Jazz /
Spiritual Unity
2014 expanded reissue. Mono. Spiritual Unity, recorded on July 10, 1964, is the album that made Albert Ayler and ESP-Disk' famous (or, in some people's eyes/ears, infamous). Mr. Ayler had already recorded in Europe and, in February '64, in New York, but this was the first album on which neither he nor his collaborators held back. It was also ESP's first jazz recording. Spiritual Unity presented a new improvisation paradigm: looser structure, less regard for standard pitch, and no obligation to p…
Ten Freedom Summers
Trumpeter/composer Wadada Leo Smith’s Ten Freedom Summers is the work of a lifetime by one of jazz’s true visionaries, a kaleidoscopic, spiritually charged opus inspired by the struggle for African-American freedom and equality before the law. Triumphant and mournful, visceral and philosophical, searching, scathing and relentlessly humane, Smith’s music embraces the turbulent era’s milestones while celebrating the civil rights movement’s heroes and martyrs. This four-disc set documents a stunnin…
Alto Saxophone 2
Masahide Tokunaga, born in 1982, is an alto sax player & improviser active on the Tokyo scene. This CD is his second solo album, and his first since the 2009 release of 'Alto Saxophone' on the Slub Music label five and a half years ago. Like that CD, these 7 tracks (recorded in January 2015) are made up entirely of subtly changing long tones played on the alto sax. This album is just as unique, but compared to the previous CD, which is made up entirely of soft playing, its sound is a great deal …
You Can Be Mine
* 200 copies. Black vinyl * Paal Nilssen-Love is at his powerful best on most of this record – showing that amazing command of the kit that's made him one of the most important drummers in free jazz over the past decade or so! And Fred Lonberg-Holm does plenty himself to keep up on both cello and electronics – working with an intensity that's quite a change from some of his more contemplative performances – surprisingly searing as Paal moves along like a nonstop locomotive!
Fmp 0130
* Very last copies * Pressed on 180-gram vinyl; presented in gatefold sleeve. Cien Fuegos presents a reissue of an untitled LP by Peter Brötzmann, Fred van Hove, and Han Bennink, originally released on FMP in 1973. Peter Brötzmann: clarinet; alto, tenor, baritone, bass saxophones. Fred van Hove: celesta, piano. Han Bennink: drums, khene, rhythm-box, selfmade clarinet, gachi, oe-oe, voice, tins, homemade junk, elong, dhung, kaffir piano, dhung-dkar. Recorded by Dietram Köster on February 25, 1973…
Featuring John Zorn - New York
Recorded at Tonic, Norfolk St., New York, 17 & 19 April 2001Alto Saxophone – John Zorn (tracks: 6)Cello [Violoncello] – Mark WastellDouble Bass – Simon H. FellHarp – Rhodri Davies
Enter
Gatefold double LP version. It can't be easy gathering 28 of Northern Europe's finest jazz and improvising musicians in one place at the same time, which is why Sweden's Fire! Orchestra has been one of the continent's best-kept secrets so far. After playing rare shows a handful of times a year, this incredible mass ensemble is getting ready to unleash its full power with Enter, its first studio recording. This isn't jazz: this is Nordic dynamite. Fire! originated as the trio of Swedish …
Swallow Chase
First solo recording by Mark Sanders, one of the world's great improvisors. Recorded from the drummer's perspective, a beautiful virtuoso performance in 9 parts.
