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Jazz & Improvisation /

The Early Quintet
Corbett vs. Dempsey is pleased to present The Early Quintet, featuring trumpeter Manfred Schoof's highly influential mid-sixties sextet (and occasional septet), featuring pianist Alexander Schlippenbach, tenor saxophonist Gerd Dudek, bassist Buschi Niebergall, and drummer Jaki Liebezeit. (One track adds drummer Sven-Åke Johansson.) In addition to the first CD release of the 1978 FMP record, this version includes a bonus piece, never before heard. Deep cuts from the formative moment of European f…
12+1tet (Victoriaville) 2007
Anthony Braxton's 12+1tet live at Victoriaville on 20 May 2007: Composition No. 361, seventy minutes of layered Ghost Trance writing with Taylor Ho Bynum, Mary Halvorson, Steve Lehman, Nicole Mitchell and others.
Quartet Noir
Urs Leimgruber, Marilyn Crispell, Joëlle Léandre and Fritz Hauser in their first concert as a quartet, Victoriaville, 15 May 1998: eight improvisations growing from small details into heated four-way exchanges.
Sudori
Pino Minafra's Sud Ensemble in the studio in Milan, January 1995: trumpet, didgeridoo and ocarina with Carlo Actis Dato, Lauro Rossi and Giorgio Occhipinti, mixing southern Italian band music, free jazz and theatre.
Labyrinths
Marilyn Crispell alone at the piano, live at the Victoriaville festival on 2 October 1987: dense, Taylor-inspired clusters and open lyrical passages, with a Coltrane piece. The CD reissue of the 1988 LP adds Threads in the Ozone.
The Missing Link
Fred Anderson's 1979 session with Larry Hayrod, Hamid Drake and Adam Rudolph, first issued by Nessa in 1984; the CD adds Drake's previously unreleased Tabla Peace.
Ginshu (Silver Pathos)
Akira Sakata with Shinpei Ruike on trumpet and Jun Inui on drums, recorded at the Shibata Etsuko Gallery in Ginza on March 30, 2026. Sister Records.
Gin Ai (Silver Love)
Akira Sakata with Takashi Seo on contrabass and Jun Inui on drums, recorded at the Shibata Etsuko Gallery in Ginza on April 10, 2025. Sister Records.
Gintama (Ginza Mix)
Akira Sakata and drummer Jun Inui in duo, recorded at the Shibata Etsuko Gallery in Ginza on April 7, 2024. The first of their Gallery series on Sister Records.
At Takutaku
Akira Sakata x Triple Edge live at Takutaku, Kyoto, February 2024: 65 minutes with Tsuboguchi, Hayakawa and Fujikake, plus Takayuki Kato on guitar and Hiroshi Funato on contrabass, built around the two-part Takutaku Suite.
Lifting The Sanctions
Solo acoustic bass by William Parker, recorded at Studio Spirale on November 29, 1997 with no overdubs; cover by Jeff Schlanger, painted live during the session. No More Records, 1998.
Jumping Off The Page
Rob Brown on alto saxophone and flute with Roy Campbell, Chris Lightcap and Jackson Krall, playing Brown's own compositions. No More Records, 2000.
Ancestral Homeland
The Roy Campbell Pyramid Trio with William Parker and Zen Matsuura, recorded in New York on February 12, 1998, liner notes by Campbell and Steve Dalachinsky. No More Records, 1998.
One For Jazz
Frank Lowe on tenor saxophone and Billy Bang on violin, with Ed Schuller and Abbey Rader, recorded in Brooklyn and dedicated to the memory of Denis Charles. No More Records, 2001.
Soul Folks
The Frank Lowe Quintet with Bertha Hope, Jack Walrath, Steve Neil and Ralph Peterson, recorded in concert for WMUA on February 26, 1998. No More Records, 2001.
In The Know
In 2022 drummer Tollef Østvang enlisted veteran English improvisers Trevor Watts and John Edwards, to form a new trio, as a commission from the Motvind festival. From the get-go, the three unleashed a remarkably unified onslaught of blissful intensity. Luckily the band felt just as excited as the audience, and since their initial offering in the middle of the Norwegian woods, the group has since embarked on several European tours; further sharpening their razor-sharp interplay. Their debut relea…
The Walls Of The Temple Are Made Of Sound
On March 19th, 1999, legendary soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy played with his working trio at The Velvet Lounge at 2128 ½ S. Indiana Avenue in Chicago. Owned and operated by tenor saxophonist Fred Anderson, The Velvet Lounge was the central hub for adventurous jazz music in Chicago from 1993 until Fred passed in 2010.  Music critic and journalist Peter Margasak previewed the concert in the alternative weekly Chicago Reader, and someone blew up a xeroxed copy of it that Lacy inscribed across the …
Aco Dei De Madrugada (One Morning I Waked Up Very Early)
Paris, 1969: Grachan Moncur III's second album for BYG, cut with a Brazilian rhythm section and bassist Beb Guerin. Samba sway meets American creative jazz, with Fernando Martins' wordless vocals on the title track.
Know Time
Paul Bley and trumpeter Herbie Spanier played free duets in Los Angeles in 1958, around the time Ornette Coleman passed through Bley's band. That music was never documented. In Montreal in August 1993 they tried again, with Geordie McDonald's rack of gongs, shakers and temple blocks. Thirteen short improvisations.
Solo
Paul Bley was born in Montreal in 1932 and left for New York at the start of the 1950s. He had already taken over Oscar Peterson's chair at the Alberta Lounge as a teenager. In December 1987 he came home, sat down at Studio Tempo, and recorded ten improvisations for a local label that was then four years old. Solo was the first of the dozen or so records Bley made for Jim West's Justin Time over the next twenty years, a run that ended with About Time in 2008. It is also a digital recording from …