Jazz & Improvisation / Avant-Garde Jazz

A spiritual jazz masterpiece, Bennie Maupin’s The Jewel In The Lotus returns on vinyl. Featuring Herbie Hancock and a stellar ensemble, this ECM classic blends meditative soundscapes and collective improvisation, inviting listeners on a timeless journey of musical discovery

On Awofofora, Marion Brown folds funk, reggae and Afro‑Caribbean rhythm into his mature structural language, using grooves not as decoration but as architecture for golden‑toned alto lines and quietly radical collective improvisation.

New vinyl edtition as part of the "Luminessence" Series, presented as a tip-on gatefold including new photos from the archive. “I personally feel this is a great record and recommend it to everyone. It’s positive and hot and simply excellent.” – Gary Burton   Pat Metheny had debuted at ECM as a member of Gary Burton’s band on the album Ring in 1974, but Bright Size Life, his first studio recording as a leader, was the album that decisively put him on the map as a bright new force, with something…

Bomb! The debut recording by The Ancients, the intergenerational coalition of Isaiah Collier, William Hooker and William Parker formed by Parker to play concerts in conjunction with the Milford Graves' “A Mind-Body Deal” exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and now a working group. Across 2LPs of side-length long-form improvised sets recorded at 2220 Arts & Archives in LA and The Chapel in San Francisco, The Ancients bring the free jazz trio languages first explored by t…

The saxophone, thunderous as a peal of lightning, burns the listener’s body and shakes the soul. Out Of Chaos captures a new frontier reached by Kosuke Mine beyond the depths of chaos. Having attracted widespread attention through his work with the Masafumi Kikuchi Group and the consecutive release of three albums under his own name in 1970, Kosuke Mine was one of the most talked-about figures in Japanese jazz. Following the breakup of the Kikuchi Group, he released the masterpiece Daguri in 197…

*100 copies limited edition* Following the striking debut of Believe That Was Me (577 Records, 2025), Matthew Putman, Hill Greene, and Francisco Mela reunite for Bright Sun Outside, a fearless new recording that further expands their shared language of spontaneous composition and soulful listening. Emerging from the creative orbit of 577 Records, the trio crafts a vivid and unpredictable sonic landscape where abstraction, rhythm, lyricism, and raw momentum exist in constant motion. Mela’s additi…

“Memories of a Loser” presents Juan Belda & The Bit Band at their most focused and fully realized. Blending jazz, rock, electronics and experimental composition, the album refines the core elements that have defined the project into a more cohesive and direct musical statement. The result is a record that moves with clarity while preserving its exploratory edge. Structured compositions and open passages coexist naturally throughout the album, driven by a strong sense of atmosphere and interplay …

La rueda infinita de Hans continues the exploration initiated by Juan Belda & The Bit Band, expanding their language through a conceptually structured and musically ambitious work. The album brings together a stable ensemble of outstanding musicians from the worlds of jazz and experimental music: Jorge Pardo, Enrico Barbaro, Juanjo Ortí and Epi Lorente. Their collective virtuosity shapes a sound that moves freely between composition and improvisation, precision and openness. Throughout the recor…

With No encuentro la tónica, Juan Belda & The Bit Band push their musical language further into unpredictable territory. The album unfolds as a restless and multifaceted work where jazz, experimental rock and electronic textures intersect freely. Rather than following a fixed stylistic path, the music constantly shifts perspective, moving through dense arrangements, sudden rhythmic turns and moments of spacious improvisation. The ensemble once again brings together a remarkable group of musician…

With Carretera mágica, Juan Belda & The Bit Band continue their journey through a musical territory where genres dissolve and direction emerges from collective exploration. Although its language can loosely evoke the broad landscape of jazz rock, the album ultimately resists precise categorization. Instead, it unfolds as an open musical route shaped by interplay, texture and evolving momentum. The core ensemble once again features Jorge Pardo, Juanjo Ortí and Enrico Barbaro, joined by collaborat…

