Music from United States

1994 release ** "David Liebman is at his best in pastoral, ethereal situations. This trio session, recorded in 1992 and '93, contains both lengthy tunes and shorter works in which Liebman's intense soprano sax and flute and more robust tenor solos are nicely supported by Billy Hart's sensitive yet assertive drumming and Cecil McBee's bass work, which provides whatever is necessary, from interaction to competition. The three never become detached or predictable and don't allow the music to lose i…

2025 stock Altoist Marion Brown is perhaps best known for performances on albums by his contemporaries, such as Coltrane's Ascension, but Brown stands on his own as one of the most creative and important forces to come out of the 1960s avant-garde jazz movement. Porto Novo is widely regarded as one of Brown's best recordings, captured during a 1967 session in Holland at the peak of his creative powers, accompanied by bassist Maarten van Regteben Altena and drummer Han Bennink. Previously out of …

Sun Ra’s Arkestra was at its most radical during this period, alternating simple chants with very outside playing and dense ensembles. Although no precise date is given, these five cuts are thought to have been documented circa 1967-1968 by Sun Ra (piano) and his Arkestra in New York City, where the band was in residence at the time.First released in a limited edition color vinyl for Record Store Day 2014, this title is now widely available on audiophile-grade black vinyl, pressed at Pallas Grou…

Tiiiip! *180gr. Vinyl* A memorable live recording of a unique encounter of jazz and contemporary classical music is available again! Recorded live at the Donaueschingen Music Festival on October 17, 1971, Actions features a truly mind-bending confluence of musicians of the avant-garde, in the broadest sense of the term. Don Cherry -- the brilliant American free jazz trumpeter -- had recently expatriated to Sweden and was finding his way not only among the emerging free-jazz scene of Europe but a…

The winds of change were blowing through Wayne Shorter’s life and career in 1970. The saxophonist had just left Miles Davis’ group and was soon to form his collective fusion band Weather Report. His music was evolving too as he began to delve into his own unique fusion explorations on his previous two Blue Note recordings Super Nova and Moto Grosso Feio. Recorded in August 1970, the mesmerizing Odyssey of Iska would be the last release of Shorter’s early Blue Note period. The album was a tribute…

Lost celestial solo piano transmissions retrieved!

1993 release ** "Sur cette gravure, Irmela Nolte propose un beau jeu allié à une technique nécessaire quant à ce répertoire, agile, au service des œuvres regroupées ici et dont l’on n’entend pas outre mesure son souffle ni sa respiration. Un panorama intéressant, avec 2 des 4 pièces en solo (1,3) et l’autre moitié où la flûte sera aidée d’un autre dispositif (synthétiseur en 2, bande et enregistrements préalables en 4) qui diversifie les procédés et rompt une monotonie possible dans ce genre de …

1998 release ** "Whoa. Look out. When you look at the cover you know the sh*t is gonna hit the fan when this old master of the vanguard drumming tradition hooks up with the "gentle giant" of the alto, the tenor, and the flute. Sabir Mateen may not be as well-known as Sunny Murray is, but he's every bit as effective and iconoclastic. The title of the album is funny; they aren't even in the same country that opera comes from -- even though Murray lives near there. So what have you got? Drums, drum…

1996 release ** "In deference to this age of “environmental consciousness”, “Breathing”, says the insert, is “recycled and/or scavenged” pieces that once inhabited another form. The composer is Al Margolis, who appears on electronics, tapes, effects, piano, sampled flute, vocals, wind, cello and strings. He is joined by didjeridu, oboe and organ. The album beds itself in deep wind or breath like sounds, with an electronic, industrial, and dark edge."

