Jazz /
Grant's First Stand
Grant Green's debut album, Grant's First Stand, still ranks as one of his greatest pure soul-jazz outings, a set of killer grooves laid down by a hard-swinging organ trio. For having such a small lineup, just organist Baby Face Willette and drummer Ben Dixon -- the group cooks up quite a bit of power, really sinking its teeth into the storming up-tempo numbers, and swinging loose and easy on the ballads. From the first note of "Miss Ann's Tempo," they establish a groove, and swing like hell thro…
Inventions & Dimensions
For his third Blue Note album Inventions & Dimensions (1963), pianist Herbie Hancock began moving away from the modernist hard bop sound that defined his first two albums Takin’ Off and My Point Of View. Inspired by explorers like Eric Dolphy and Tony Williams, Hancock went in search of greater musical freedom by composing a set of ingenious originals each with their own unique inner logic that did away with what he considered the established jazz “assumptions” of the time. Hancock also pared th…
Impact
Re-mastering by: Ray Staff at Air Mastering, Lyndhurst Hall, London Trumpeter/ flügelhornist Charles Tolliver often straddled the line between the lyricism of hard bop and the adventurous nature of the avant-garde. Released in 1975, Impact contained a stimulating progressive edge within an energetic large band (14 horns, eight strings, and rhythm section) format. Tolliver's arrangements are consistently bright and build momentum, while the soloists are given sufficient room to manoeuvre throug…
Aleksi Heinola Quintet
**250 copies** Three additional songs from the celebrated debut session, limited 10 inch! The talented drummer continues to explore the hard-bop sound of today with three more tracks; Bouncing at the S.U.P., Chasing the Spirit – two songs composed by the drummer and the quintet’s own hip rendition of Book’s Bossa by Walter Booker.“Heinola skilfully demonstrates the full range of his arsenal, skipping through his cherished hard bop style of jazz while interweaving subtle nods to Latin and Afro st…
Complete Uppsala Concert Vol. 1
Recorded Live in Sweden in September 1961, the Uppsala Concert is an important document from Eric Dolphy's first Swedish tour as leader of an obscure but talented local quartet featuring Rony Johansson (piano), Kurt Lindgren (bass), and Rune Carlsson (drums). Master Dolphy shines, as always, on all his instruments alto sax, bass clarinet, and flute, while the track list consists of a rare mix of standards such as Milt Jackson's Bags Groove, Monk's 52nd Street Theme, Cole Porter's What Is This Th…
Live at The Loosdrecht Jazz Festival
Charles Tolliver began his professional career and simultaneously his recording debut with the saxophone giant Jackie McLean on Blue Note Records in 1964. Since then he has become one of the all-time preeminent trumpeters in Jazz as well as one of its most gifted composer / arranger bandleaders. He is also a Grammy nominated recipient for his Blue Note Records recording With Love.With a career that has spanned five decades he has recorded and/or performed with such renowned artists as Roy Haynes…
Blue World
In 1964, John Coltrane and his quartet produced two great masterpieces in Rudy Van Gelder's studios, namely the albums Crescent and A Love Supreme. Between the two sessions the quartet entered the studio for another recording: the soundtrack of the French-Canadian film Le chat dans le sac. Today, the tape of that session has been found and remastered, so finally here's the third 1964 album: Blue World. The content is extraordinary: not only do we find the classic quartet (with McCoy Tyner, Jimmy…
Indestructible
On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of Blue Note, here comes the first releases of a new series of LPs, entitled Great Reid Miles Covers, that celebrates the extraordinary and famous covers created by graphic designer and photographer Reid Miles, the artist who gave an unmistakable image to the albums of the blue label and also wrote an unforgettable page in the history of graphic design of the 20th Century. For this series, the new masters were processed by Kevin Gray from the original anal…
Una Mas (One More Time)
On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of Blue Note, here comes the first releases of a new series of LPs, entitled Great Reid Miles Covers, that celebrates the extraordinary and famous covers created by graphic designer and photographer Reid Miles, the artist who gave an unmistakable image to the albums of the blue label and also wrote an unforgettable page in the history of graphic design of the 20th Century. For this series, the new masters were processed by Kevin Gray from the original anal…
