Jazz & Improvisation / Avant-Garde Jazz

An übertrio drawn from distinct parts of the creative music spectrum, The Underflow was recorded during a sizzling two-night stand in May 2019. In a series of duets and trios, guitarist David Grubbs, saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, and trumpeter Rob Mazurek met headlong for the first time, converging not only their acoustic and electric instruments, but at times submerging themselves in a tangle of electronics, then emerging into shamanic bell-shaking chant or chest-rattling howl. Ranging from extr…

2016 release. A reissue of Eugene Chadbourne's There'll Be No Tears Tonight, originally released by Parachute in 1980. One of the absolute essentials of Eugene Chadbourne's oeuvre, what he described as "free improvised country and western bebop", featuring his frantic, skewed interpretations of classic songs such as Merle Haggard's "Swingin' Doors", Roger Miller's "The Last Word In Lonesome Is Me", and Willie Nelson's "Mr. Record Man", There'll Be No Tears Tonight was recorded in Spring of 1980.…

One of the towering creative musicians of our time, a master drummer and multiple percussionist, Hamid Drake has anchored inumerable bands. As a hard working player, constantly touring the globe, he's collaborated with most of the major figures in improvised music and contemporary jazz, from David Murray and Peter Brötzmann to Pharoah Sanders and Don Cherry. Along the way, Drake has never had an opportunity to stop and make a solo record. Indeed, he's only performed solo on a few occasions. John…

In the winter of 1980, Chicago tenor saxophonist Fred Anderson (1929-2010) brought his quartet to Milwaukee, where they were recorded live in concert. These tapes were first plumbed for The Milwaukee Tapes Vol. 1 on the Unheard Music Series in 2000.

One day in the studio, something ridiculously great happened. It was deep Chicago winter, cold as shit. Four musicians assembled for a round-robin set of improvisations -- duets, trios, a few quartets. Approached casually, the late morning bloomed into Largest Afternoon, 15 crackling encounters between guitarist Arto Lindsay, saxophonists Joe McPhee, and Ken Vandermark, and drummer Phil Sudderberg. No expectations -- open minds and creative intent. Lindsay, a brilliant singer and songwriter and …

For a performance at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, in spring of 1966, percussionist Milford Graves invited pianist Don Pullen to play duets. The two musicians had worked together in a band fronted by saxophonist and clarinetist Giusseppi Logan, with whom they had recorded two LPs in 1965 for ESP-Disk'. Graves was already a daunting presence in free music. One step at a time, he was busy transforming the role of drumming in jazz, introducing a new way of dealing with unmetered time a…

Corbett vs. Dempsey announce the release of four books of poetry by Sun Ra. Two of these were pamphlets that accompanied early Sun Ra albums issued in the late 1950s; the other two were published more than a decade later by Infinity Inc./Saturn Research. CvsD's reprints are fastidiously designed facsimiles of the original publications, marking the first time they have been available in their Ra-ordained form since they were published. An architect of Afrofuturism and one of the great musical thi…

UK supergroup Flock return with their anticipated sophomore album ‘Flock II’.

Wewantsounds is delighted to announce the release of BAG's first album since 1973, "For Peace and Liberty", recorded in Paris in Dec. 1972 when the musicians had recently arrived from St Louis. BAG only released one album during their existence. This long-lost performance, recorded at Maison de l'ORTF in optimal conditions just a few months previously, was thought lost until recently unearthed from the vaults of INA (Institut National de l'Audiovisuel). Here the group unleashes an incandescent 3…

*2025 repress* Despite its modest role on the world stage, Belgium has produced a number of internationally renowned musicians and composers. There is the iconic gypsy jazz guitar maestro Django Reindhart, whose position remains unassailable, and guitarist/harmonica player Toots Thielemans, who became an internationally renowned artist performing and recording with Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, Shirley Horn and Quincy Jones. The other key Belgian figure is composer/arra…

*2025 repress* On the course of our deep research, we sometimes discover a hidden thread that unites musicians, songwriters, artists, and poets linked by music. Mustafa's 'Polygamy' is no exception. Apart from the music - the main reason we decided to work on this first ever re-press, a jewel at the crossroads between jazz funk, spiritual jazz and proto rap - are the many other things that make Mustafa an intriguing and fascinating character. For starters, he was a childhood friend of the Ayler …