Temporary Super Offer! Cacophonic present a first time vinyl reissue of a pioneering album of French free jazz, François Tusques's Free Jazz, originally released in 1965. Comprising some of the earliest, uninhibited performances from musicians behind groundbreaking European records and films, Free Jazz captures the birth of an exciting movement that would soon earn its Parisian birthplace as the go-to European spiritual home of improvised and avant-garde music. Spearheaded by pianist and compose…

If Eternal Rhythm was Don Cherry's world fusion masterpiece of the '60s, then Brown Rice is its equivalent for the '70s. But where Eternal Rhythm set global influences in a free jazz framework, Brown Rice's core sound is substantially different, wedding Indian, African, and Arabic music to Miles Davis' electrified jazz-rock innovations. And although purists will likely react here the same way they did to post-Bitches Brew Davis, Brown Rice is a stunning success by any other standard. By turns hy…

Sound Sun Pleasure was recorded in Chicago at the same March 1959 sessions that produced the instrumental album Jazz In Silhouette, and features near-identical personnel. However, the recordings sat on the shelf for over ten years, finally achieving release in 1970. Whereas Silhouette was comprised of Sun Ra originals, Sound Sun Pleasure explores two works Sunny co-composed with trumpeter Hobart Dotson and four standards, two of which ("'Round Midnight" and "Back In Your Own Backyard") are sung …

Future Present Past is the second Impulse! Records album  by the free jazz collective Irreversible Entanglements. The album was largely recorded at the historic Van Gelder Studio and showcases how the quintet fuses atmospheric jazz, world music traditions, and spoken word with the story of our collective existence: a future full of possibilities, a present with all its uncertainties, and a past as a source of ancestral wisdom. Irreversible Entanglements, formed in Brooklyn in 2015, consists of p…

Two Rooms Records is excited to announce its tenth and most significant release yet, "Live on WUOM 1979" by Griot Galaxy. Nearly lost to history, this double-length release captures an extended radio performance by the seminal Afro-futurist jazz group, aka “The Sci-Fi Band,” featuring stunning versions of their classic repertoire circa 1979, in a compact, quartet setting. Known for mixing complex polyrhythms, polytonality and non-western scales with grooves and minimalist elements from popular m…

Originally released in 1962 on Candid Records, The Straight Horn of Steve Lacy finds a young Steve Lacy stepping forward with quiet confidence and a sound unlike anyone else at the time. Stripped of excess and focused on tone, space, and intent, these sessions reveal a musician already thinking beyond convention. The soprano sax cuts clean and direct, moving between sharp angles and lyrical calm, with a small group that listens as closely as it plays. Nothing here feels rushed or ornamental, jus…

One of the most uncompromising free jazz records ever made, this one-off improvisation by a group of Dutch players, led by percussionist Pierre Courbois, is an archetype of the style

This record marks a turning point in jazz history. It may be the earliest recorded example of what Ornette Coleman later called "free jazz," and it represents the first rumblings of the revolutionary movement which eventually shifted jazz thinking away from bebop. This double LP includes the complete show recorded live at The Hillcrest Club of Los Angeles in 1958.

*200 copies limited edition* Christer Bothén’s artistry transcends genre, tradition, and the tangible. A key figure in avant-garde jazz and global improvisation, he has spent decades exploring sound’s spiritual depth. From playing in Don Cherry’s groundbreaking Organic Music Society to leading expansive projects, Bothén has embraced the unknown, continuously reshaping his musical language. At 83, Bothén remains deeply engaged, crafting L'Invisible, a trio album with vibraphonist (and drummer) Kj…

In 2023 the Swedish bassist and composer Vilhelm Bromander turned heads with the stunning debut album of a new large ensemble, which has now adopted its name— Vilhelm Bromander Unfolding Orchestra—from that recording: In this forever unfolding moment. That album, which earned him the prestigious Gyllene Skivan and Manifest Awards, was an auspicious premiere, that braided many of the passions of the young musician, including his devotion to Indian dhrupad music, the politically charged folk-jazz …

