Jazz /
The Bull And The Lion
Bringing together Johannesburg’s two saxophone titans for a supergroup recording project was a visionary move by Jo’Burg Records in 1976. Following the success of Makhalemele’s debut The Peacemaker and Mankunku’s long-awaited sophomore release Alex Express, which both appeared in 1975, the bar had been set very high. Enamoured by their jazz contemporaries, the session was concocted by members of an exciting new South African rock group called Rabbit, who formed a backing group consisting of guit…
April Fool: Coming Muhammad Ali
Tip! *2023 stock* "A cutting-edge collage of the Muhammad Ali vs. Mac Foster documentary held at the Budokan in April 1972, with performances by the Yosuke Yamashita Trio (w/ Takeo Moriyama and Seiichi Nakamura). An incredible album, and an incredible cultural moment as well – as Japanese avant piano legend Yosuke Yamashita pays tribute to the great Muhammad Ali – on the occasion of his visit to Japan for the World Heavyweight match in 1972! Half the record features instrumental selections with …
Discovery 1975-1976
With a Yamaha organ and a dream, Pops Mohamed started his musical journey in the mid-1970s as the bandleader and composer of Black Disco, creating a hip melange of chill-out jazz with futuristic drum machine sounds and spiritual overtones. His cosmic organ transmissions were accompanied by two of the most sought-after session players on the South African scene, the sax and flute wizard Basil Coetzee, who had risen to fame in 1974 as one of the soloists on the hit “Mannenberg,” and Sipho Gumede, …
For Children
The 1970 album For Children by Eero Koivistoinen was originally released by the book publishing company, Otava, which was responsible for his earlier two albums as well. Jazzpuu/Sähkö Recordings reissued For Children in 2006 as did we in 2016, yet both of these releases have been hard to find ever since. This time around Svart brings this important piece of Koivistoinen's career, a successful amalgam of acoustic jazz and funky fusion back on the market on a limited Svart exclusive blue vinyl ed…
Spirale (Jazz Cu Paul Weiner)
“Spirale”, initially released in 1976, is one of the essential recordings of Eastern European modal Jazz. The masterpiece recorded by Paul Weiner, a pianist from Timisoara, a city in Romania, has been transformed into a cult LP and not just because it is a source of samples.
Space Trip
Space Trip by Appendix is a cult record released in 1973 on the legendary Amigo catalog, the longest-running independent label in Sweden. This amazing Spiritual Jazz-Funk/Fusion LP was very hard to find. Finally available again, fully licensed and remastered, with original artwork. This album is a killer one in its entirety, with no fillers. Some of the best spiritual jazz on record!
Tapestry Koto & The Occident Hillside
*Original masters licensed by Nippon Columbia for the first ever reissue. Includes OBI and insert.* 'Tapestry: Koto' is a 3-album series produced by Nippon Columbia in the mid-1970s dedicated to one of the main instruments of Japanese traditional music: Koto. The beauty of the trilogy curated by composer Kiyoshi Yamaya, whose chapters are respectively dedicated to Sea, Hillside and Country, lies in the fact that they are a modern translation of tradition using newer and more avant-garde sound id…
Magical Connection
*2023 stock* "Consciously more percussive -- and more commercial -- Szabo's newly formed sextet was clearly up to the challenges of combining rock with jazz. More an instrumental-pop confection, Magical Connection doesn't quite live up to its promise. But even as Szabo covers pop hits by Carpenters, Buffalo Springfield and John Sebastian, he often plays with great wit and solos with energetic dexterity." - AllMusic
Open & Close
*2023 stock* "Perhaps the distinguishing factors of records like Open & Close and some of Fela Kuti's other '70s releases are that as much as he liked to ride a groove, he also liked to disrupt it, twist it and turn it, reshape it, only to bring it back to its original shape. There was less of that later in his career" - All Music
Bäbi, Nommo, In Concert At Yale University (3LP Bundle)
Just Restocked ** The three groundbreaking Milford Graves LPs in bundle at a special price. Sourced from the master tapes. First-time vinyl reissue ** Babi: By the early '70s, Milford Graves had more or less stopped gigging. Having learned his lesson the hard way in multiple-night runs like a legendary Slugs' residency with Albert Ayler, he knew that the level of energy that he put out during a performance would be difficult to sustain over the long haul. A concert was a kind of absolute ritual …