Nino/Brujo
Percussionist Juan Pablo Carletti leads a trio with Tony Malaby on sax and Christopher Hoffman on cello, beautifully unfolding jazz that balances light and dark, melodic and free approaches with textural percussive work. For his debut album, NYC-based Argentinian drummer Juan Pablo Carletti has made some wise choices, even before one considers the music. Foremost among those is the selection of saxophonist Tony Malaby to front his trio. Malaby has a compelling track record of energising such thr…
Interconnection
Big Tip! Unreleased session from 1975."Trumpeter Ted Daniel's Energy Module was a short-lived band. They played exactly two gigs in the course of one week in the fall of 1975-and never played again. They gelled quickly as a quintet, however, in large part because everyone knew each other from working in Daniel's big band, Energy. However, the Energy Module was a less formal affair than the large ensemble, in which they played Daniel's original compositions and arrangements. "We had a couple of r…
The Founder Effect II
With a generosity of spirit that is touching, the three tracks on this disc are titled after deceased (and much missed) improv heroes—drummer Tony Marsh, saxophonists Lol Coxhill and John Tchicai. (Coxhill never recorded for Treader but Marsh and Tchicai both did.) That gesture serves as a reminder of the close-knit nature of the improv community—a factor which is vital to its music. Although this CD features the same four musicians as the first one, Coxon here plays synthesiser instead of guita…
The Founder Effect I
You cannot judge a book by its cover. Maybe, but music fans somehow know that expression doesn't lend itself to album covers (in this case, CD covers). Look at the Blue Note Records covers from the 1960 sixties, Miles Davis' On The Corner (Columbia, 1972), or The Clash's London Calling (Columbia, 1979), and tell me you don't have a very good idea what you'll hear on those records. Covers matter, and more importantly they reveal essential information about the music found inside. Since 2004, the …
Live at Vilnius Jazz Festival
A demanding live duo performance from New York drummer William Hooker and Lithunian saxophonist Liudas Mockunas, performing at the 2013 Vilnius Jazz Festival. The playing is hard-edged, rugged and free playing, keeping a strong momentum from Hooker's unabating drive, maintaining a solid pulse without seeming to repeat himself. Mockunas has a thick confident approach to his playing, varying melodic riffs with trance-like playing. An album of edge-of the-seat and persuasive playing."Liudas Mockuna…
Perilous Architecture
In the Dan Blacksberg Trio, the innovative and genre-defying trombonist brings an expansive and creative new vision to the cutting-edge jazz traditions of pioneers like Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, and Albert Ayler. The trio is celebrating the release of Perilous Architecture, their second album for Lithuanian-based NoBusiness Records. Blacksberg has penned a set of music that pushes at the technical and timbral limits of his instrument, opening up into far-reaching sounds worlds while maintaini…
Plaything
This open-minded trio recorded Plaything in October of 2012 at Studio Juillaguet, a recording and dance space located in a rural part of southwest France that is run by Kent Carter and his wife, a professional choreographer. Bassist Kent Carter produced the album, along with the NoBusiness label. Gianni Lenoci and Bill Elgart first met in Evil Rabbit's 2010 Amsterdam music festival. Subsequently Lenoci invited Carter to Monopoli, Italy to do a workshop with his orchestra, which Carter …
Oliv & Familie
The 1969 Oliv session was the third Spontaneous Music Ensemble LP to be issued, following on from Challenge (1966) and Karyobin (1968), currently awaiting reissue. Familie appears to be the earliest recorded example of a large Sme group. This music is very influenced by slow-moving Gagaku (Japanese court music), especially the semi-composed first half. The second half is largely a free improvisation with a brief return to the written material at the end. An alternative take was recorded, presuma…
Goodnight, Civilization
finally ZU are back, with an amazing new line-up. Full album to follow in summer.
Wrong Number
Dredd Foole, vocals, Paul Flaherty, horns, Steve Baczkowski, horns, Chris Corsano, drums, Bill Nace, electric guitar.
Symbolic Heads
Even for the standards of NoBusiness, a label that sometimes features artists who haven’t been very well known so far, YAPP is a really young band, all of the band members seem to be around 30. It’s Bryan Rogers on tenor saxophone, Alban Bailly on guitar, Matt Engle on bass and David Flaherty on drums, and they cultivate the field between post rock, modern jazz, minimal and improvised music. I must admit that I was rather skeptical when I realized that Bryan Rogers has played in Melody Gardo…
Absolute Horizon
Not enough is heard from Brooklyn-born bassist Adam Lane. He boasts an impressive track record, illuminated by a series of outstanding recordings, mainly on the CIMP label, but culminating in the acclaimed Ashcan Rantings (Clean Feed, 2010). Nothing has surfaced under his own name since, so any new disc grabs attention. That's not to say he has been idle, notching up notable appearances on drummer William Hooker's excellent Bliss Suite (Not Two, 2010) which also featured rising star saxophonist …