Jazz & Improvisation / Contemporary

Loveland Music presents 8, a studio recording featuring an all-star ensemble of Jakob Bro, Brian Blade, Craig Taborn, Chris Cheek, Jesper Zeuthen, Anders Christensen, Larry Grenadier & Marcus Gilmore, playing compositions by Paul Motian and Jakob Bro. The album was recorded in a single session at New York's Power Station with engineer James Farber, following a week-long residency at the Village Vanguard.  "Danish guitarist and composer Jakob Bro is celebrated for his pure reflective expression a…

Loveland Music proudly announces the release of Live at The Village Vanguard, a remarkable new recording that brings together seven of the most distinctive voices in modern jazz. Recorded in the legendary New York room that has defined generations of improvised music, this album captures the raw immediacy and atmospheric depth of a once‑in‑a‑lifetime gathering. Subtle, deeply melodic, and unhurried, Live at The Village Vanguard reveals Bro’s unique gift for creating spacious musical landscapes w…

Loveland Music is proud to announce the release of The Montclair Session, a rare meeting of four titans of contemporary jazz: trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, guitarist Jakob Bro, pianist Marilyn Crispell, and drummer Andrew Cyrille. Recorded in Montclair, New Jersey, this album captures the essence of improvisation at its most searching, delicate, and alive.   Each of the four musicians brings a lifetime of artistry to the music. Wadada Leo Smith, a pioneer of creative music and recipient of numerou…

A powerful intergenerational trio emerges on Murasaki, featuring Wadada Leo Smith on trumpet, Marcus Gilmore on drums, and Jakob Bro on guitar. Recorded at Power Station (formerly Avatar Studios) in New York, this exploratory session unfolded spontaneously—no retakes, no discussions, just a shared musical language rooted in intuition and trust. “It felt as though this music already existed before we started playing,” Bro reflects. Murasaki captures the creative summit of three visionary artists,…

Philadelphia vibraphonist Khan Jamal's 1974 Palm masterpiece receives its first proper reissue. Recorded during Parisian exile, this exploratory album showcases revolutionary vibraphone techniques across four essential tracks - a crucial document of jazz's global underground network.

*Heavy brown board outer sleeve, obi strip, 180g vinyl. reissue of the rare Futura LP* Originally from Philadelphia, invited to New York by Miles Davis, playing at Antibes in 1960 with Charles Mingus and Eric Dolphy, here is trumpeter Ted Curson in 1971... in Paris. With him, a legendary trio: Georges Arvanitas (piano), Jacky Samson (double bass) and Charles Saudrais (drums). A new transatlantic alliance in the service of jazz of all kinds: classic, modal, fusion and even free... Pop Wine is – b…

* 300 copies only * NoBusiness presents Live at Jazz inn Lovely 1990, a new set of recordings by Masayuki JoJo Takayanagi, Nobuyoshi Ino and Masabumi PUU Kikuchi Recorded live by Sony TC-DM at jazz inn Lovely, Nagoya, Japan, October 9th, 1990. Track 1,4 & 5 improvised and composed by Masayuki JoJo Takayanagi, Nobuyoshi Ino and Masabumi PUU Kikuchi. Track 2 & 3 improvised and composed by Masayuki JoJo Takayanagi and Nobuyoshi Ino. Gigs produced by Katsuhiko Kawai 河合勝彦. Tapes provided by Koujiro T…

* Edition of 300 copies * 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 leadin…

Across the group's 20 year history, Martin Archer and Hervé Perez have never allowed Inclusion Principle to stand still.

3-CD box collecting Eberhard Weber's Colours albums Yellow Fields (1975), Silent Feet (1977) and Little Movements (1980), with Charlie Mariano, Rainer Brüninghaus, Jon Christensen and John Marshall, recorded at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg.

*100 copies limited edition* I went looking for a dictionary definition of brutalism, trying to understand it a bit better. It had been our starting point since the first rehearsal. But did we actually understand it? Does any of it have something to do with our music? Does it even make sense — instrumental pieces inspired by buildings?We didn't set out to make a genre out of it. We set out to strip things down. Take a melody, take a rhythm, cut away everything that isn't essential — no polish, n…

Happy Today, the third album from guitarist/bandleader Jeff Parker’s long-running ETA IVtet, was recorded live at Lodge Room in Los Angeles on August 20, 2025. This fresh entry into the IVtet’s catalog captures Parker and the band – including drummer Jay Bellerose, bassist Anna Butterss, and saxophonist Josh Johnson – on record outside of the now-shuttered Highland Park micro-club ETA for the first time. The performance also captures a distinctly joyful night of togetherness set against the back…

