, Monk gives us all we need in left-hand rhythms and right-hand melodies; ‘Round About Midnight’ and ‘Reflections’ di play masterful command and there’s a one-off take of ‘Smoke Gets In Your Eyes.’ Highlighting his capabilities in full, this is required listening for Monk fa…
Modal-Air
The great Malcolm Earl "Mal" Waldron makes his debut on Naked Lunch with a collection of his own compositions recorded in New York City during the early '60s in a trio formation with George Tucker on bass and Al Dreares on the drums. The composing skills of Waldron as a post-bop key figure are here on full display on both sides, although pieces like "Modal-Air," "Summerday," "Ollie's Caravan," and "Quiet Temple" really demonstrate the creativity of the trio's playing, with Tucker and Dreares lay…
Conversations
*300 copies limited release* In 1963 Eric Dolphy recorded some sessions in New York with producer Alan Douglas, the fruits of which were issued on small labels as the LPs Conversations and Iron Man. They've been reissued a number of times on various labels, occasionally compiled together, but never with quite the treatment they deserve (which is perhaps why they're not as celebrated as they should be). In whatever form, though, it's classic, essential Dolphy that stands as some of his finest wor…
Ezz-thetics & The Stratus Seekers Revisited
Temporary Super Offer! On Ezz-thetics: Eric Dolphy alto saxophone, bass clarinet, Don Ellis trumpet, David Baker trombone, George Russell piano, Steve Swallow double bass & Joe Hunt drums. On The Stratus Seekers: Paul Plummer tenor saxophone , John Peirce alto saxophone, Don Ellis trumpet, David Baker trombone, George Russell piano, Steve Swallow double bass & Joe Hunt drums. The six albums that George Russell recorded in just two years – starting with Sextet at the Five Spot in September 1960 …
Favorites Revisited
Temporary Super Offer! 'The studio side of Coltrane’s catalog has greater consistency in terms of caliber of aural presentation, but fewer occasions for extended improvisation and creation. This is particularly evident in an analysis of the recordings made of his Classic Quartet comprising pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones. An ensemble that was a work in progress well before it was a finished cohort, Coltrane’s most fertile band was also best suited to the hot h…
Zodiac
We Are Busy Bodies announces the officially licensed reissue of the 1966 cosmic, free jazz album Zodiac by French saxophonist and composer Barney Wilen. The album’s astrological theme and Robert Crumb-esque comic-book style cover art, illustrated by the renowned cartoonist Siné, marks it as a European parallel to the burgeoning counter-cultural happenings of the same period in the USA.
The reissue also offers tantalising glimpses of a projected animated tie-in film that never was. Wilen's friend…