Jazz & Improvisation / Contemporary

Nat Birchall, saxophonist and composer, one of the most authentic voices in contemporary spiritual jazz, presents Path of Enlightenment, a sonic journey through rarely explored scales and modes, from Ethiopia to Byzantium, from ancient Egypt to South…

Nat Birchall, saxophonist and composer, one of the most authentic voices in contemporary spiritual jazz, presents Path of Enlightenment, a sonic journey through rarely explored scales and modes, from Ethiopia to Byzantium, from ancient Egypt to South…

** 2026 limited edition double vinyl with the original cover by Tal R. ** After 14 years of filming/recording some of today’s most influential musicians, the music from Andreas Koefoed’s and Jørgen Leth’s celebrated film “Music For Black Pigeons” is …

First vinyl edition of Showtime, Sei Miguel's 1996 album and his first proper studio record, recorded live in Lisbon in 1994 with Rafael Toral on guitar, now presented as one piece with the cover photo originally planned.

Tulei is a project born in Milan out of the friendship and collaboration between saxophonist Andrea “Jimmy” Catagnoli and Davide Domenichini of Al Doum & The Faryds. The album features a distinct spiritual jazz sound in which the saxophone takes cent…

Translucent Blue Vinyl version. 'The Uproar in Bursts of Sound and Silence is a sort of emergent collage that came together over four years of composition, improvisation, and production. The foundations for this album were initially recorded in 2018 …

Coloured Vinyl version. 'Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) spoke the truth (and the truth under his tongue was sometimes a hammer, sometimes an anvil, sometimes a sickle, sometimes just a breath or a blast). Baraka had no tongue in cheek. Sometimes he drew …

Translucent Sea Blue Vinyl version. Super groups are always risky—the potential for disappointing fans or warring musical styles is high—but when longtime friends and masterful improvisers come together, they usually work. Evident in their first coll…

Coloured Vinyl version. Can music liberate us? Francisco Mela, who worked and partnered with the legendary jazz musician McCoy Tyner, believes so. On this album, the second volume of Music Frees Our Souls, Mela collaborates with pianist Cooper-Moore …

Blue Vinyl version. Before any instrumentation, Francisco Mela addresses his fellow musicians, pianist Matthew Shipp and bassist William Parker, with a sense of anticipation and affirmation, “Okay guys, ready? Rolling!” The sense of camaraderie and h…

Coloured Vinyl version. In the first lockdown, Matthew Putman (on keyboard) and Michael Sarian (on trumpet and flugelhorn) began to meet up (with precautions) for semi-regular sessions in Sarian’s makeshift home studio. The conditions were less-than-…

Coloured Vinyl version. New York United is an experimental group at the musical intersection of a classic New York avant-garde scene and forward-looking electronic production. Comprised of multi-instrumentalist and 577-cofounder Daniel Carter (Saxoph…

Coloured Vinyl version. How do you welcome adventure? Longtime comrades, legendary Daniel Carter, Matthew Shipp, William Parker and Gerald Cleaver investigated this in their first album, Welcome Adventure, Vol. 1, resulting in 577 Records’ best-selli…

Cloudy Clear Vinyl version. Are you ready for magic? The master musicians Daniel Carter, Matthew Shipp, William Parker and Gerald Cleaver will provide access with this album, the first they have released after playing together for decades. Daniel Car…

“Hurtling Between” is an apt description of the way Barry Altschul plays drums: effortlessly moving between swing and free playing. It’s also a fitting analogy for the current historical moment, in which there’s often a feeling of catapulting between…

Threnody is the working free-improv trio of Swedish sax hero Martin Küchen and double bass player Johan Berthling, both also collaborate in Küchen’s Angles groups, and English drummer Steve Noble. The group released its first live album in 2015. This…

Ricercar (from the Italian "ricercare"), meaning “to search” or “to seek”, is a musical form that developed and flourished in a very interesting way in the 16th and 17th centuries. It was practiced by the greatest polyphonists and improvisers of the …

Wadada Leo Smith, Joe Fonda and Reggie Nicholson together. A trio of trumpet, double bass and drums. Six compositions/improvisations – or perhaps six sonic poems – filled with magic, contemplation and deep reflection.

William Parker as composer and lyricist: songs sung by Andrea Wolper with an inter-generational band, a title suite with tap dancer Melissa Almaguer, pieces for Chantal Akerman and Joseph Jarman. CD limited to 500 copies on Centering.

James Brandon Lewis's third Red Lily album turns to Antonín Dvořák: original pieces that vary, echo or answer the Czech composer, with Kirk Knuffke, Melanie Dyer, Tomeka Reid, Joshua Abrams and Chad Taylor. On Tao Forms.