A powerful "electric Miles" sounding band reinterprets a couple of classics  - In A Silent Way and Freedom Jazz Dance - and adds some wholly contemporary improvisation to the mix."2026 Is Miles and Coltrane's Centenary year and if Jazz music needs any Gods then surely they fit the bill without question. When I heard In a Silent Way for the first time back in 1970 when I was 17 (incidentally that was the first year I heard Coltrane as well) it truly was music like nothing I had ever heard before.…

Naissoo Freeform Quintet is a vivid exploration of jazz improvisation and collective creativity, recorded by Estonian keyboardist and composer Tõnu Naissoo and a handpicked ensemble of accomplished local musicians. Captured during two highly spontaneous sessions in Tallinn in July 2024, the album foregrounds the chemistry of the quintet - with Naissoo’s Rhodes, Moog Source, and ARP Odyssey providing the core, and enhanced by the agile bass work of Mihkel Mälgand, the resonant bass clarinet of Me…

Gatefold sleeve. Includes download code. Many artists achieve greatness but very few produce work that is so moving it's considered sacred. Whether you choose to call them hymns, psalms or spirituals, their songs are a healing force for troubled times. Jazzman's Spiritual Jazz series would not exist without the inspiration and leadership of the spiritual messiah that is John Coltrane. It can therefore only be right and proper that a whole album is dedicated to his legacy and lasting influence. S…

The fifth chapter of John Zorn's series of piano trio compositions based on classical forms: eight Fantasias, lyrical, harmonically complex and unpredictable, played by Brian Marsella, Jorge Roeder and Ches Smith. Tzadik.

A new John Zorn rock power trio in the line of Simulacrum, Naked City and Insurrection: Matt Hollenberg on guitar, Simon Hanes on bass and Ches Smith on drums tear through twelve short, stop-on-a-dime pieces. Tzadik.

These are a small set of sound conversations - based on soil that is nearing 30 years worth of riches, stories and spirit. The fuel is made of components from the realms of rhythmic obsession, texture, melodic seeds and waves of harmonic interest in brief holding patterns. These are meeting present day explorations of the vibraphone and piano - via conventional and extended techniques: those from the classroom and those personal expressions based of a myriad of experiences with different instrum…

Cellist and composer Janel Leppin's second album with her Washington D.C. sextet Ensemble Volcanic Ash: progressive chamber jazz recorded live in the studio in one day, dedicated to Abdul Wadud and Pablo Casals. On Cuneiform, CD edition.

The long-awaited 3rd pressing, with a revamped obi design. The birth of a new classic in contemporary Japanese spiritual jazz and modal jazz. Experience a beautiful soundscape crafted with overflowing emotion and hidden energy.

On Ryo Fukui Trio At The Slowboat 2004, Ryo Fukui turns the ninth anniversary of his Sapporo club into a late‑career summit: Phineas‑ and Flanagan‑inspired fire, Shorter‑charged intensity and Slowboat’s living‑room warmth fused into powerful, precise, deeply fulfilled playing.

On Klotski, Lao Dan Quartet throws tenor, bamboo flute and suona into a Chicago crucible, where Mabel Kwan, Joshua Abrams and Michael Zerang keep reshaping time and texture until free jazz feels like a sliding puzzle in permanent motion.

SML is a Los Angeles based quintet featuring Anna Butterss, Jeremiah Chiu, Josh Johnson, Booker Stardrum, and Gregory Uhlmann.

SML is the quintet of bassist Anna Butterss, synthesist Jeremiah Chiu, saxophonist Josh Johnson, percussionist Booker Stardrum, and guitarist Gregory Uhlmann. Their second album, How You Been, finds the supergroup of prolific composer/producers pushing ever further into the hyperrealist, collectivist approach to music creation nascently explored on their debut Small Medium Large, which was lauded as “awe-inspiring” by Glide, “exuberant” by the Los Angeles Times, and “an exciting milestone” by Pi…

*2025 stock* In essence, group improvisation is a conversation. It relates to a certain point in time, its current surroundings, personal expression and the stories each performer choses to tell from their musical paths. On Sound Flower three masters of improvised music from different generations meet for the first time as a trio and their world of sound (in Danish: klangverden) is immediately captivating. You can listen to each performer and they will tell you a story of their own, or you can t…

One of ECM's best-loved albums: oud master Anouar Brahem in a hushed, nocturnal trio with piano and accordion, dissolving Arabic music, European chamber music and jazz into pure melody and space. A modern classic.

ECM's landmark cross-over: Jan Garbarek's saxophone improvising around medieval and Renaissance chant sung by The Hilliard Ensemble, recorded in a monastery. Sublime, meditative and utterly unclassifiable.

The landmark that redefined the ECM trumpet album: Nils Petter Molvaer fuses Nordic trumpet with ambient, dub, electronics and drum'n'bass. A manifesto for future jazz; cinematic and groundbreaking.

