Jazz & Improvisation / Contemporary

*Comes in a CD-sized papersleeve album replica (gatefold), with obi-strip and insert of notes mostly in Japanese..2024 stock* Second album by The Trio, formed by J. Thurman, B. Phillips and S. Martin. The Trio's second album was recorded with a 15-strong line-up, including Alan Skidmore and John Taylor, who were at the forefront of British jazz at the time, as well as Chick Corea. The sharply incisive electric piano, John Marshall's rock-inspired rhythms and the way the group improvised together…

*Comes in a CD-sized papersleeve album replica (gatefold), with obi-strip and insert of notes mostly in Japanese..2024 stock* The ‘70, two-CD debut of The Trio, formed by John Thurman, who was taking European jazz by storm with his baritone saxophone playing with incredible speed and power, with Barre Phillips (b) and Stu Martin (ds). ' A great classic album that symbolises the British scene, which was undergoing a remarkable evolution in the early 70s as it united with rock, with a musicality t…

Jinya Disc presents a live concert by New Direction. The album includes the last performance of Action Direct and the last performance of Takayanagi's life. In other words, it is Masayuki Takayanagi's "remaining work".  An astounding force set free upon the world, heaving with life and fire, bound to stop even the most seasoned listener dead in their tracks It’s hard to offer a better description than that offered by Japanese free jazz critic Teruto Soejima who wrote "New Direction Unit performa…

Another "The Disintegration of the Sympathetic". Masayuki Takayanagi and Kaoru Abe's 1970 studio live recording, 40 minutes of miracle! Miraculous discovery of Masayuki Takayanagi and Kaoru Abe's live studio recordings from 1970! A live studio performance of Masayuki Takayanagi's New Direction in 1970, which began to be oriented toward immediate improvisation without setting up any notated thematic motifs. 40 minutes of continuous performance.This work is based on sound reproduction of Takayanag…

Masayukia Takayanagi, electric jazz guitar. Nobuyoshi Ino, contra bass. Hiroshi Yamazaki, drums. Recorded live at Yokohama Airegin on August 26, 1984. Remastering and remix by Yukio Kojima from Takayanagi's private tapes. Linernote (in Japanese) by Kazuo Imai.

Jinya Disc presents a live concert by New Direction. The album includes 2 tracks performed by Masayuki Takayanagi - Guitar, and Kaoru Abe - Alto Saxophone. The first album track: Thursday / Gradually Projection, was recorded on June 18, 1970 at Tokyo. The second one: Jha / Mass Projection was recorded on May or June, 1970 at Tokyo. Masayuki 'Jojo' Takayanagi was a Japanese jazz / free improvisational musician. He was active in the Japanese jazz scene from the late 1950s. Was one of the earliest …

Tip! A compelling live performance from Munich's Waldkirche Planegg uniting Udo Schindler's inventive bass clarinets, Erhard Hirt's textural guitar and computer interactions, and Ove Volquartz's resonant low reeds, weaving a rich tapestry of spontaneous, intricately layered improvisations infused with subtle electronic nuances.

"None of the musicians need to be introduced to anyone Alexander von Schlippnebach is one of the founding fathers of free improvised music, a great expert on the music of Thelonious Monk and an exquisite piano master, Barry Altschul co-founded Anthony Braxton's first great quartet, a friend and musical companion of Sam Rivers, Chick Corea, Roswell Rudd, Dave Liebman, Barre Phillips, Kenny Wheeler, Andrew Hill, Sonny Criss, Hampton Hawes, and Lee Konitz and one simply of the greatest drummer in j…

A chance to spend several days in the gorgeous Chamber Music Hall of the Deutschlandfunk Cologne, recording your music, is surely a coveted opportunity for any musician. No wonder I was elated to receive such an invitation from the radio producer Thomas Loewner. Pondering the question of how exactly I would like to use the time in the studio, I decided to write a series of pieces for three ensembles, keeping the same rhythm group throughout, adding the rest as my writing progressed. The resultin…

"Friendship as a principle. A superb case, like a quiver. Inside, magnificent clarinets. That's all it took for Joe Fonda, passing through Brest, in France, to invite their owner to play with him on his next visit to the US. After all, anyone who owns these beautiful instruments ‘can really play’. And that's how New Origin began. From the very first bars of Vers le soir, the double bass leaps onto the springboard, cast by an urgent call from the drumsticks. Urgency, energy, decisiveness—it all c…

