Jazz /
The Peacemaker
Hailing from Alexandra and nicknamed "Ratau" (meaning "lion"), saxophonist Mike Makhalemele (1938-2000) was a force of nature with a robust yet soulful tone and seemingly endless breath. He embraced the pop music scene as an enthusiastic collaborator and staked his territory at the intersection of township grooves with modern currents in soul, funk and disco. As a solo artist, he delivered a formidable run of albums in the 1970s that that made him the most prolific recording artist in South Afri…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Un Hombre De Buenos Aires
Jazz, funk, and bossa vibes kiss each other, all wrapped up in JLR's trademark cinematic feel. In his colourful Un Hombre de Buenos Aires, recorded in 1978, JLR puts the political outcry of his early 70s works aside and focuses on his love for the city of Buenos Aires. Jorge López Ruiz gets far less credit than he deserves. His crucial role in shaping Argentina's jazz history should place him right next to Gato Barbieri and Lalo Schifrin, who found success abroad. It's an honour do dig deeper in…
Outspan No 2
Tip! Recorded a month after Outspan No 1, this album offers up four more sonic delights from the core trio of Brötzmann, Van Hove, and Bennink. Rarely has free jazz/Euro improv/circus music/[your identifier here] sounded so unfettered and delightful -- adventurous without seeming self-serious, silly yet not without gravity. A must for any fan of these three maestros.
Outspan No 1
Tip! It's hard to imagine how this record -- and it's mate, Outspan No 2 -- managed to remain more or less out of circulation from the CD era onward. Outspan No 1 is nothing less than an ideal distillation of the broad approach to sound creation utilized by the three-ring circus that is Brötzmann, Van Hove, and Bennink, here with the added bonus of Mangelsdorff. Two short numbers, two long, too perfect.
11th Street Fire Suite
11th Street Fire Suite is a post-BAG (Black Artists Group) classic. An emotionally ranging set of blues-drenched duets by alto saxophonist Luther Thomas and flutist Luther C. Petty, it's one of the great documents of the St. Louis creative music diaspora, a wild ride through turbulent and beautiful terrain on a slab of vinyl that's as rare as hen's teeth in its original form. Relocated from their midwestern hometown to New York City, Thomas and Petty entered the studio in 1978 with a fellow musi…
Crashin' From Passion
Red Vinyl Edition. In the 1970s, Betty Davis defied genre and gender by pushing her voice to extremes and embracing the erotic. She articulated a kind of pre-punk, funk-blues fusion that had yet to be normalized in mainstream music – a style that few musicians have come close to replicating. As one of the first Black women to write, arrange, and produce her own albums, Betty was a visionary who disregarded industry boundaries and constraints. Raw, unapologetic and in full control, Betty paved th…
Is It Love Or Desire
Silver Vinyl Edition. Betty Davis was a musical maverick with vision. Image, substance, sex, and grit combined with a badass band that could deliver the funk bed backbone to the sultry music between the sheets. After cutting two notorious discs for the Just Sunshine label (Betty Davis, and They Say I’m Different), and Nasty Gal for Island Records, Davis went to work on her most personal and expressive record yet. After capturing 10 hard-hitting tracks in 1976 at the remote Studio In The Country …
Jazz Al Folkstudio
Back in 2021, we bore witness to the reissue, by Dialogo, of the Rome based ensemble Spirale’s lone 1974 self-titled LP, a towering obscurity of 1970s Italian jazz. Made of up Gaetano Delfini (wind instruments, vocals, percussion), Giancarlo Maurino (saxophone, flute, percussion), Corrado Nofri (piano, marimba, mbira, siren, Jew’s harp), Giuseppe Caporello (contrabass, guitar, percussion) and Giampaolo Ascolese (drums), the band ranks among the most sinfully neglected outfits of its moment, 1970…
Steve Lacy - The Ictus Archives Vol. 2
Tip! The final two LPs in the latest Ictus batch, “The Ictus Archives Vol. 1” and “The Ictus Archives Vol. 2”, both draw on the same period that the veteran saxophonist produced “Clangs” and “Trio Live”, both recorded in 1976 during of two weeks that he was touring Italy with Andrea Centazzo, released in 1976 and 77 respectively, and reissued in 2021’s batch. Gathering four sides of material, issued as two individual LPs, we are offered an incredible insight into that moment’s striking collabo…
The Bay
Tip! *250 copies limited edition* On the same trip to the United States that produced “U.S.A. Concerts” and “Environment for Sextet”, Andrea Centazzo also connected with the San Francisco-based Rova Saxophone Quartet, formed the previous year by Jon Raskin, Larry Ochs, Andrew Voigt and Bruce Ackley (all playing various saxophones). While not as well-known now as they once were, over the last 40+ years the ensemble has produced dozens of albums and collaborated with diverse figures like Anthony …
U.S.A. Concerts
Super Tip! *250 copies limited edition* The Italian imprint, Ictus, was founded in 1976 by percussionist and composer, Andrea Centazzo, and his wife Carla Lugli. Running for just under a decade, until relaunching during the mid-2000s, the label produced a couple of dozen highly highly celebrated releases, the majority of which loosely fall under the banner of free jazz. Ictus’ second batch of releases from the label’s historic archives logically begins with Andrea Centazzo’s “U.S.A. Concerts”, …
Elegua
Latin music, with all its spirit, all its intensity, and all its magic, expresses itself in the decade of the seventies as a cultural revelation. Europe recognizes, listens, and dances to our music, the United States jumps to the sound of it. Latin America is letting its roots be felt. Elegua is a part of this happening. It originated in Boston as a result of the collective efforts of musicians concerned about the direction to be taken by the Latin American musical forms. Elegua essentially deal…
Rhythm And Sound
*Limited edition of 500 copies.* Sonor Music Editions is bringing out a previously unknown Italian Library session from the golden era: Rhythm And Sound by Mandrassi & Zollinger with the I Beati studio band. Mandrassi - alias for Anna Maria Assunta Andreassi - is one of the first female composers of Library Music in Italy while Zollinger is assumed to be Sergio Pagano, brother of the famed Italian author, composer and singer Mario Pagano. Originally released in 1974 for the private studio label …
Artistry
** The first cassette edition of this album to exist in the universe, ltd to 100 copies in white ** Artistry was Sirone's first album as a leader, recorded in 1978, just after the split of the Revolutionary Ensemble. Artistry has an Atypical combination of instruments, bass, cello , flute and percussion and delivers aplenty. Listen and you will know. Sirone ( Norris Jones) had an enormously prolific career as a bassist, both as a member of the Revolutionary Ensemble and playing with many of the …
Androids
Reissue for the first time worldwide. Obscure and Rare album of Spacey Fusion grooves, played by a group that includes Robert Rockwell on reeds, plus Bobby Lyle on piano and electric piano. Lyle's presence gives the album a nice groove.Bob Rockwell, born in Miami, Oklahoma, is an American jazz saxophonist who emigrated to Denmark in 1983 and has lived ever since.