Steve Lehman – whom The New York Times has hailed as a “virtuoso alto saxophonist” and a “state-of-the-art musical thinker” – returns with a highly-anticipated new release with his long-running trio featuring bassist Matt Brewerand drummer Damion Reid, joined by special guest tenor saxophonist Mark Turner, one of the most influential jazz musicians of the past 30 years. On the self-evidently entitled The Music of Anthony Braxton, Lehman pays homage to one of his earliest mentors with a hard-swin…

*2025 repress. 50 copies limited edition* This issue of Audion magazine was first published in pdf format and then later also as a limited printed edition. The pdf version is available as two Bandcamp downloads: a pdf/multimedia edition and as a pdf only version. The pdf is viewable on all devices that support pdf files and can easily be printed. This multimedia download also comes with extra files and the audio samples shown on this page. Audion is copyright registered with the British Library,…

Percussionist Milford Graves recorded his first and only ESP-Disk' recording on August 5th, 1966 along with fellow percussionist, the late Sonny Morgan. According to Milford Graves, the titles were given numbers according to how many beats were in each measure. Milford Graves has been one of the main drummers in the free mode scene (known for skillful inclusion of Asian and African rhythmic ingredients into his solos). He worked with the New York Art Quartet, Giuseppi Logan, Albert Ayler, Don Pu…

Saxophonist/guitarist/composer/music historian/ provocateur Allen Lowe spans the history of jazz in his music in a way that few besides Jaki Byard, Beaver Harris, Steven Bernstein, and Air have ever done, intertwining blues, early jazz, bebop, and the avant-garde. A prolific composer who was incorporating American roots music into his jazz decades before it was hip, he has led project bands featuring a broad array of jazz greats ranging from Doc Cheatham, Randy Sandke, Joe Albany, Don Byron, Ken…

The Art Ensemble Of Chicago, expanding to a chamber orchestra, marks its sixth decade as a vital force on the world music stage with an ear-opening live recording on two LPs. Recorded in France in 2020 at the Son D'Hiver Festival, this recording celebrates the legendary group's historic ties to Paris, where it was formed in 1968. When trumpet great Lester Bowie died in 1999, followers of the Art Ensemble of Chicago couldn't help but wonder whether the legendary quintet, which owed so much to his…

Berlin-based Banquet of Consequences is the new sextet led by double bassist Antonio Borghini. In addition to the valuable lesson of Charles Mingus, clear references to Dutch, Italian and South African jazz traditions are mixed in the group. The group's eponymous debut album oscillates between completely improvised works - a series of numbered "Dialogues" - and compositions that swing wildly between chaos and tenderness.

** Deluxe 180gr. Marbled 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,…

Timo Lassy, one of the leading lights in the current generation of Finnish Jazz, releases a new live album with his hard-cooking trio on We Jazz Records. That's Lassy on tenor sax, Ville Herrala on double bass and Jaska Lukkarinen on drums – each member a We Jazz recording solo artist on their own right. Recorded at G Livelab, Helsinki's premiere live music spot, in 2023 and including new versions of tracks all accross the sax man's celebrated catalog, Live in Helsinki proves why Lassy usually p…

Elisabeth Harnik, an Austrian based pianist and composer has created a multi-faceted body of work by blurring genre boundaries through various collaborations in the field of improvised music, interdisciplinary projects and contemporary compositional works. She studied classical piano and later – with Beat Furrer – composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Graz. As an improviser she works within an electro-acoustic inspired sound-world, using specific preparations and extended t…

A heretical symbol of Rare Groove, with its alternative and avant-garde ferocity! Irvine Weldon's 1973 masterpiece, which continues to have a wide influence around the world even today! Although it is based on jazz, it is a work released in 1973 that is more soul/funk than the first album, and reflects more experimental and political aspects and ideas. For over 30 years, it has been loved by diggers all over the world and reigns at the top of the rare groove as a most wanted item, and today the …

Tip! *2023 repress* '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 startling original best in a session from June 1969, at Studio Saravah. Recorded in Paris during the aftermath of widespread anti-government protests and student riots, it demonstrates what can happen when four h…