1989 release **

2004 release ** "In 1981, Italian Drummer Tiziano Tononi And Saxophonist Daniele Cavallanti Established Nexus An Avant-Garde Constantly Evolving Jazz Ensemble, Who Recorded Extensively For Splasc(H) Records Nexus Today Releases Its Eleventh Album With Unchanged And Renewed Passion. The Sound Continuity Is Represented By The Combined Presence Of Both The Violin And The Vibes. The latest Nexus issue is a live recording published in September 2004, "Rivers Of Dreams", that defines under the name Th…

"Just want to emphasize that Detroit is my heart. That’s the environment of my imagination. From the beginning." Gerald Cleaver

*2024 stock* Brooklyn-based pianist Eva Novoa delivers a masterfully executed trio album of melodic themes replete with touches of swing, grooves and exquisite electronic landscapes. Novoa’s articulated playing flows with plenty of room gifting the band full freedom of improvisation. On the track ‘Rocket Man’ you can hear the possibilities of the traditional jazz trio format as it projects into the future, combining the acoustic beauty of the piano with the electronic tapestry of modular synthes…

2024 stock. Iconic downtown sax player Sabir Mateen, together with up-and-coming Texan clarinetist Patrick Holmes and drum wiz Federico Ughi, celebrate the cosmic dimensions of creative music via their new album Survival Situation.The three musicians have collaborated in the past, in New York, in different projects but never as a trio. This time they met in a recording studio in Tuscany, Italy, not far from where Sabir Mateen has been living for the last few years. They freely improvised, then t…

*2025 stock* Drummer Gard Nilssen’s ECM leader debut follows acclaimed recordings for the label with the Maciej Obara Quartet and with Mathias Eick. Elastic Wave presents Nilssen’s powerful trio with fellow Norwegian André Roligheten on reeds and Swedish bassist Petter Eldh. The group’s dynamic interaction, dancing sense of pulse and boldly etched themes – all three players contribute compositions – make Acoustic Unity one of the most engaging bands on the circuit today, able to address fiery an…

*2025 stock* Rekindling the familiarly flowing interplay with fellow travellers Thomas Morgan and João  Lobo – the trio’s musical partnership goes back over a decade at this point –, on A New Day Italian pianist Giovanni Guidi moreover expands the group’s instrumental grasp with the introduction of American saxophonist James Brandon Lewis, who makes his ECM debut here. Not only is the ensemble scope widened; with Brandon Lewis in tow, new dialects and fresh perspectives are broached, and differe…

*2025 stock* For the follow-up of his ECM-leader-debut La traversée, French saxophonist Matthieu Bordenave expands his trio of German pianist Florian Weber and Swiss bassist Patrice Moret with the unique sensibilities of drummer James Maddren, whose unrelenting pulse adds deft counterpoint to the group’s already idiosyncratic sound. Besides the soulfully angular rendering of John Coltrane’s “Compassion”, the quartet tackles eight Bordenave-originals that bridge the gap between chamber-jazz dynam…

** 2021 Stock ** The 8th House is a disc of solo clarinet and saxophone improvisations with a few duets with Juma Santos thrown in. Wendell Harrison and the Tribe were pioneers along with BAG in St. Louis and the AACM in Chicago. Here Wendell recalls some of the freedom and soul from his early work with the Tribe in Detroit. He is joined by percussionist Juma Santos on a few tracks. You may recall Juma from his work with Miles Davis on the Bitches Brew record, or some of his work with Marion Bro…

** 2021 Stock ** Kalaparush Maurice McIntyre provides us with a rare glimpse into his live performance. Perhaps one of the most influential and under-recorded artists of the AACM, Kalaparush is joined by Ravish Momin on percussion and Jesse Dulman on tuba. Jesse's tuba recalls the pre-bass second line of jazz music and Ravish provides worldly polyrhythmic sequences. All of the playing comes together with the elegance of Kalaparush's compositions and improvisations. Recorded at one night's perfor…

It Was Always Time, the debut duo release from Berke Can Özcan & Jonah Parzen-Johnson out November 1 on We Jazz Records, is a refreshing and full-throated expression of joy and curiosity. In a year when 76 countries hold national elections and we find ourselves in an existential battle against apathy and cynicism, this effortlessly authentic album offers an innocent reminder that the antidote to stagnation is curiosity and the fuel for change is the joy of building something transformative toget…

