Jazz /
Changing Earth
Matthew Halsall has already blessed us with one beautifully conceived EP this year, now with Changing Earth he has shared another perfectly crafted four track mini-album or EP. Where the music on The Temple Within came from the energy around the band's monthly sessions at Yes in Manchester, Changing Earth is a more meditative, spiritual offering:
"I was thinking about climate change and the profound implication of the human race's relationship with nature and the changes we have wrought on our e…
Watermelancholia
Devin Brahja Waldman is a New York saxophonist, drummer, synthesizer player and composer who leads the group Brahja. Waldman has accompanied his aunt, poet Anne Waldman, since the age of ten. Waldman is a co-founding member of Radical Reversal, Diva of Deva Loka, and Notable Deaths. He has performed with Patti Smith, William Parker, Nadah El Shazly, Malcolm Mooney, Thurston Moore, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Charles Hayward, Luke Stewart and Yoshiko Chuma. Waldman is also a member of NYC’s Hero…
Memoirs of a Dream
*Limited edition of 600 copies* Nomadic spiritual jazz duo The Sea Ensemble embodied the ethos of their era and art to a uniquely poetic degree. Founded in the early 1970’s by ethnomusicologist Zusaan Kali Fasteau and versatile instrumentalist Donald Rafael Garrett (sideman to John Coltrane, Archie Shepp, and Roland Kirk, among others), the couple’s lifestyle mirrored their music: restless, questing, collaborative, and improvised. Their itinerant journeying spanned Senegal, Congo, Morocco, Haiti…
Medasi
If being the founder and chairman of Third World Press Organisation - the largest independent black-owned publishers - wasn't enough for activist and poet Haki R Madhubuti, he is also credited with a lesser-known yet remarkable music career. As the bandleader of Haki R. Madhubuti and Nation: Afrikan Liberation Arts Ensemble, Madhubuti combined his razor-sharp spoken-word poetry with a band of incredible musicians to create an unforgettable experience of avant-garde and spiritual jazz.
The second…
The Sojourner
Japanese label P-Vine sure know how to pick out the essential spiritual jazz reissues. This is another gold standard that came originally on Strata East in 1974. Vocals feature throughout and often soar to the highest of heights and make it a charismatic album. Sample hounds and hip hop lovers might well recognise the track 'Optimystical' which has been pillaged by Detroit great Andres before now. Elsewhere there is real freeform magic on 'Music Is Nothing But A Prayer', cosmic exploration on 'T…
Atalaya
*Limited edition of 555 copies.* Atalaya is new work by bassist Dezron Douglas, and it is alive. That is, ‘alive’ in all the ways that jazz is at its best – as a pure and personal expression of Black Music channeled through time-honored traditions by a group of musicians who practice sonic coherence through musical unity. As Dezron puts it in the opening statement of his liner notes for the album: “Mysticism, Magic, Faith, Love, Power, Discernment! These are words that embody the creative proces…
Universal Tonality
William Parker’s Universal Tonality documents an epic performance which brings his titular concept to full, vibrant life. An exquisite example of this system in practice, it features a truly once-in-a-lifetime assembly of creative music luminaries and legends. Clocking in at nearly two hours and featuring six extended pieces flowing across two discs, this Universal Tonality happening took place in December 2002. Parker invited 16 musicians of various ages, cultures and musical backgrounds – to j…
2061
*In process of stocking.* If one was to interpret the whole output of EABS in general, an inquisitive listener would notice that each subsequent album stems from the previous one. The overtones are similar and they can be treated as variations on the same theme. The only thing that changes is the background of the story. It is all about life and death, the beginning and the end of the world, and the role of human beings entangled in all this existentially. Following the futurism lessons from Sun…
Blue Lotus
The Classic Greg Foat Group line-up returns with special guests Art Themen on Soprano Saxophone and Morgan Simpson (Black Midi) on Drums. Heavy synth and percussive grooves.