May 2015, John Zorn composed 300 new tunes that were eventually collected into a book of music he called “The Bagatelles.” After five years of performances around the world in venues large and small, the choicest ensembles have gone into the studio and the results are some of the most exciting and varied music Zorn has ever presented. This first volume features the remarkable Mary Halvorson Quartet. Dynamic, fiery and endlessly imaginative, this is a fascinating first peek into the world of Zorn…

‘The Susceptible Now’ is the new record by drummer and 2024 Pulitzer Prize winner Tyshawn Sorey, who on this occasion offers covers of some of his favourite tracks. With his trio consisting of Aaron Diehl on piano and Harish Raghavan on bass, Sorey continues in the wake of his masterful ‘Continuing’, a record that placed fourth in the 2023 rankings voted by over 150 jazz critics in the Francis Davis Poll and was described by The Guardian as: ‘5 stars: seething with reinventions of ancient magic.…

Legend of e’Boi (The Hypervigilant Eye) is the powerful new work by composer & alto saxophonist Darius Jones. Both of his tremendous artistic strengths are to the fore here in a fully committed trio communion with longtime collaborator Gerald Cleaver (drums) & Chris Lightcap (bass). Five potent new Jones compositions, and a striking arrangement of “No More My Lord” (a prison song rec. by Alan Lomax at Parchman Farm). Legend of e’Boi is the 7th chapter (of 9 on completion) in Jones’ expansive Man…

*Hand-numbered edition of 300. Digipak in resealable poly-bag* The Gerrit Hatcher Group—featuring Gerrit Hatcher (tenor sax), Katie Ernst (bass), Ben Lamar Gay (cornet), Keefe Jackson (tenor sax), and Julian Kirshner (drums)—delivers an electrifying blend of free improvisation and avant-garde jazz. Their latest release, The Good Instinct of the Morning, showcases their bold, spontaneous creativity and masterful technique. Hatcher and Jackson drive the melody with expressive, ever-shifting saxoph…

*CD Version* Celebrating 50 Years of The Ethnic Heritage Ensemble’s Legacy and Unwavering Contribution to Great Black Music. This is the new offering from Kahil El’Zabar and his Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, in conjunction with the legendary group’s 50th anniversary, Open Me, A Higher Consciousness of Sound and Spirit. Open Me is a joyous honoring of portent new directions of the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble; it’s a visionary journey into deep roots and future routes, channeling traditions old and new. …

On this 1987 album Pharoah Sanders is accompanied by the great Idris Muhammad on drums, John Hicks on piano and Curtis Lundy on bass. Five of the eight compositions are by Sanders, one track by pianist Hicks, Coltrane’s “Naima” is a tribute to Trane and “Speak Low” is a beautiful standard from Kurt Weill and Ogden Nash. A real smoky slower number “Heart To Heart” shows Sanders can be subdued and romantic and John Hicks plays some beautiful jazz piano. The whole album exudes energy and joy. On “D…

The world is more elusive than simple cause and effect imply, more typically, life circumvents causation in favor of an unknowable correlation. It seems like the more we know, the less we know. On this first volume from Zoh Amba and Francisco Mela, the duo brings their regional traditions, from Tennessee and Cuba respectively, and musical inclinations to the cause and effect behind their own life stories. Causa y Efecto, Vol. 1 is an ode to the unknown, transporting audiences between the New Yor…

2024 stock. Shifa, from the Arabic word for healing, is a new trio born out of old musical partnerships from the ever-shifting sands of the UK improvised music scene. Pat Thomas, pianist extraordinaire whose eclectic motherboard pushes the music in unexpected twists and turns, suggested the name. The healing, in this case, is a raw, unfettered musical space where he, saxophonist Rachel Musson and drummer Mark Sanders meet and make music in the moment, of the moment. Each player values the others…

*2024 stock* Super groups are not a riskless endeavor—but when they’re made up of longtime friends and master improvisers, they tend to work. On their collaboration, simply titled Volume 1, up-and-coming American saxophonist John Dikeman (When The Time Is Right, 577 Records, 2021) is accompanied by a group of UK-based music masters: pianist Pat Thomas, a 577 Records mainstay (Shifa Live at Cafe Oto 2019, BleySchool 2019, Shifa Live in Oslo 2020, Educated Guess 2021), bassist John Edwards (EMPoWe…

