Jazz /
Jila - Save ! Mon. - The Imaginary Suite
**CD Edition** A post-free masterwork, recorded in Milan in 1978. This is an extraordinary encounter between George Lewis's electronically modified trombone and the flute, alto sax and bass clarinet played by Douglas Ewart, a giant of impro jazz, often at Lewis's side. Both George Lewis and Douglas Ewart create arresting, complex music here, in ways that powerfully contrast and powerfully pull together. The two are prodigious musicians, their understanding is perfect and you can only admire the …
The Loud Minority
** Remastered. Housed in Gatefold Sleeve with 20 Page Booklet ** Deluxe reissue of Frank Foster's The Loud Minority LP for RSD. Released on Bob Shad's Mainstream Records in 1972, it's a landmark album and one of the key political works of the 70s. Featuring an all-star cast of superb musicians including Elvin Jones, Stanley Clarke, Airto, Cecil Bridgewater and Marvin 'Hannibal' Peterson, it is also Dee Dee Bridgewater's earliest full recordings. This special edition includes a 20-page booklet fe…
A Black Mass
* 2021 stock * 'A Black Mass' is an ultra rare recording of a play by Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), featuring Sun Ra & the Myth-Science Arkestra. Originally released by Jihad Productions on vinyl 1968. It has only been briefly available on CD previously and has been lovingly re-mastered. Baraka was an African-American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays and music criticism. He was the author of numerous books of poetry and taught at a number of universities, including the State University of …
Music, Message and the Moment
Unbelievable new compilation of deep spiritual music by John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Oliver Nelson, Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp and other groundbreaking Impulse Artists.
Black Fairy
Original Glued Prints on Thick Cardboard / handily gluing / Original Black and White Private Press artwork/ 100 copies limited edition worldwide. Legit reissue of this obscure privately pressed album from 1975. Black Fairy is a fairy tale, but not in the traditional sense. When writing this play, i did not want to re-create the types of fantasies which are so common in Childrens theater. There is no kind of magic that can relieve black children from the oppression that retards their development.…
Space Dimension
Black vinyl / 505mcn paper / Hand Plasticization / PVC outers / original artwork / 250 copies edition. 1970 freeform jazz rarity. Noah Howard was born in 1943 in New Orleans and, like many of his contemporaries, first played music in church as a child. In his 2010 book, 'Music in My Soul', Howard reflected upon his childhood in New Orleans and the influence the city had on him: “Growing up in New Orleans was like receiving a steady diet of music, and my taste in music became increasingly more so…
Al-Fatihah
Among the fiercest and greatest documents of Free Jazz is a lone LP - Al-Fatihah - self-released in Ohio by Black Unity Trio in 1969, the official reissue of which stands before us now. A hard cut diamond of pure fire and artistry, it’s a good as improvised music from this era gets and absolutely not to be missed
The Flam
Black Saint present a reissue of Frank Lowe, one of the most powerful tenor sax voices in the post Free Jazz era and one of the main figures in the mid Seventies NY Jazz Loft scene. "The Flam" recorded and released on Black Saint in 1975 stands as one of Lowe's best albums ever. This is highly Intense music with deep meaning and timeless message performed by an amazing collective featuring Frank Lowe - tenor sax, Leo Smith - trumpet, flugelhorn & wood flute, Joseph Bowie - trombone, Alex Blake -…
Nothing but the Music
The sounds of late '70s and '80s east coast avant-garde jazz, soul, and punk rock are well documented, but in Nothing but the Music Thulani Davis gives us something beyond, delivering a collection of synesthetic, transportive documentary poems that breathe anecdotal and impressionistic life into a sonic-social history about which most can only speculate. Davis' verse takes free flight with its muses, scatting and leaping off the page and the shoulders of the musicians, nightclubs, and choreograp…
New Grass
Albert Ayler's 1969 album New Grass has been misunderstood from the day of its release. The album finds Ayler experimenting with soul music and digging back into his R&B roots (he started his career playing saxophone with Chicago bluesman Little Walter), fusing it with the avant-garde free jazz (the one element of the record which garnered consistent praise) and adding the vocals of Rose Marie McCoy, The Soul Singers and Ayler himself. As if predicting the divisiveness of the record to follow, A…
Armitage Road