Pianist-composer Vijay Iyer follows his 2021 ECM disc Uneasy — the first to showcase his trio featuring bassist Linda May Han Oh and drummer Tyshawn Sorey — with Compassion, another album in league with these two gifted partners. The New York Times captured the special qualities of this group, pointing to the trio’s flair for playing “with a lithe range of motion and resplendent clarity… while stoking a kind of writhing internal tension. Crucial to that balance is their ability to connect with e…

A landmark in avant-garde jazz, The Finnish / Swiss Tour captures the irrepressible energy and inventiveness of the Hal Russell NRG Ensemble live in Europe. Recorded in November 1990 at the Tampere Jazz Happening (Finland) and the Internationales Jazz Festival Zürich (Switzerland), this album documents the group’s first European tour and was originally released by ECM in 1991. Led by multi-instrumentalist Hal Russell (tenor & soprano saxophones, trumpet, vibraphone, drums), the NRG Ensemble feat…

The great saxophonist Joe Lovano has appeared on a number of ECM recordings over the last four decades, including much-loved albums with Paul Motian, Steve Kuhn and John Abercrombie. Trio Tapestry is his first as a leader for the label, introducing a wonderful new group and music of flowing lyricism, delicate texture, and inspired interplay. Lovano and pianist Marilyn Crispell are in accord at an advanced level inside its structures. “Marilyn has such a beautiful sound and touch and vocabulary,”…

“There’s a galaxy of piano trios in today’s jazz universe,” the BBC Music Magazine has noted, “but few shine as bright as Marcin Wasilewski’s”. On its seventh ECM album the multifaceted Polish group illuminates a characteristically wide span of music. On En attendant, collectively created pieces are juxtaposed with Wasilewski’s malleable “Glimmer of Hope”, Carla Bley’s timeless “Vashkar”, The Doors’ hypnotic “Riders On The Storm” and a selection from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations. …

Vienna FLAMMeS, or: The noise of these post-jazz improvisers resounds from paradise. According to a widespread cliché, improvisation in jazz is supposed to help promote the free play of the imagination. It was the Viennese flugelhorn player Franz Koglmann who vehemently contradicted the image of the naively self-actualizing jazz musician. As a composer of cerebral “cool” pieces, whose melancholy sprang from a razor-sharp analysis of his own means of expression, Koglmann was the most qualified pe…

“I didn’t realise it at the time, but this recording, made in 2006, marked a change in my musical thinking. All the elements came together – my roots, the use of blues structures and the lifelong search for expression in music. I had unlimited time to think, to return again and again to a subject, to dig deeper into the blues.Falmouth is a large town by the sea in Cornwall. This recording was made at Falmouth Arts Centre on the Steinway grand in the main gallery where my wife Kate had a show. Th…

Miguel Atwood-Ferguson marks John Coltrane's centennial on Impulse! with a 21-piece collective (Brandee Younger, Shabaka Hutchings, Flying Lotus, Jeff Parker, Azar Lawrence), recasting Naima, Giant Steps and A Love Supreme as cosmic, spiritual music.

*2025 stock* 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 now available for the first time (vinyl only). The soundtrack is based on compositions by Jakob Bro, performed by Bill Frisell, Lee Konitz, Craig Taborn, Paul Motian, Andrew Cyrille, Arve Henriksen, Midori Takada and many others. Venice Film Festival title “Music for Black Pigeons,” directed by Danish filmmake…

On Light, Palle Mikkelborg condenses a lifetime of orchestral colour into a quietly radiant final opus: solo trumpet, flugelhorn and piano drift through self‑designed soundscapes, joined sparingly by harp and guitar, like hymns remembered in slow motion.

The long-awaited debut album from bassist-composer Thomas Morgan is a lush, layered journey through ambient textures and open improvisation. Featuring an all-star cast—Bill Frisell, Craig Taborn, Ambrose Akinmusire, Immanuel Wilkins, Henry Threadgill, Dan Weiss, and Gerald Cleaver—the record is both spacious and intricate, with Morgan’s own virtual instrument woods shaping its organic feel. The inclusion of poet Gary Snyder’s voice adds another dimension to this environmental soundscape. Around …

Duo improvisation can be such a rare space to enter. Creating a common language in an open sea of infinite options, everything stands out. Especially with such fundamental natural instruments as the voice and bass. So what happens if you bring together Maria Laurette Friis, the Copenhagen-based composer, multi-instrumentalist and one of Scandinavia’s unique voices, and the exceptional double bass player Thomas Morgan in an improvised session? Well, it continues for more than three hours and deve…

Debut self-titled album from Melbourne ensemble Standing Circle, led by Larry Crestani (guitar, kraartar, vocals). Eight tracks recorded live at The Grove, Melbourne, mixed and mastered by Nick Herrera. The record moves through spiritual jazz, jazz-funk and groove, with heavy Afro influence running through the rhythm section: congas, percussion and bass locking into rich African undertones throughout. Built around a shifting cast of Melbourne musicians and compositions that never repeat themselv…