Hub-Tones
On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of Blue Note, here comes the first releases of a new series of LPs, entitled Great Reid Miles Covers, that celebrates the extraordinary and famous covers created by graphic designer and photographer Reid Miles, the artist who gave an unmistakable image to the albums of the blue label and also wrote an unforgettable page in the history of graphic design of the 20th Century. For this series, the new masters were processed by Kevin Gray from the original anal…
Cirrus
The first vinyl reissue of Bertil Strandberg Kvintett’s Cirrus album is now available on Frederiksberg Records, following on earlier Scandinavian Jazz reissues by Christian Schwindt Quintet and Carsten Meinert Kvartet. In 1973, a snowstorm almost prevented the band from making it to the studio to record this album. Cirrus, released in 1974 in tiny numbers, has since become a heralded object among jazz aficionados. Now 45 years later, Cirrus is finally available on vinyl again and comes with an i…
Alligator Bogaloo
To believe in serendipity - that’s the operative word when it comes to alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson’s soul-jazz hit, Alligator Bogaloo, the opening track from the leader’s heralded -artistically and commercially - album of the same name, released by Blue Note in 1967. The tale of its origin has been told so many times that it holds mythic status of affirming the power of improvisational jazz. For his LP session at Rudy Van Gelder’s Englewood Cliffs, N.J., studio, Lou finished recording five tr…
Drift
**25 copies** Brand new sparkling hard-bop in the Quintet formula, from aspiring Finnish drummer talent Aleksi Heinola featuring a top cast of Finnish jazz-men: Mikael Jakobsson on keys (Five Corners Quintet), Mikko Gunu Karjalainen on trumpet and flugelhorn, Manuel Dunkel on tenor saxophone (UMO Jazz band) and Swedish Daniel Franck on double bass.
Katonah
The American tenor saxophonist Steve Grossman flew to Japan to record this studio session that features an incredible line up of four local musicians: Takehiro Honda is on the piano with a rhythm section of Hideo Kawahara, Yasushi Yoneki, and Masahiro Yoshida, all working together with a tremendous energy. The recordings are dated February 1986, and include the eponymous Katonah, Afternoon in Paris(J. Lewis), and Friday the 13th (T. Monk).It is worth remembering that Grossman started his journey…
Labyrinth (2Lp+7
For this heavy duty reissue of Koivistoinen’s 1977 album we went back to the original multitrack tapes and discovered a heap of alternate takes that were left unmixed at the time. Koivistoinen selected the best and most interesting alternate versions of each track and a new, fresh mix was prepared specifically for this release. The first LP in this package is the original studio album (Love Records 1977), remastered for vinyl at Finnvox. The second LP contains the alternate takes, and there’s ev…
Live at the Jazz Workshop, Boston 1973
Recorder on September 4th, 1973, this is one of/if not The funkiest and hippest Byrd to date, available here for the 1st time. what a band/what a concert/what an excellent recording (WBCN-FM broadcast) !" punzmann
Live At Cafe Montmartre 1966 Volume Two
"Don Cherry, more than any other artist in the jazz of his era, pioneered the music's internationalist nature that has now come to be commonly accepted as an integral part of its character. The individuality of Cherry's contribution to the history of jazz has often been unfairly obscured by his admittedly important association with the music ofOrnette Coleman. While the (pocket) trumpeter's position as Coleman's front line partner in the altoist's first revolutionary quartet was indeed a major o…
Maulawi
Soul Jazz Records are re-issuing this lost classic deep jazz album. This is the only recording of Maulawi Nururdin and his group. Originally recorded in Chicago in Sep 1973, and released by a small independent label in Detroit the following year. The music fell between the gap of the avant-garde and straight-ahead jazz, and had elements of Funk and Latin that were rare at the time that meant that commercially it sank without a trace -- but, thirty years on, we can see that these are exactl…