Hyperituals Vol. 1 - Soul Note
Drawing to light rhythms, grooves and Afrocentric traditions, Hyperjazz Records takes an unprecedented dive into the incredible back catalog of the seminal Italian imprint, Soul Note, with “Hyperituals Vol. 1”. Gathering an astounding group of recordings by Billy Bang, Hamiet Bluiett, Beaver Harris, Paul Motian, Tony Scott, George Russell, Andrew Cyrill, Max Roach, Nanà Vasconcelos, and others - many of which have never before appeared on vinyl - across a beautifully produced double LP, the albu…
Tauhid
Recorded November 15, 1966 at Van Gelder Studios, Englewood Cliffs - New Jersey, Tauhid is one of the most iconic album recorded by the tenor saxophonist Pharoah Sanders. On his debut for Impulse ! the leader assembled an extraordinary line-up, defining the boundaries of the so-called spiritual jazz movement. Henry Grimes (bass) Roger Blank (drums), Sonny Sharrock (guitar), Nat Bettis (percussion) and Dave Burrell (piano)Pharoah, (born Farrell Sanders of Little Rock, Arkansas on October 13, 1940…
The Temple Within
When Matthew Halsall released Salute to the Sun in November 2020, his first new album in five years, he shared the first fruits from an especially fertile period of writing and recording, which also gave birth to the music released here as The Temple Within.
The recording sessions featured Halsall's then brand new band of hand-picked local musicians, brought together through weekly rehearsals and a monthly residency at Yes in Manchester, they forged an immersive, communal sound, drawing on spiri…
Live In Paris (1971 - Lost ORTF Recordings)
Transversales Disques proudly presents Ahmad Jamal Trio, Live in Paris 1971. Never heard before ORTF recordings performed live at studio 104, Maison de la Radio, Paris. This is the first official release with the full permission and cooperation of the National Audiovisual Institute (INA) coming in a Deluxe Edition - Classic Tip-On Jacket. Including exclusive pictures. Mastered from the original master tapes.
"While be-bop musicians practise one-upmanship in terms of speed, Ahmad Jamal develops a…
Moon Child
*2022 stock* Pharoah Sanders’ Moon Child from 1990, which bookended a decade of musical soul searching for Sanders. The acclaimed free jazz player is known to have a raw and abrasive sound, but reinvented himself on this album as a more traditional improviser capable of thoughtful deliberations. Moon Child is a grand old time throughout, and Sanders has never been more eminently sing-along-able as he is on its title track.
The record was co-written with Horace Silver, George Gershwin and Abdulla…
Ethnic Expressions
Tip! Groovy, spiritual, and oh so, rare, this live album by drummer Roy Brooks is one of the best to ever come out of the spiritual jazz scene. With a career spanning over 50 years and collaborations with artists like Horace Silver, Stanley Turrentine, Yusef Lateef, and Charles Mingus, Roy Brooks was a foundation and leading force of the jazz scene throughout his entire storied life. As one of the most talented drummers of any generation, Brooks would lead his own group, the Artistic Truth, and …
Dilijans
Comet Records present the new reissue out of the Comet new reissue series, Dilijans by Ayizan. A mind-blowing session of spiritual jazz recorded in NYC in 1984 led by Haitian genius Alix Pascal blending traditional Ra Ra elements with modal/spiritual melodies. The result was like nothing else coming out of Haiti or the Haitian exile community in the US at the time. Dark, mystical, lyrical and abstract, with its otherworldly shifting rhythms, Dilijans came off like a Haitian version of Bitches Br…
Noel Mc Ghie & Space Spies
Comet Records present the new release out of the Comet new reissue series, Noel McGhie’s only full-length LP, released in France in 1975 at cult private label Disques Esperance! A true rare groove classic, a one-of-a-kind spiritual jazz funk record with a fusion touch. Includes ‘Trapeze’, ‘Dancer’ and ‘Mademoiselle Tuloch’.
Legacies For Our Grandchildren - Live In Hollywood, 1995
Previously unpublished live recording, under exclusive license from the Horace Tapscott Family. The first opportunity to listen to Horace’s working quintet from the '90s! Includes a 16-page booklet with liner notes by the original producers of those recordings: Don Snowden and David Keller, photos by Warren Berman and some rare documents.
The Quintet
** Black vinyl with obi strip ** This previously unreleased album by the Horace Tapscott Quintet was unearthed from master tapes in the Flying Dutchman archives. Recorded in 1969 and was intended to be a follow-up album to the classic "The Giant Is Awakened" which was released that year.The iconic pianist and composer Horace Tapscott was one of the most unique and important figures in LA’s jazz world. This lost recording was produced by one of the pivotal figures in jazz, Bob Thiele, a leading b…
Negro Humor
Running counter to the monopoly of white representation in music, Radio Diaspora translates the African diaspora through free jazz experimentalism and free improvisation. The musicians in the duo, Romulo Alexis and Wagner Ramos, reverberate the signs of blackness through zones of sonorous intensity, giving new meanings to the Afro-descendant musical experience. In ‘Negro Humor’, their tenth album, the duo investigates the dichotomy of humor to again reverberate their struggle through music again…