**Seminal Spiritual Jazz from South Africa, 1970. Officially licensed and remastered re-issue**. With a unique sound founded on a persuasive mix of American and African jazz, Armitage Road, originally released in 1970, was the only studio recording released by South Africa’s Heshoo Beshoo Group. As a highly prized collector’s item, a re-issue and re-appraisal of this lost gem from the apartheid era has been long overdue. Heshoo Beshoo loosely translates from the inter-tribal lingo of the townshi…
Sonny's Time Now
Only a few months after recording "Ghosts“ with Albert Ayler - Sonny Murray released his first album as a leader. „Sonny's time now“ is one of the holy grails for collectors and aficionados of free avant garde jazz music from the 1960s and while original vinyl copies fetch prices up to 270,00 US$ and more ,even the first Japanese reissue from 1986 on vinyl and CD is rare as stardust these days and goes up to 100,00 US$ for a mint CD copy. Well, we will take a closer look at this album due to thi…
Oracy
**Seminal Spiritual Jazz from Detroit, 1977. Officially licensed and re-mastered re-issue**. Comes with fold-out insert of Ade Olatunji’s Poetry that features on the album and never before seen artwork designed by New Zealand based designer David Broome. Oracy' by The Positive Force & Ade Olatunji belongs to the body of 1970s recordings that joined two of the great African American vehicles for expression, jazz and poetry, into a single, powerful force. A profoundly inspiring that doubles as an …
Blacknuss
Blacknuss was a trend-setting iconic contribution to jazz. Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s creative force helped to define musical culture. From its opening bars, with Bill Salter's bass and Rahsaan's flute passionately playing Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine", you know this isn't an ordinary Roland Kirk album (were any of them?). As the string section, electric piano, percussion, and Cornel Dupree's guitar slip in the back door, one can feel the deep soul groove Kirk is bringing to the jazz fore here. A…
Who Sent You?
A sprawling meditation for afro-cosmonauts, a reminder of the forms and traumas of the past, and the shape and vision of Afrotopian sounds to come
To Cy & Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1
In the words of Emma Warren: Alabaster DePlume is not doing things properly, and this makes him very happy. DePlume is a Manchester-born, London-based bandleader, composer, saxophonist, activist and orator. He’s a resident at the legendary London creative hub Total Refreshment Centre, a recording artist for the off-grid, Scottish Hebridean island label Lost Map, and now the latest arrival into Chicago-based International Anthem’s growing family of progressive musical explorationists. Whilst mu…
Where Future Unfolds
Where Future Unfolds is a new work spirited by Chicago-based sound & visual artist Damon Locks. Starting as a solo sound collage piece (where Locks pulled samples from Civil Rights era speeches and recordings to create an improvisational pallet for performance on his drum machine), over 4 years the project has blossomed into his 15-piece Black Monument Ensemble – featuring musicians (including Angel Bat Dawid on clarinets and Dana Hall on drums), singers (alumni of the Chicago Children's Choir),…
Live at The East 1973
"Now-Again Records presents limited edition deluxe reissues of the lauded black fire catalog in 2020. First up in the series, this previously unreleased live session recorded at the legendary Brooklyn venue The East in 1973. Magical, mystical, Afrocentric, progressive -- words that could be used to describe any number of musical compositions by Sun Ra or his cosmic brothers and sisters, from John to Alice Coltrane, early '70s projects on record labels like Detroit's Tribe or Houston's Lightin' o…
Dauwhe
Black Saint present a reissue of John Carter Octet's Dauwhe, originally released in 1982. Dawhe is the first chapter in John Carter's Roots and Folklore saga. A five-part epic journey through the African American heritage conceived by the great clarinetist-composer and performed by a stellar line-up featuring Carter himself, Bobby Bradford (cornet), James Newton (flute), Charles Owens (soprano sax, oboe, clarinet), Red Callender (tuba), Roberto Miranda (bass), William Jeffrey (drums), and Luis P…
Sounds of Liberation
Fronted by alto maestro Byard Lancaster, this eponymous 1972 recording from the Philadelphian spiritual jazz / funk ensemble marks another wonderful release from Dogtown Records.Formed in the early 70s, the Sounds of Liberation was a group of Philadelphia musicians made up of Byard Lancaster, Khan Jamal, Monnette Sudler, Omar Hill, Dwight James, Rashid Salim and Billy Mills. The Sounds of Liberation mixed jazz, funk, free jazz and spiritual jazz into a harmonious celebration of sound. With thei…