Originally released during one of the most fertile periods of post-war British jazz, Movement by the Joe Harriott Quintet stands as a bold statement of artistic independence and innovation. Showcasing Harriott’s unique vision, the album bridges the lyricism of modern jazz with an avant-garde sensibility that still resonates today.   Harriott, an alto saxophonist of Jamaican origin who established himself as a pioneer of the British scene, leads a stellar ensemble through a set of forward-looking…

300 copies. Recorded on 11th April, 2007 at Park West Studio by Jim Clouse. The Ullmann/Swell Quartet is the latest format of Gebhard Ullmann and Steve Swell with bassist Hill Greene and legendary drummer Barry Altschul. This emotional and intense quartet was founded in 2004 and toured in the U.S. and Canada in the same year. in October and November of 2006 the Ullmann/Swell 4 performed in Europe for the first time and got raving reviews. More tours in the U.S. and Canada followed 2007 and 2008.…

This latest instalment from NoBusiness Records collaboration with the Japanese Chap Chap label under the name of Yuji Takahashi with Sabu Toyozumi constitutes a real find. A wonderfully mystic vernal episode of free improv music recorded in Tokyo, 1998. Piano and percussion album of the highest beauty, interactive on a telepathic level and execution. Yuji Takahashi is a Japanese avant-garde composer and pianist. In Japan he was by then already well established as leading practitioner of experime…

NoBusiness Records is pleased to announce a new archive release from it’s series of important musicians and group recordings from the 70s and 80s, which either were never released before or released on small private labels but long out of print and now newly remastered.This release is dedicated to William Hooker’s early music and covers his most important works during the period from 1975 to 1989. Newly remastered material is now presented in a 4 CD boxed set. William Hooker is an artistic whol…

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 Dameron, captured across seven New York studio sessions between January 1947 and January 1949, with sonic restoration and mastering by Michael Brändli and new liner notes by Art Lange. Navarro, gone at twenty six, made perhaps the deepest impression…

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 recording ever made under the direction of the painter, engineer and multi-instrumentalist Marzette Watts and the sole date led by the great bassist Henry Grimes, the connecting thread between the two, in a single volume with sonic restoration and mastering …

** Deluxe 180gr. Black vinyl edition. Comes in a deluxe matte laminate gatefold sleeve. Original 1969 BYG album. Mastered to vinyl from BYG tapes by Nick Robbins. Exclusive liner notes by author John Masouri ** Don Cherry and Ed Blackwell, graduates of the revolutionary Ornette Coleman quartet, are in perfect accord on this seminal free jazz set, recorded in Paris during the late sixties. The emphasis, as on all Don Cherry releases, is on the life-giving, often magical qualities of pure sound, c…

** ** Deluxe 180gr. Black vinyl edition. Comes in a deluxe matte laminate gatefold sleeve. Original 1970 BYG album facsimile-edition. Mastered to vinyl from BYG tapes by Nick Robbins. Exclusive liner notes by author John Masouri ** **  Second chapter of Don Cherry’s "Mu" recordings for BYG - a landmark of free jazz improvisation. Don Cherry and drummer Ed Blackwell had both played with Ornette Coleman and contributed to the revolutionary free jazz movement of the late fifties and early sixties. …

Thanatosis Records (Stockholm) and Corbett vs. Dempsey (Chicago) are pleased to announce a joint release titled Love, the second record by the quartet Das B. The lineup features Maya Magdas on piano, Mazen Kerbaj on trumpet, Mike Majowski on bass, and Tony Buck on drums. Taking structural and dynamic cues from the classic John Coltrane record A Love Supreme, Das B totally reinvents the music and in the process meticulously subverts the notion of the tribute or songbook. The release includes both…

*2025 much needed repress!* Reissue of Don Cherry's 'Relativity Suite', recorded with the Jazz Composer's Orchestra in 1973. At this time, Cherry was becoming increasingly interested in Middle Eastern and traditional African and Indian music, having traveled extensively and studied with Indian musician Vasant Rai. This suite of songs was particularly influenced by the Indian karnatic singing tradition, as can be heard from the very opening moments of the album. Featuring Carla Bley on piano, Cha…