Swiss artist Lukas Traxel releases his powerful debut album One-Eyed Daruma on We Jazz Records, March 10. The trio features Traxel on double bass, Otis Sandsjö on sax and Moritz Baumgärtner on drums. Compact, deep, and organic to the bone, Traxel & co's sound echoes the innovations of rhythmically driven avantgarde jazz while keeping things moving at all times. There's both drive and freedom to this sound. One-Eyed Daruma features eight new compositions by Traxel, who crafted the outline for the…

Uusi Aika is a fresh new ensemble from Finland. Their self-titled debut album will be released by We Jazz Records. The band's music could be described as introspective and meditative, but that's only a part of the story. The instrumentation is acoustic and their sound organic to the bone, but the music's slowly unfolding character brings to mind some deep abstract electronic music or experimental dub explorations at times. That is, there's power just under the surface, just beautifully out of fo…

Return of the great American jazz trio that delivered the poll-topping "Nothing Ever Was, Anyway" in 1997. Material heard on "Amaryllis" is by turns thoughtful, touching, joyous and viscerally exciting. Some of the songs are well known – almost classics of new jazz – including Crispell’s "Rounds", Peacock’s "Requiem" and "December Wings, Motian’s "Conception Vessel". There are also a number of startlingly effective free improvised ballads. As leader Marilyn Crispell says, "There’s a great depth …

From the very first note, Norway’s Jon Balke proposes a new sonic dimension with Skrifum, continuing a line of inquiry begun with Warp (2016) and Discourses (2020), solo piano albums which also processed the acoustic environment in which the music was heard. Skrifum (the Icelandic word for “write”) takes things a step further.  With the aid of electronic audio tool the Spektrafon, which he helped develop, Balke is now able to directly manipulate ambient audio sound from the piano while playing –…

Pianist François Couturier and violinist Dominique Pifarély, major figures in French improvisation, have played together in many projects over the last 30 years, including their duo, which made its recording debut for ECM with the remarkable Poros in 1997. Preludes and Songs, carries the story forward, with its programme including music by both players as well as pieces by Jacques Brel, Duke Ellington, George Gershwin and J.J. Johnson. With sensibilities informed by jazz and contemporary composi…

Musical messages from Oslo, New York, Basel and Lugano – recorded between 2018 and 2022 – are juxtaposed and recombined on an absorbing recording that features Norwegian drummer Thomas Strønen solo and in a series of duets . With such partners as Craig Taborn, Chris Potter, Sinikka Langeland and Jorge Rossy,  the musical frame of reference is very broad.  Elements from Langeland’s’s archaic-sounding folk to Potter’s post-Coltrane saxophone and Taborn’s whirlwind modernist piano each find their p…

Released in 1981, the debut of the legendary keyboardist from Eberhard Weber’s Colours band and later the Jan Garbarek Group, Freigeweht presented Rainer Brüninghaus as a highly original and idiosyncratic sound sculptor in his own right, accompanied by ECM stalwarts Kenny Wheeler on flugelhorn and drummer Jon Christensen as well as oboist Brynjar Hoff. In a review of the album from the year of its release, the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung traced Rainer’s influences and minimalist …

The Last Temple is a live recording of this extraordinary trio at the Alchemia in Krakow. Since the concert was quite long, we divided it into 3 formats: 1) The Last Temple vol. 1 - vinyl 9" EP 2) (this one) The Last Temple vol. 2 CD 3)The Last Temple vol. 3 vinyl 12" LP (180g black vinyl) The Trzaska, Haker Flaten, Nilsen Love trio played a concert tour in Poland in March 2024. A combination of one of the most famous sections of the world's intuitive jazz (e.g. The Thing) and one of the most fa…

Across A Blade Because A Blade Is Whole, DePlume’s reflections on healing, dignity, and struggle are communicated through a stirring assemblage of disparate musics: ghostly and ancient folk melodies, groove-anchored maelstroms of swirling folk-jazz, elegant string arrangements that strike a midpoint between Ravel and Gainsbourg (courtesy of Macie Stewart), disembodied voices reconfiguring into the shape of a post-modern Greek chorus, noir atmosphere, and allegoric, troubadouric song. Throughout,…

