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The Tapscott Sessions Vol. 8
Solo piano from the heart of the Los Angeles underground. Horace Tapscott completely alone at the keyboard, recorded in the early '80s when the Nimbus label was documenting his every move. This is contemplative music of the deepest order - yet the closing piece devastates. "As A Child", Tapscott's own composition dedicated to Adele Sebastian who died just four days before this recording in 1983, aged only 27. She was a pillar of the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, and this was her favorite Tapscot…
Lighthouse 79, Vol. 2
The second night. October 11, 1979. Same club, same sextet, completely different energy. Where Volume 1 leaned heavily on UGMAA repertoire, this follow-up session finds Horace Tapscott diving deep into the Great American Songbook with results that border on the transcendent.
The personnel remains unchanged from the previous evening: Reggie Bullen on trumpet, Gary Bias on alto, the twin-bass attack of Roberto Miranda and David Bryant, and George Goldsmith holding down the drums. But the setlist t…
Lighthouse 79, Vol. 1
Recorded on October 10, 1979 at the legendary Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, California, this unearthed treasure captures Horace Tapscott in the very temple of West Coast jazz, the club where Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Chet Baker, Lee Morgan, and Elvin Jones had left their mark in previous decades. Under Rudy Onderwyzer's management, the Lighthouse continued hosting music of the highest caliber, and this evening stands as irrefutable testimony.
The sextet reunites some of Tapscott's most trusted…
Dissent Or Descent
In 1979, Horace Tapscott traveled to New York and recorded In New York with Art Davis on bass and the immortal Roy Haynes on drums. That album captured something approaching magic - a West Coast visionary meeting East Coast rhythm masters on neutral ground. Five years later, Tapscott returned to NYC for another trio date. The results sat in the vaults for fourteen years.
Dissent Or Descent pairs Tapscott with Fred Hopkins on bass and Ben Riley on drums - two musicians whose credentials need no e…
The Tapscott Sessions Vol. 11
The final volume in the Tapscott Sessions series, Vol. 11 is gentler than some of its predecessors - stretched out and moody, with a contemplative feel that rewards patient listening. Twelve tracks recorded in 1982, released twenty-five years later as Tom Albach continued excavating the Lobero Theatre archive. What distinguishes this installment is the breadth of its sources. Tapscott opens with Horace Silver's "Nica's Dream," moves through the Mexican standard "Bésame Mucho," then lands on Sun …
The Tapscott Sessions Vol. 10
Drawn from two different recording sessions at the Lobero Theatre, The Tapscott Sessions Vol. 10 showcases Horace Tapscott in an especially exploratory mode. Nearly all original compositions here - "Miguel," "Roses In Bloom," "First Love," "Searching," "Upside Down," "Maya & Me" - hauntingly introspective pieces performed with a sense of creative searching that's incredibly powerful despite the absence of other instrumentation. The album runs seventy-five minutes. That's a significant amount of …
The Tapscott Sessions Vol. 9
Between 1982 and 1985, whenever Horace Tapscott felt ready, Tom Albach would hire an engineer, a crew, and a mobile sound truck to record him at the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara. Sessions typically ran between 2 and 4 a.m., when auto traffic fell quiet and the room's natural acoustic could breathe. Albach believed these solo recordings represented his greatest accomplishment as a producer - a conviction some found puzzling given its commercial futility. Solo piano albums by unknown pianists p…
Live in Santa Barbara
"Yeah, I'm Nate Morgan. I'm going to play with you all." That's how a teenage Nate Morgan introduced himself to Horace Tapscott after hearing The Giant Is Awakened on the radio and tracking down the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra. Not "I want to" - "I'm going to." He'd already been studying with Joe Sample and Hampton Hawes, but Arthur Blythe's wailing saxophone on that Flying Dutchman LP had gone straight to his heart. A spiritual experience, he called it. Over the next decades, Morgan became a c…
Journey Into Nigritia
Journey Into Nigritia, released in 1983 on Tom Albach's Nimbus West, was a declaration of arrival. Morgan assembled a quartet built for spiritual exploration: firebreathing reedsman Dadisi Komolafe on alto saxophone, Jeff Littleton on bass, Fritz Wise on drums. The rhythm section would become Morgan's anchor - Littleton and Wise appear on all three of his Nimbus recordings.
Six compositions. The album opens with "Mrafu," John Coltrane's influence immediately apparent - Komolafe gets right to wor…
Retribution, Reparation
One year after his debut Journey Into Nigritia, Nate Morgan returned to Tom Albach's Nimbus West studio with a statement so direct it left no room for ambiguity. The album's title alone - Retribution, Reparation - announced its politics. Where the first record had been a declaration of arrival, channeling Cecil Taylor's angularity and John Coltrane's spiritual seeking, this 1984 session was something else: a confident distillation of the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra's communal fire into a surgin…
What Was
The first release of a 1995 studio session, produced by Evan Parker. The Kenny Wheeler Sextet includes Ray Warleigh, Stan Sulzmann, John Parricelli, Chris Laurence and Tony Levin.
