Jazz & Improvisation / Free Jazz

BBE Music’s celebrated J Jazz compilation series reaches its fifth and final volume in early 2026, culminating in a track list that maintains the exceptionally high standard first set with volume one back in 2018. This final volume features a selection of tracks that is as diverse as it is deep, reflecting the rich and varied Japanese jazz scene that spanned from the late 1960s to the late 1980s, a golden era of innovation and creativity. J Jazz volume 5 sees compilers Tony Higgins and Mike Pede…

In June of 2013, a new label for improvised music was born. After years of working with other labels in the “business,” saxophonist and label founder Dave Rempis saw the writing on the wall that many of those outlets for underground music would soon go belly up. With shifting modes of consumption and distribution due to the wave of digital options drowning out traditional music media, it became clear that artists working outside of the mainstream would have to take over their own production and …

A seamless blend of the avant jazz of David Murray (sax) and Steve McCall (drums) with the powerful prose and cadence of Amiri Baraka! This first ever reissue of poet and social/political activist Amiri Baraka’s electric live 1982 beat poetry reading is newly remastered and includes a zine-style poetry insert and liner notes by David Murray!  “The poetry I want to write is oral by tradition, mass aimed as its fundamental functional motive. Black poetry, in its mainstream, is oracular, sermonic, …

To mark 50-years since a 22 year old Michael Gregory Jackson recorded his groundbreaking first release, "Clarity / Circle / Triangle / Square", recorded with the mind blowing group of his contemporaries Oliver Lake, David Murray and Leo Smith. This album is like no other I know, a new world, finding a perfect balance between multiple genres. Moved-By- Sound is very excited and honored to be involved in releasing the first reissue authorized by Michael Gregory Jackson since the original release i…

Out to Lunch! remains one of the most strikingly original statements on Blue Note. Eric Dolphy marshals Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Bobby Hutcherson on vibraphone, Richard Davis on bass, and Tony Williams on drums into a unit that treats his knotty compositions as springboards rather than straitjackets. Themes like “Hat and Beard” arrive full of angular intervals and odd accents, while the rhythm team tilts and lurches under them, propelled by Williams’ restless cymbal work and Davis’ flexible g…

Purple Vinyl! How do you make a documentary film about a man who was also a myth? About a musician who was more than a musician? About someone who asked us to trust our intuition more than our rational minds? This double LP contains the original soundtrack to the accompanying PBS documentary! Includes liner notes from executive producer Bradford Smith about the making of Sun Ra: Do The Impossible, interviews from members of the Arkestra and a BluRay disc of the doc! Firelight assembled an incred…

How do you make a documentary film about a man who was also a myth? About a musician who was more than a musician? About someone who asked us to trust our intuition more than our rational minds? This double CD contains the original soundtrack to the accompanying PBS documentary! Includes liner notes from executive producer Bradford Smith about the making of Sun Ra: Do The Impossible, interviews from members of the Arkestra and a BluRay disc of the doc! Firelight assembled an incredibly talented …

"Ramune and the Power Plant" is the first duo album by Otomo Yoshihide and Ruike Shinpei, who have performed together many times in groups such as ONJQ. This recording captures almost the entire completely improvised live set held in October 2024 at the café-music gallery Kakululu in Ikebukuro. In this project Otomo primarily uses turntables as his main instrument and, on some tracks, electric guitar; Ruike plays trumpet as his primary instrument and employs electronics on certain pieces. Record…

*2026 stock* The third album of the quartet "Akira Sakata x Triple Edge," in which Masayasu Tsuboguchi, Takeharu Hayakawa, and Masataka Fujikake gather to create a rare improvised world with dynamism as if diverse organisms were wriggling under Akira Sakata, a giant tree several thousand years old.

The music on “Green Prism” is rooted in the last of the many commissions Keith Tippett wrote in the latter part of his career. The original compositions featured on this album are arrangements drawn from a suite composed by Tippett entitled "Winter's Welcome" in 2018 for the brass ensemble Zinc & Copper, which premiered in Berlin on 17th February 2019. Due to ill health Keith was unable to attend the final rehearsals, which meant the project was never finished as originally envisioned. After Kei…

On Live in Europe 1968 & 1972, Marion Brown leads a borderless quartet through two rare European concerts, pairing his singing alto with Gunter Hampel's vibes, Barre Phillips' bass and Steve McCall's drums in a sound that hovers between lyrical free jazz and chamber‑like intimacy.

On Sonic House Reunion, Bobby Bradford, Mark Dresser and Hafez Modirzadeh reconvene a long‑running alliance, turning cornet, five‑string bass and hybrid reeds into a quietly radical chamber unit where Ornette‑rooted lyricism, spectral tuning and deep listening pull the music in multiple directions at once.

On Sun’s Blessings, Sunny Murray and Sabu Toyozumi meet as a double‑drum frontline, turning a 1999 Sapporo concert into a two‑part ritual where clattering polyrhythms, rolling thunder and sudden hollows of space make free improvisation feel both volcanic and oddly tender.

On Keeping It In Context, Daniel Carter, Sabir Mateen, William Parker and Lou Grassi turn a 1996 Context Studios session into a blazing, deep‑listening workshop, with twin reeds, singing bass and restless drums stretching free jazz language without losing its earthy pulse.

On Fragments: The Complete 1969 Salle Pleyel Concerts, The Cecil Taylor Unit detonates across two uncut Paris sets: a newly unearthed, vividly mastered document of Taylor, Sam Rivers, Jimmy Lyons and Andrew Cyrille stretching free jazz into an overwhelming, architectural storm of sound.

Pianist Jonas Cambien, bassist Magnus Skavhaug Nergaard and drummer Dag Erik Knedal Andersen have been indispensable to followers of the eclectic creative music scene in Oslo for years; among others with bands such as The Handover, Reôlo, Maca Conu, Delish, Cortex and Sulida. Until now, only lucky concertgoers have been able to experience their excellent improvising trio, but fortunately Motvind Records are doing something about that! "The Ear Behind the Airport" is a multifaceted being. Between…

Norwegian clarinetist Andreas Røysum and the legendary Chicago-based poet / artist Marvin Tate met in 2023, when both were performing at Berlin Jazzfest. “Andreas Røysum Ensemble with Marvin Tate” is the fourth album by the ensemble, and contains the first recorded fruits of this meeting of visionaries. The new-found collaborators bring out the best in each other, reaching new levels of expression and purpose. Dig into richly evocative and multi-layered poetry, expansive long form compositions a…

On Convergence: Live In China, William Hooker and John King turn a Shenzhen stage into a pressure chamber, stretching one unbroken hour of drums and guitar from whispering tension to volcanic release in a charged act of real‑time communication.

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.

On Four Ways, Roscoe Mitchell joins Stephen Rush’s shape-shifting Yuganaut trio for an electrically unstable encounter, where reeds, synths and oddball acoustics melt into one long, multi-hued improvising organism.