Jazz /
Ron Jefferson Choir
This self-titled album is a testimony of the short lived-band led by New-York drummer Ron Jefferson during his stay in Paris in the mid-60s. After a first album under his name on Pacific Jazz in 1962, the founding member of The Jazz Modes and the Les McCann trio made the trip overseas.
Here, he made his living by playing with the popular pianists Errol Parker or Hazel Scott but his main drive was this trio that he formed with two other US expats, bassist Roland Haynes (the same musician who rec…
Reunion
This lovely session from the 1980s features saxophonist Archie Shepp and pianist Horace Parlan, who both initially recorded in the United States but eventually discovered a more accommodating environment in Europe (they crossed paths many times while recording in Europe) Shepp began his career as a dedicated avant-garde player, but he eventually discovered the joy of applying his modern approach to more conventional material, such as these well-known ballads that Parlan paints with delicate, sou…
Cool Dogs & Two Oranges
An incredible early German bop session! In the 1950s, pianist Jutta Hipp recorded straighter sides for Blue Note in the US, but this first album features her with German contemporaries Joki Freund on tenor sax and Emil Mangelsdorff on alto, creating a dark, sharper sound than expected! Hipp leads, but Mangelsdorff and Freund's horn interaction on several song intros, slashing back and forth like a double-edged blade and then bursting forth into lovely compact solos, makes the record sparkle.
The Legendary Trio At Birdland 1960 „Revisited"
"This Revisited disc chronicles the trio in transition. Formed in autumn 1959, the group recorded its debut album in December. Following a coast-to-coast tour, it opened at Birdland in March 1960, when the first five tracks here were recorded on two separate dates. Already cooking, by the time of the April and May recordings the trio was touching on the interactive magic heard on ezz-thetics’ At The Village." – Chis May
Bill Evans Duos With Jim Hall & Trios ‘64 & ‘65 (Revisited)
"The emerging credo of western society’s post-Beat counterculture was egalitarian and
anti-hierarchical, be the hierarchy social, political or on the bandstand. Evans and Ayler shared
the belief; only their lexicons were different. If hearing Spiritual Unity was akin, as Ted Joans
wrote, to someone shouting “Fuck!” in St. Patrick’s" – Chris May
All Of You
All of You is a live album by American jazz pianist Ahmad Jamal featuring performances recorded at Jamal's own club in Chicago in 1961 and released originally on the Argo label. Jamal's group had a personal sound of its own, often playing quietly and leaving space but never losing the passion. These versions of "Time on My Hands," "Star Eyes" and "All of You" in particular are well worth hearing. On the cover, photographed by Don Bronstein, one of the first staff photographers for Playboy magazi…
At The Village Vanguard 1961, Revisited
'Mention of Motian and LaFaro brings us to this disc, perhaps belatedly. But other than observing that the music is presented here following immaculate and unprecedented sound restoration, what more needs to be said about it? What more, usefully, can be said? The performances are as close to perfection as makes no difference, and as close to immortality, too, and if you are still reading thesenotes, you will not need to be told why.' – Chris May
Executive producer’s notes: 'Once you start to …
Blues For Gassman
Limited edition The most valuable of Gürtler’s (founder of Saar Records in 1950) jewels came from the jazz world. Gürtler donated all his passion and expertise to jazz, financing every project without complaints. The jewel in the crown of his productions was the LPJ 5007 album (Basso-Valdambrini Octet), considered by critics the best one ever published in Italy till that moment. The records selection, to which also Gürtler took part, leaned towards the classic themes of the American repertoire, …
Soft Samba Live! Jazz From The Penthouse
From the great cache of tapes recorded at Seattle's storied Penthouse nightclub comes The Gary McFarland Quintet, recorded live in the summer of 1965. McFarland could usually be found in the recording studios of New York arranging for everyone from Stan Getz to Lena Horne, but his 1964 bossa-jazz classic LP Soft Samba was such an unexpected hit that it afforded McFarland the opportunity to hit the road with fellow Berklee School of Music alumni Gabor Szabo on guitar and Sadao Watanabe on flute a…