"Suspensão (Suspension in Portuguese ) is one of the many free improvised ensembles that prolific violist Ernesto Rodrigues leads. A Question Asked by the Empty Horizon is the thirteenth album of this ensemble that has been operating since 2016 with …

"Framed as a shifting, dreamlike improvisation, this electroacoustic quartet led by violist Ernesto Rodrigues, with cellist Guilherme Rodrigues, Carlos Santos on electronics, and percussionist Monsieur Trinité, unfolds a fluid free improv session tha…

On Air Time, Air - Henry Threadgill, Fred Hopkins and Steve McCall - hit their 1977 stride, stretching from tightly coiled themes to wide-open improvisation, turning the sax-bass-drums trio into a restless, three-way imagination engine.

**300 copies** "NoBusiness presents a live recording of The Vincent Chancey Trio taken at the Kraine Art Gallery, NYC on 21st October, 1987, and featuring Vincent Chancey on french horn, Wilber Morris on bass and Warren Smith on drums.Mastered by Arū…

"Whether Camila Nebbia is freely improvising or playing originals that toggle between poetic rumination and fiery blowing, she is all in. With "A reflection distorts over water" she’s formed one of the most febrile, elastic ensembles in a very prolif…

This trio didn’t know how lucky they had it. They were certainly happy to perform again when this concert was recorded at the ArtActs Festival in St Johan Austria in early March 2020. Although their first outing was back in 2013 in Harnik’s hometown …

*2023 stock* "hi Andrea - here it's just cold - I'd love to have some real snow here like we used to have in my childhood, even up to the 1980's!   My children have never been in snow up to their knees and their knees are not that tall!" I wrote thes…

Rempis and Ra have worked together for about fifteen years.  Most regularly since 2012 in their trio with Joshua Abrams, which expanded into a quartet in 2016 with the addition of pianist Jim Baker.  That band is a real working unit, having performed…

When Ballister hit the stage at the Catalytic Sound Festival in Chicago in December 2022, no one in the band was quite sure what to expect. Although they’d done a two-week tour of the US in April of that year, their first reunion following an almost …

*250 copies limited edition* Look What I Found in the Forest is a sequence of ten musical dialogues built around voice, piano, improvisation and collaboration. Moving between ambient, experimental jazz and darker, more intimate territories, each dial…

Vocalist and violinist Alice Zawadzki makes her ECM leader debut with Za Górami ("beyond the mountains"), a luminous and deeply personal song-cycle that gathers melodies from across the folk traditions of Central and Eastern Europe, the Sephardic and…

French clarinet master Louis Sclavis and pianist Benjamin Moussay in a spare, searching duo. Composition meets free improvisation in delicate, chamber-like dialogues. European improvised music at its most refined.

A striking album of new music from pianist/composer Carla Bley, whose trio with Andy Sheppard and Steve Swallow is now in its 25th year. Individual associations among the players go back much further: bassist Swallow first recorded music by Carla in …

Norwegian trumpeter Arve Henriksen and pianist Harmen Fraanje in a duo of whispers: fragile melodies, ghostly vocals, electronic shadows and open silence. Ambient, melancholy and deeply atmospheric.

The debut album of Joe Lovano’s Trio Tapestry was one of 2019’s most talked-about releases. The trio’s musical concept – the Boston Globe spoke of “utterances of hushed assurance, lyricism and suspense” –  is taken to the next level on its second alb…

Andando el Tiempo features new music of wide emotional compass by Carla Bley, and underlines her originality and resourcefulness as a jazz composer.  “Saints Alive!” sets up animated conversations between the three musical participants with striking …

Keith Jarrett's most tender solo album, taped at home during recovery from illness as a gift to his wife. Standards and folk songs played with disarming simplicity. Hushed, fragile and deeply moving.

A cornerstone of the early Nordic ECM sound: Jan Garbarek's keening saxophone over shifting, atmospheric backdrops, with John Taylor, Bill Connors and Jack DeJohnette. Glacial, majestic, carved from northern light.

First duo album by trombonist Kalia Vandever and DARKSIDE guitarist Dave Harrington, recorded in three rainy days in Los Angeles: brass and guitar between drum machines, samples and quieter, intimate pieces.

Recorded over two December days in Copenhagen and shelved for nearly three years, Bjerge, Strand gathers Jakob Bro with Charles Lloyd, Larry Grenadier and Jorge Rossy, and arrives on Loveland Music on CD, alongside a limited double vinyl edition, wit…