*2024 stock* Conversations Vol. 1 is the eagerly awaited first installment of a two part release by pianist Cooper-Moore and saxophonist Stephen Gauci. This project, with volume two scheduled for release in the near future, was recorded at legendary Sear Sound studio and showcases these two deeply idiosyncratic players as they reach a unique dimension in which separate parts unify to create a breathtakingly astringent whole. The artists combined experience, spanning three generations, presents a…

Building off of their debut album last year, legendary musicians and 577 mainstays reunite for a second volume. As in the first, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist Daniel Carter, pianist Leo Genovese, bassist William Parker (also playing Gralla and Shakuhachi on this album), and drummer and vocalist Francisco Mela, unite for another cosmic album. This project again draw from classic jazz arrangements, juxtaposed with a modern experimentalism and a huge range of instrumentation. Shine Hear, Vo…

Huge Tip! Pianist, Composer, Multi-Instrumentalist Eva Novoa Releases First Album from Her Newly Forged Trio with Sax Legend Daniel Carter and Beloved Drummer Francisco Mela. It’s not a rumor.  Brooklyn’s Eva Novoa has formed a new trio!  Novoa / Carter / Mela Trio, Vol. 1 marks their first sparkling album together (which is also Eva’s third with 577 Records).  The group performed live for the first time in Cambridge (Boston) in 2022 and at the NY Forward Festival in August 2024.  In an invigora…

* 45th Timeless Records anniversary edition. 180 grams audiophile black vinyl * To celebrate the 45th anniversary of iconic Dutch jazz label Timeless Records, Music On Vinyl is releasing a series that features albums that are part of the Timeless Records legacy and will be released mainly throughout 2022.Part of this series is Pharoah Sanders’ Moon Child from 1990, which bookended a decade of musical soul searching for Sanders. The acclaimed free jazz player is known to have a raw and abrasive s…

Tip! *Much needed repress!!* The seminal 1994 double album Execution Ground, by the original Painkiller with the line-up of Bill Laswell, John Zorn and Mick Harris on vinyl for the first time. When Painkiller started in 1991, their first two albums Guts Of A Virgin (1991) and Buried Secrets (1992) (both released on extreme metal label Earache) were heavy attacks blending grindcore and free jazz that brought together the musical backgrounds of the three protagonists: drummer Mick Harris had just …

Blurt was founded in Stroud, UK, in 1979 as part of the post-punk movement by poet, saxophonist und puppeteer Ted Milton along with Milton's brother Jake, formerly of psychedelic group Quintessence, on drums and Peter Creese on guitar. After three albums Creese left the band to be replaced by Herman Martin on synthesizers who, after a year of constant touring left the band, and was replaced by Steve Eagles, former member of Satan's Rats, The Photos and Bang Bang Machine. Shortly thereafter Jake …

'Uhlmann Johnson Wilkes' is the debut album from Gregory Uhlmann (SML, Anna Butterss, Duffy x Uhlmann, Perfume Genius), Josh Johnson (SML, Jeff Parker ETA IVtet & New Breed, Meshell Ndegeocello, Anna Butterss, Leon Bridges), and Sam Wilkes (Sam Gendel, Louis Cole, Chaka Khan). The three improviser/arranger/producers’ impressive individual credits encompass such a wide stylistic pendulum swing that a collection of group music from the trio could mine any number of musical territories with masterf…

*In process of stocking* Songs and Poems is a project born from the necessity to explore, in a chamber dimension, the possibilities of the sound of the word. The quartet joins Blend 3 - the trio of Andrea Grossi with Manuel Caliumi and Michele Bonifati - to the voice of Beatrice Arrigoni and finds its personal dimension within a sound world generated by the fusion of 20th century European traditions, starting from improvised music and European jazz, passing through contemporary music until arriv…

Axes and layers, but also the axes, for striking and cutting. This work embraces the muscular energy of avant-jazz and delicate and dreamlike introspection. The musical references are to the America of Tim Berne and the Europe of Marc Ducret - the polyphony and rhythmic pulse of the urban environment. But the connections, even if not strictly musical, reach far; "Axis: Bold as Love" by Jimi Hendrix and "AlasNoAxis", Jim Black's debut album. More than one axis: axes.