Jazz /
Fire Music
2023 restock; originally released in 1965. 2019 reissue. Some of the most exciting jazz albums to listen to are those that try to strike a middle ground between the mainstream and the Avant-garde. One such example is Archie Shepp’s Fire Music: an often-fascinating album, rich in compositional and improvisational prowess. Employing a sextet including drummer Joe Chambers and alto saxophonist Marion Brown, Shepp puts together a record that is both challenging and accessible to most listeners. Fire…
Kami Fusen
*2023 stock* "Kami Fusen" is the second volume in the ongoing collaboration between NoBusiness and Chap Chap Records, after the excellent "The Conscience"by Rutherford and Toyozumi. This time, all the musicians come from the Far East: Itaru Oki was one of the first Japanese musicians to explore the free jazz idiom in the early Seventies; Nobuyoshi Ino comes from the same country and musical scene, even if he has often played in more traditional contexts; similarly, Korean trumpeter Choi Sun Bae …
The Conscience
*2023 stock* "Ask most open-eared listeners about Japanese music since the 1960s, and they’ll likely talk about the psych and noise scene, the offshoots of Onkyo music movement or maybe the richly documented electronic music documented by Omega Point on their Obscure Tape Music of Japan series. The free jazz scene in Japan and neighboring countries has been a bit harder to pin down. PSF nailed the voluminous output by Masayuki Takayanagi and Kaoru Abe and labels like Trio, Japanese Denon and Pad…
Freestyle Band
*2023 stock* The Freestyle Band never courted fame, but they never welcomed obscurity either. The choices they made to follow their individual muses and to independently document their efforts were conscious ones. The musicians made this music in the faith - perhaps certainty is a better word - that its power and integrity would ultimately triumph over shortsighted commercial pressures and America’s racist attitudes toward black artists. Perhaps this reissue does a little bit to validate that fa…
Stone Stone Stone
*2023 stock* "This album, the first under the band's name in six and a half years, is a jazz alternative album with a multilingual and hardcore taste that differs greatly from previous albums.
The recording for this album started in June 2020, during a period when many of our activities were being cancelled due to Covid-19. It had been a while since I last met or played with the members of this band, with whom prior to the pandemic I would regularly get together for gigs at various venues or tr…
Human Music
A forward thinking collaboration between electronic music pioneer Jon Appleton and trumpet great Don Cherry, that explores the relationship between the humanity and the manufactured robotic future. Using the techniques associated with Musique Concrete the ensuing improvisations create a unique entry into the great trumpeter's discography. It was an in vogue attempt to render the music of tomorrow, and today sounds more like the soundtrack to a truly great sci-fi movie. Reissued in a fascimile of…
Self Determination Music
The John Carter and Bobby Bradford Quartet/Quintet were critical to the progressive jazz movement around Los Angeles in the late 60s alongside the likes of Horace Tapscott. Both hailed from the Watts area and trumpeter, Bradford played with a woodshedding Ornette Coleman for two years in the early 60s when the legendary free movement leader decided not to record for a while but wanted to hone his trademark sound on the saxophone. Multi-reed player, Carter also worked with Coleman who brought the…
Friends And Neighbors - Ornette Live At Prince Street
This is an unusual album in the catalogue of Ornette Coleman, and one that passes by most critics. It is however a unique insight into the ‘free jazz’ pioneer’s way of working in the early 70s. Recorded at his large loft space in downtown New York which inspired a whole scene of experimental musicians who were locked out of playing established venues.