January 2nd, 2023. Aside from being the second of a new year, it was a pretty ordinary night at ETA in Los Angeles, where guitarist Jeff Parker - alongside his ETA IVtet with saxophonist Josh Johnson, bassist Anna Butterss, and drummer Jay Bellerose - had been holding down a regular Monday gig since 2016. At the time, nobody knew it was the first gig of the last year that ETA would be open for business. Over seven years of holding down that residency, Parker’s ETA ensemble evolved from a band th…

2025 stock In 2020, a live recording was made at Moldejazz by the piano trio Kongle Trio. A live recording where the listener gets the feeling of sitting in the hall as an audience and witnessing three people who really ooze music. "Live at Moldejazz" is proof of why this band, in a very short time, captured the hearts of large parts of the Nordic jazz scene, and we at Øra love it! Kongle Trio is the result of three people who were in the right place at the right time. Their meeting at Norway's …

2025 stock Formed in 2003, the Oslo based trio are upfront about their love for the progressive rock of Cream and Jimi Hendrix, the galactic jazz of Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Sharrock and Alice Coltrane, plus the raw power of Black Sabbath and The Pixies. «Thou Shalt Boogie!» is their sixth album on Rune Grammofon and has a velvety, warm sound that was captured at Athletic Sound in Halden, Norway, a legendary old school studio with a 30-year history. Superbly paced, and poised in the indefi…

2025 stock Welcome to your next jazz favourite, Skurkar. This is the young, fearless and exploratory all-Scandinavian quartet consisting of baritone saxophonist Jenny (no), alto saxophonist Amalie (dk), double bassist Oda (no) and drummer Emma (se). In addition to being an interesting line-up, they also put the somewhat unexplored genre of “detective jazz” on the map. The band was formed in the autumn of 2018 at the prestigious Jazzlinja in Trondheim, and has since made its mark at the Copenhage…

*2024 stock* Playing The Room bears testimony to the long musical friendship of Avishai Cohen and Yonathan Avishai. They began to explore jazz as teenagers in Tel Aviv, and have continued to play together over many years, with Yonathan making important contributions to Avishai’s group albums Into The Silence and Cross My Palm With Silver on ECM. Their first duo album begins with music composed by the trumpeter and by the pianist and concludes with a touching interpretation of Israeli composer Al…

Where The River Goes carries the story forward from Wolfgang Muthspiel’s highly-acclaimed Rising Grace recording of 2016, reuniting the Austrian guitarist with Brad Mehldau, Ambrose Akinmusire and Larry Grenadier, heavy talents all, and bringing in the great Eric Harland on drums. Much more than an “all-star” gathering, the group plays as an ensemble with its own distinct identity, evident both in the interpretation of Muthspiel’s pieces and in the collective playing.  The album, recorded at Stu…

2010 release  ** "Following the success of their 2010 collaborative CD with Nels Cline Singers, Rova returned to the classic acoustic quartet format for the first time on CD since 2007. “Planetary” brings the listener to several of Rova’s music worlds and shows that the band, as always, was still refining that “Rova sound,” still pushing the envelope, and still looking for new sound worlds to inhabit and make their own. This also marks Rova’s reconnection with the Russian music scene. The band m…

2004 release  ** "It is easier to say what it doesn’t mean: Intuitive means not controlled by reason, not planned, not calculating, not superficial, not egomaniacal. It may mean: Creative, organic, alive, spiritual. All this at least is the music of the duo and it even possesses this astonishing quality when it has been thus announced. It magically appears to draw directly on the inward, as well as on a system of sounds that seems to exist beyond our involvement. The trumpet player Markus Stockh…

1995 release ** "Taking Off was first released as an LP in 1982 and re-issued as a CD by Bleu Regard in France in 1995. Wallenstein increases the size of his jazz accompaniment/collaboration, featuring Bill Chelf on piano, Charles Tyler on saxophones, Jeremy Steig on flute, and Jeff Meyer on percussion. The opening poem "Careful Bump," begins with a jolting kick and cymbal crash leading into a bop-jazz drum beat. "The Short Life of the Five Minute Dancer," which describes action in the face of f…

2002 release ** "With a curriculum vitae as one of the original New Thingers stretching back to 1960s membership in the New York Art Quartet (NYAQ) and an appearance on John Coltrane’s ASCENSION, reedman John Tchicai has never lacked for playing partners. Adapting orchestral sequencing plus variations on different ethnic musics to a formula that already reflected his Danish-Congolese background and American experience; Tchicai was a unique presence on the scene. Moving back and forth from Europe…