Jazz /
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…
Orange Fish Tears
** Art Edition with exclusive 2-color silkscreen printed wraparound numbered & signed by visual artist Stefan Thanneur - Pressed on ultra clear vinyl. Stricly limited to 175. no repress. Few copies available ** Carefully remastered and restored by Gilles Laujo. Eight-page booklet with rare and unpublished photos. Heavyweight 180-gram LP. In 1972, trumpeter Baikida Carroll and some of his colleagues from the Black Artists Group (more precisely saxophonist/flutist Oliver Lake, trombonist Joseph Bo…
Think - Tank - Funk
Not funk music but a demanding, innovative piece of chamber music and psychedelic avant-garde jazz, Think-Tank-Funk is an unusually daring album to appear in 1973 in Finland. Half-impossible to find on vinyl, the Svart reissue comes added with a fresh interview with Helasvuo.
Esa Helasvuo, known for his long musical career encompassing choral music, orchestral works, soundtracks and children's music, had years of composing experience under his belt already (he had, for example, written the Vesa-…
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…
Space Is The Place
Tip! The holy grail for Sun Ra collectors and fans, an album that forever gave them a slogan to live by! The record's different than some of the other Arkestra work from the time – in that it's a bit tighter and more spiritual, more in keeping with the style of the Blue Thumb label, for which it was recorded – and soaring along on a wave of post-Coltrane spiritual jazz enthusiasm. Side one features the ultimate recording of "Space Is The Place" – an anthemic tune that blends chanting, modal rhyt…
Attica Blues
This Impulse! classic is one of the saxophonist’s most lasting and enduring works. With its powerful avant-garde tracks and strong political messages, the album is one of Shepp's most successful large-group projects. Rolling Stone wrote that it is "not just a masterpiece of protest: it is more a political/religious experience, an appeal to higher human consciousness to, for God's sake, help us out of this torment."
Vista
Saxophonist Marion Brown ended his '70s stint at Impulse! Records with this serene and colorful album. It features musicians such as drummer Ed Blackwell and bassist Reggie Workman, plus Stanley Cowell on acoustic piano and Fender Rhodes. While Brown wrote the blissful coaster Vista, the five other compositions are well-chosen, starting with an inviting version of Cowell's "Maimoun" and an impressionistic and deeply meditative take on Stevie Wonder's "Visions".
Pneuma
Violinist and composer Michael White was among the first to play the violin in avant-garde jazz, and became one of the first jazz violinists to play jazz rock fusion. During his career, he played with Sun Ra, McCoy Tyner, Eric Dolphy, Pharoah Sanders and others.
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…
Secrets
*2023 stock* Secrets is a jazz-funk album by keyboard player Herbie Hancock. It is also Hancock's seventeenth album overall. Participating musicians include saxophonist Bennie Maupin and guitarist Wah Wah Watson.
The album clearly followed from its predecessor Man-Child. As ever, Paul Jackson's basslines were critical, and the other regular member Bennie Maupin continued to provide most of the solos alongside Hancock. Man-Child had seen the addition of electric guitar to Hancock's sound, and Sec…
Stream
European fusion at its best ! Philip Catherine has been on the forefront of the European jazz scene since the sixties, working with the likes Chet Baker, Larry Coryell, Tom Harrell, NHOP, Stéphane Grappelli, Charles Mingus. At the age of 18 he toured Europe with Lou Bennett and in 1971 Jean-Luc Ponty asked him to join his quintet. In 1971 he made his first record under his name - Stream – with a stellar line-up comprised of Freddie Deronde (bass), Frédéric Rottier (Drums), Giggs Whigham (trombon…
Tapestry Koto & The Occident Sea
'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 idioms, integrating the koto with jazz musicians. An original mix, a 'crossover’ that allows for the a…
Phalene I / IV
*300 copies limited edition* Two long-lost recordings from Marc Moulin's Placebo band, and it's earliest incarnation, Kiosk. Debuting unreleased outtakes from Placebo's second album, '1973', and the first ever official reissue of the proto-Placebo single by Kiosk. Originally pressed in tiny numbers in 1970 as a promotional release for Moulin's Sunday night radio show, Dimanche Musique, at RTB, Brussels. Taken from the only existing mastertapes, just recently resurfaced!
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…
They Say I'm Different
Bomb! Black Vinyl edition. One can hardly imagine the genre-busting, culture-crossing musical magic of Outkast, Prince, Erykah Badu, Rick James, The Roots, or even the early Red Hot Chili Peppers without the influence of R&B pioneer Betty Davis. Her style of raw and revelatory punk-funk defies any notions that women can’t be visionaries in the worlds of rock and pop. In recent years, rappers from Ice Cube to Talib Kweli to Ludacris have rhymed over her intensely strong but sensual music.
There i…
Betty Davis
Bottle Clear 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 Co…