** Deluxe 180gr. Marbled vinyl edition. Comes in a deluxe matte laminate gatefold sleeve. Original 1969 BYG album facsimile-edition. Mastered to vinyl from BYG tapes by Nick Robbins. Exclusive liner notes by author John Masouri ** 'A Jackson in Your House' is the first of the Art Ensemble of Chicago’s renowned trio of albums for BYG's Actuel series. This album is The Art Ensemble’s most celebrated release and finds the American avant-garde jazz collective at their most sensational, mocking and s…

On Slowly Melting, Janel Leppin turns her fuzz‑saturated cello into a one‑woman orchestra of grief, resolve and slow-motion rapture. Layering guitar, bass, piano and Prophet‑5 around her bowed lines, she sculpts a solo album where an ancient instrument, wired into modern circuitry, becomes a tectonic emotional force.

Bastille Musique presents its thirty-eighth release »DLW: Live at Salle Cortot« featuring world premiere recordings by Dell-Lillinger-Westergaard. The live recordings were made between 2023 and 2025 at venues such as Salle Cortot (Paris), Resonanzraum (Hamburg), Orangerie Theater (Cologne), Elbphilharmonie (Hamburg) and Paul-Robeson-Studio (Berlin) and document the development of Dell-Lillinger-Westergaard’s repertoire during this period. In addition to the recordings produced by bastille musiqu…

There's a story that gets to the heart of this record. Years ago, Keefe Jackson spent an evening with South African-Dutch legend Sean Bergin - the only time the two ever met. At some point Bergin told him: "Keefe, you remind me very much of my friend Ab Baars." Jackson replied that he'd heard this many times, that he'd even stopped wearing a certain hat to avoid the comparison. Bergin paused, then said: "These things happen." And so a band got its name - from a throwaway line that turned out to …

It's unreleased Oxley & Stabbins & Sirone & Thomas & Schoof!

There are super groups, and then there are Supergroups.  This trio, comprised of three prolific journeymen improvisers whose work has been recognized across the globe, is neither.  This is a band of down-to-earth, hard-working musicians, whose focus and dedication to the music is exceptional.  That’s not to say that these three don’t have a combined CV that straddles a who’s who list of contemporary music across multiple scenes.  But their ethos is one that emanates from their midwestern locale …

With Temporary Kings two of the most distinct voices on today’s jazz scene present their debut on record as a duo. Engaging in inspired dialogue Mark Turner and Ethan Iverson here explore aesthetic common ground in the atmosphere of a modernist chamber music-like setting at the Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano. The saxophonist and the pianist had begun their association in the Billy Hart Quartet, where the two players featured sympathetically on two ECM albums by that band. The new duo album n…

*In process of stocking* Repertoire for cello represents a little-explored niche of the greater jazz songbook. In 2013, cellists Tomeka Reid and Fred Lonberg-Holm turned their arrangerly and composerly attention to this terrain, assembling a selection of four originals (three by Lonberg-Holm, one by Reid) and four works by other composers. The latter include “Pluck It” by pioneering jazz cellist Fred Katz, member of the Chico Hamilton Quintet and soundtrack composer for Roger Corman films; “In W…

One of the critical figures in Chicago's creative music scene, alto saxophonist Nick Mazzarella has been a mainstay for over 25 years as a leader, composer, and player. This gorgeous recording was made at Shape Shoppe Paradiso, the Italian studio of former Chicagoan Griffin Rodriguez. Mazzarella was introduced to bassist Silvia Bolognesi by cellist Tomeka Reid, and he began informally playing with Silvia and drummer Cristiano Calcangile in 2016. Seven years later, Bolognesi invited Mazzarella to…

Big tip! This is it! Chicago spiritual jazz master Kahil El'Zabar delivers one of the most powerful live recordings in recent memory! Captured over two unforgettable nights at "mu" in London - July 15th & 16th, 2024 - this is music as ancient ritual, as communion, as healing force. El'Zabar created new material specifically for these performances, alongside reimagined arrangements of classics like Wayne Shorter's "Footprints", Gershwin's "Summertime", and Duke Ellington & Juan Tizol's "Caravan".…