The music is a romp showing Ornette playing trumpet as well as saxophone. His quartet which featured second saxophonist Dewey Redman alongside lon…
Extensions
Pianist and composer Simon Nabatov has played with "who's who" of the jazz and improvised music community, given concerts in over 60 countries, appeared on the numerous international festivals, received prizes and documented his music on 30 CD's under his own name. His musical activities include Jazz, improvised, experimental and world music. Nabatov’s initial idea to extend his Cologne-based quartet - hence the CD title – resulted in this exciting musical document. Both tracks, while fully impr…
déluge
Tip! "Trombe’s 2019 self-titled debut LP kicked off the Nantes unit’s ongoing two-piece experiment with a short and sweet exercise in minimal brut-jazz, with percussionist Erwan Cornic rattling chains and trinkets just as often as he plays full drum set and Thomas Beaudelin yanking the sax valves like root vegetables. But even though the duo has garnered praise from devout skronk stalwarts like Mats Gustafsson, their particular style has always had a distinct, almost delicate melodicism at its h…
Primitive
“Primitive” is Jessen’s first full-length release. A raw solo saxophone recording born out of anger and isolation. At times, it screams violently. At others, it slowly pierces. At all times, it is a reaction to Jessen’s surroundings.
Basenezmen
Recorded in Royal Alzheimer Hall, Thessaloniki, Greece, January 2015, Limited release of 500 unique record covers for the 500 hand-numbered copies of the Basenezmen music project. Two of the most important musicians in Greece are currently together for the first time to present ‘basenezmen’ project. They improvise under rythmic structures in form of jazz, rock, ambient and folk music.
Something There
*2023 stock* "Almost two years of inactivity have passed. The main reason was the pandemic, of course, but there was also a second one, an eight-month period when I could not use my left arm because of a shoulder fracture. But still, on the 21st of October 2021, I performed solo at the Open Jazz events of Demetria Festival. In one of the old warehouses in the port of Thessaloniki which have been converted into cinema halls. Right across the port authority where I served for three years. The tens…
Skra’s Confession
*2023 stock* The Orange Blue Green band improvises freely in the true sense of the word. An improvisation initiating from the very first sound produced without any prior coordination regarding the style, structure or anything relating to the overall musical form. An acoustic, almost classical trio that has embraced the fundamental features of the sound of chamber music, along with the various musical idioms and experiences of the members’ multi-dimensional course. Their music features a primal e…
Fulufulu Paupepa Paupapa
GBK are an Austrian free jazz trio that isn't afraid of being groovy. The band was founded in 2007 after a first meeting the year before, being thrown together in an improvised music session. They performed many years under the name of KGB before changing their name recently due to Russian war against Ukraine. All three musicians are happy to swap roles in their trio, therefore abstract experimental sounds have the same place in their repertoire as groove and melody. Drummer Didi Kern works both…
Outspan No 2
Tip! Recorded a month after Outspan No 1, this album offers up four more sonic delights from the core trio of Brötzmann, Van Hove, and Bennink. Rarely has free jazz/Euro improv/circus music/[your identifier here] sounded so unfettered and delightful -- adventurous without seeming self-serious, silly yet not without gravity. A must for any fan of these three maestros.
Outspan No 1
Tip! It's hard to imagine how this record -- and it's mate, Outspan No 2 -- managed to remain more or less out of circulation from the CD era onward. Outspan No 1 is nothing less than an ideal distillation of the broad approach to sound creation utilized by the three-ring circus that is Brötzmann, Van Hove, and Bennink, here with the added bonus of Mangelsdorff. Two short numbers, two long, too perfect.
11th Street Fire Suite
11th Street Fire Suite is a post-BAG (Black Artists Group) classic. An emotionally ranging set of blues-drenched duets by alto saxophonist Luther Thomas and flutist Luther C. Petty, it's one of the great documents of the St. Louis creative music diaspora, a wild ride through turbulent and beautiful terrain on a slab of vinyl that's as rare as hen's teeth in its original form. Relocated from their midwestern hometown to New York City, Thomas and Petty entered the studio in 1978 with a fellow musi…
Gomberg III-V - Airplay
Mind altering quartertone trumpet experiments from one of the world's most highly regarded and idiosyncratic players.
World Without
Abstraction, with feeling. Saxophonist Paul Dunmall, a veteran experimental jazz musician, was feeling drawn to vitality. He wanted to organize a group of musicians that were driven by an underlying pulse and a central energy, beyond the abstract improvisations he had been familiar with for years. He had always appreciated jazz that had a driving, uplifting energy, and organized this quartet, inspired by these musicians’ previous improvisational performances. Alongside guitarist Steven Saunders,…