Who Cares
The Takashi Mizuhashi Quartet proudly announces the reissue of their legendary 1974 album Who Cares, a cornerstone of Japanese post-bop jazz now available in a stunning remastered vinyl edition via Three Blind Mice Records. Originally recorded on August 28, 1974, at Aoi Studio in Tokyo, this vibrant LP captures the quartet's unparalleled synergy during jazz's golden era in Japan.
Led by bassist and composer Takashi Mizuhashi, the quartet features saxophonist Yoshio Otomo on alto and soprano sax,…
Yellow Carcass In The Blue
Legendary Japanese jazz vocalist Kimiko Kasai, one of the most innovative singers of the 1970s, joins forces with the fiery Kosuke Mine Quartet on the newly reissued Yellow Carcass in the Blue, originally released in 1971 on the esteemed Three Blind Mice (TBM) label. This rare leader album captures Kasai at her peak, blending her husky, soulful voice with avant-garde improvisation and fusion grooves, featuring standout tracks like the title song—Masabumi Kikuchi's composition elevated by Kasai's…
Morning Flight
Japanese jazz enthusiasts rejoice: the Hiroshi Fukumura Quintet’s landmark 1973 album Morning Flight, originally released on the iconic Three Blind Mice label, is being reissued for a new generation of listeners. This trombone-led masterpiece captures the raw energy and improvisational spirit of early 1970s Japanese jazz, blending free-form exploration with lyrical standards.
The Inflated Tear
Last pressed on vinyl in 2005, The Inflated Tear is a studio album by Roland Kirk, released on Atlantic in 1968. Roland Kirk, was a hugely influential, blind jazz multi-instrumentalist who played tenor saxophone, flute, and many other instruments. He was renowned for his onstage vitality, during which virtuoso improvisation was accompanied by comic banter, political ranting, and the ability to play several instruments simultaneously. Pitchfork placed The Inflated Tear at number 170 on its list o…
Spellbinder Verve Vault
Gábor Szabó's groundbreaking 1966 album Spellbinder, originally released on Impulse! Records, is set for a premium all-analog reissue on March 13, 2026, as part of the acclaimed Verve Vault Series.
This quintet recording, captured at Rudy Van Gelder’s Englewood Cliffs studio and produced by Bob Thiele, introduced the Hungarian guitarist to a wider American audience through its hypnotic fusion of modal jazz, Eastern European folk influences, and 1960s pop textures. Featuring all-star collaborator…
Ready For Freddie
** Special Time-Limited Offer ** The Indianapolis-born trumpeter Freddie Hubbard introduced his prodigious talent on Blue Note Records with a run of remarkable albums recorded thru the early 1960s. At first rooted firmly in hard bop, Hubbard began to broaden his approach on his masterwork Ready for Freddie, recorded in August 1961. “The way in which I’m most interested in going is Coltrane-like,” Hubbard told liner note writer Nat Hentoff. Hubbard had recorded with Coltrane earlier in the year o…
Breaking Point
** Special Time-Limited Offer ** Despite having performed on several of the most revolutionary avant-garde jazz records of the 1960s, including Ornette Coleman’s Free Jazz and John Coltrane’s Ascension, Freddie Hubbard’s own albums tended to hew closer to the mainstream. Perhaps no other single album captures the trumpeter’s awe-inspiring breadth of ability and versatility than Breaking Point!, which was recorded in May 1964 shortly after Hubbard had departed Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers in orde…
Unit Structures
** Special Time-Limited Offer ** The intrepid free jazz pianist Cecil Taylor produced some of his best work for Blue Note Records, including his explosive 1966 label debut Unit Structures featuring Eddie Gale on trumpet, Jimmy Lyons on alto saxophone, Ken McIntyre on alto saxophone, oboe, and bass clarinet, Henry Grimes and Alan Silva on bass, and Andrew Cyrille on drums. Over the course of four extended original pieces by Taylor—“Steps,” “Enter, Evening,” “Unit Structure/As Of A Now/Section,” a…
Herbie Nichols Trio
** Special Time-Limited Offer ** Herbie Nichols was one of the most original pianists and composers in Jazz history. Blue Note founder Alfred Lion considered him to be as unique and important a voice as Thelonious Monk, another singular talent who Lion was the first to record a few years before he signed Nichols in 1955. Little-known during his lifetime, recognition has begun to grow in recent decades for Nichols’ incredibly hip, angular compositions, each of which were miniature marvels built w…