Cool Jojo +4
*2022 stock* Masayuki Takayanagi, who has a free jazz pioneer, gives his answer to the turbulent 1970s. His homage to Tristano-Konitz, a return to his roots, is a ritual to reach new heights for a new era." - Koki Hanawa
Western Suite
*In process of stocking.* In late 1957, jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, composer, and iconoclast Jimmy Giuffre broke up the original Jimmy Giuffre 3 with Ralph Pena and Jim Hall. In early 1958, for a recording session, he formed a new trio without a rhythm section. For the album "Trav'lin' Light", his new trio included Hall on guitar and the underrated trombone giant Bob Brookmeyer. For a year, they gigged together up and down the West Coast and played summer festivals, recorded, and even played …
Cannes '58
*tiny bump on corners, discounted copies* Donald Byrd’s residency in Paris in 1958 to study with composer Nadia Boulanger gave rise to one of the greatest bands of his career with Bobby Jaspar on tenor sax and flute, Walter Davis, Jr. on piano, Doug Watkins on bass and Art Taylor on drums.Sam Records is proud to present this previously unreleased concert by the Donald Byrd/Bobby Jaspar Quintet recorded during the evening dedicated to ‘Modern Jazz’ during the 1st and only Cannes Jazz Festival on …
Ken Wheeler :Some Gnu Ones
These three brand new recordings made between 2020-21 were all written specifically for bassist Chris Laurence by his close friend and long-time colleague, the late great jazz trumpeter and composer Kenny Wheeler. Of the three, Piece for Double Bass and Low Strings and Baroque Piece have never previously been recorded in any form. C-Man first appeared in this form on Kenny’s album ‘Kayak’ but was also rearranged and retitled as Ma Belle Hélène for his album ‘The Widow In The Window’. Whilst Kenn…
The Glitter of the City
** CD with booklet, includes 3 previously unreleased bonus tracks ** As private pressings go, Ron Everett's 'Glitter of the City' is certainly one of the most obscure, controversial and mysterious of them all. Until now, the name Ron Everett has been practically unheard of outside his native Philadelphia, and only devoted funk & jazz enthusiasts have been aware of his album, originals of which are owned by literally just a handful of collectors scattered across the world. But with the help of no…
A Jazzy Profile of Jojo
* 2020 Stock * A Jazzy Profile of Jojo is composed of standard jazz masterpieces interpreted by Masayuki Takayanagi. It was recorded in March 1970 immediately after the start of the New Direction (1969). Legendary recordings with Kaoru Abe such as "Dismantling Sympathy" were also performed in the same period. Considering this, "A Jazzy Profile of Jojo" can be defined as a representative recording of Takayanagi's jazz style at a time when the transition from the more established forms of jazz to …
Live at Molde International Jazz Festival 1976
Classic Cool/Bop session from 76, and regarded as one of the finest Norwegian jazz live recordings of the seventies featuring an impeccable performance by alto sax player Carl Neumann, playing mostly original songs by pianist Christian Reim, Bjørn Kjellemyr on Bass and Ole Jacob Hansen on drums. First time on vinyl format and with great sound quality, new pictures, new notes.
November Girl
*2022 stock* One of consolations of the electronic age is that those great moments in music which once were ephemeral and irretrievable can be faithfully captured, preserved for all time and savoured over and over again. Thus, some of the great musical peaks in the ten-year lifespan of the great Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band are stored for posterity on more than a score of albums. Despite writer Bob Houston’s urgent appeal for a conservation order to be put on this improbable aggregation o…
Jazz (Now) in Italy
*2022 stock* At the Jazz Festival which took place in Sanremo in March ’66, out of the seven bands present only one was Italian; that is of course if you exclude Guido Manusardi, an Italian pianist that has been living in Sweden for years. What I’m talking about is Franco D’Andrea’s piano trio with Giorgio Azzolini and Franco Tonani: an excellent trio that I think would have been able to obtain a bigger interest if Eraldo Volontè and Dino Piana had been added to these three excellent musicians. …