Babi
Mega Tip! **Sourced from the master tapes. First-time vinyl reissue ** By the early '70s, Milford Graves had more or less stopped gigging. Having learned his lesson the hard way in multiple-night runs like a legendary Slugs' residency with Albert Ayler, he knew that the level of energy that he put out during a performance would be difficult to sustain over the long haul. A concert was a kind of absolute ritual for him, after which he would be totally spent, emotionally and physically. Graves rar…
Liberation Music Orchestra
*2023 stock* "The arrangements by Carla Bley are miracles of dynamics, rising and falling in volume and velocity and the awe-inspiring balance of collective ensembles improvising freely through swellings and contractions of individual voices entering and leaving the mysterious swirling circle of simultaneous songs as diverse as the number of performers yet never lacking in the kind of transporting telepathic unity that makes this multiplicity of musical lines such a far cry from the chaos of the…
Electric Byrd
Considered by some to be trumpeter Donald Byrd's last worthwhile jazz recording, Electric Byrd is a high-flying relic from 1970. This album can be understood as Byrd's formidable response to the musical challenges set down by trumpet-rival Miles Davis with his epic Bitches Brew recordings from a year earlier. Clearly Miles is the ghost presence here, with distinct echoes of his sound permeating the vibe of this exploratory set. Byrd demonstrates on his three originals that he, too, was a force t…
Odyssey Of The Oblong Square
*2023 stock* Issued via Reid's own Mustevic Sound imprint in 1977, the album features bassist David Wertman, percussionist Mohammad Abdullah, trumpeter Ahmed Abdullah and Saxophonists Arthur Blythe and Charles Tyler. Reid's music needs no introduction to contemporary audiences; the legendary drummer and band leader was more prominent than ever in the years before his untimely death in 2010, collaborating with Four Tet's Kieran Hebden on a succession of releases as well as being the subject of an…
Outlaw
In the early- to mid-'60s, Gene McDaniels was a successful singing star. He hit the charts with the singles "A Hundred Pounds of Clay," "Tower of Strength," and "Chip Chip". However, McDaniels was a more thoughtful and politically conscious man than his hits would suggest, and after the assassination of Martin Luther King, he left America to live in Europe and focus on songwriting. When he returned to the US in 1970, he was billing himself as Eugene McDaniels the Left Rev. Mc D, and his music to…
A Message From A Tribe Boxset
Super Tip! *Cover design B* Tribe’s inaugural release in 1972 would see three editions released in as many years. 1972’s first edition featured a photo of the ocean on the front, the following year’s second edition had a drawing of the Earth, while 1974’s third edition had a colorful illustration of Tribe founders Wendell Harrison and Phil Ranelin’s faces. Each version is unique.
A Message From The Tribe 1st version (LP + 7")
The inaugural release from Tribe is getting its first ever analog reis…
We Could Be Flying
"Un must per tutti i DJ! Un raro capolavoro della Polydor, che include la famosa Raindrops, Raindrops. Un must per chi ascolta Karin Krog per la prima volta. Un must per tutti gli amanti dell'ambient e del crossover." - Makoto Saito
Live In Europe
This is Archie Shepp caught live at two important European festivals in 1973. At the head of some sort of one-off line up featuring Dave Burrell on piano, Donald Garret on bass along with her partner Zusaan Fasteau on percussion, flute and vocals, and last but not least Muhammad Ali (Rashid's brother) on drums, Shepp, heard on tenor and soprano saxes and piano, delivers a full program of hot renditions of mostly standards by the likes of Ellington, Monk and Davis, plus a couple of pieces written…
Cosmogonie
French jazz library LP with female voices and drum breaks, originally released in 1972 on Mondiophone. Stunning composition and wonderfully recorded, this dark, aggressive jazz orchestral vibes, flitting perfectly between the abstract and the structured. Essential. 180 gram LP.
Crisis
Tip! A superb and under-recognized recording, Crisis is one-third of a trilogy of extraordinary albums -- the others being Broken Shadows and Science Fiction -- by Ornette Coleman's small groups of the late '60s and early '70s. A rendition of the piece "Broken Shadows" itself, a dirge of astonishing beauty second only to his "Lonely Woman," opens the live performance and offers solos of deep and poignant probity from Coleman and tenorist Dewey Redman, whose earthy growled tones counterbalanced t…