2002 release ** "When you give birth to a free jazz record label by the name of Ayler Records, you must be dreaming of putting out an album of long-forgotten sessions by the great saxophonist Albert Ayler. It took a while (then again, not that long), but producer Jan Ström managed to get hold of two important sessions recorded in Copenhagen. The suitably titled Copenhagen Tapes contain 45 minutes of a performance at Club Montmartre, September 3, 1964, and another 20 minutes recorded in the studi…

Anchored in the idea that, despite all obstacles, the human experience casts a net of possibilities, Defiant Life – Vijay Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith second duo recording for ECM – proves a profound meditation on the human condition and both the suffering and resilience it entails. An ethereal iridescence glistens between Leo Smith’s unmistakable trumpet wail and Vijay’s textural key strokes on piano and Fender Rhodes, conjuring multi-dimensional spaces of thoughtful musical conversation. “We work…

Huge Tip! Industrial music legend Chris Connelly returns to his first love with White Phosphorus (Chris Connelly plays Throbbing Gristle), a suitably uncompromising homage to the "random, tense, scary & compulsively fascinating" phase of industrial music's catalysers and ur-agitators. Having carved a twisted career with behemoths Ministry and Revolting Cocks over the past 40 years, starting life with the formidable Fini Tribe and collaborating with disparate characters such as Killing Joke, Caba…

A split album by Christopher Hobbs, John Adams, and Gavin Bryars, released in 1975 as the second title on Brian Eno's imprint Obscure. The album includes two pieces by Hobbs and one each by Adams and Bryars. Side A opens with the experimental compositions of Hobbs, followed by Adams’ spoken-word and orchestral work, while Side B concludes with Bryars’ dissonant, frontier-classical ambient piece, featuring contributions from Brian Eno and Derek Bailey. "Aran" and "McCrimmon Will Never Return" (19…

1990 release **

1990 release ** "This superb collection of works by 20th century minimalist composers spotlights works written for string orchestra. It opens with John Adams' Shaker Loops, a piece with strings set on rapid tremolo throughout -- creating a beautiful, shimmering quality counterbalanced by an aggressive scrubbing sound. Steve Reich's Eight Lines -- a reworking of his incredible 1979 work Octet, scored this time for string orchestra and piano -- is a real gem. The orchestra moves like a well-oiled …

1991 release ** "Along with its sister recording, Pangaea, Agharta was recorded live in February of 1975 at the Osaka Festival Hall in Japan. Amazingly enough, given that these are arguably Miles Davis' two greatest electric live records, they were recorded the same day. Agharta was performed in the afternoon and Pangaea in the evening. Of the two, Agharta is superior. The band with Davis -- saxophonist Sonny Fortune, guitarists Pete Cosey (lead) and Reggie Lucas (rhythm), bassist Michael Hender…

Friedrich Gulda (16 May 1930 – 27 January 2000) was an Austrian pianist, composer and musical crossover artist. Coming from a classical background, he began playing the piano at the age of seven. At the age of 12, he began his musical education with Bruno Seidlhofer (piano) and Joseph Marx (music theory and composition) at the Vienna Academy of Music, now the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. At the age of 16, he won the Geneva International Music Competition and quickly rose to…

Joe Henderson Our Thing To In ’N Out Revisited notes: The Blue Note label in the early and mid 1960s was a haven for musicians engaged in the process of expanding the jazz vocabulary with unconventional harmonic strategies and new compositional infrastructures that elicited equally exploratory improvisational responses. And it was an ongoing process, benefiting from the sporadic, albeit calculated, interaction of different perspectives and methods of creative inspiration. Established or working g…

Between the '60s and the '80s the production of pulp magazines in Italy was flourishing and incredibly varied: every month hundreds of paperbacks containing strange, adventurous or more often terrifying stories came out on the newsstands. Among the most popular italian pulp magazines was the horror series "I Racconti di Dracula" (Tales of Dracula) published by Baron Cantarella: each issue of "I Racconti di Dracula" contained a grim and disturbing story, inspired by Italian gothic and giallo cine…

1989 release (RARE) ** "Recorded in 1983 in Nessa's Acme studio in Chicago, Procession of the Great Ancestry is among Wadada Leo Smith's most obscure, but ultimately most satisfying, recordings. Featuring Kahil El'Zabar, Louis Myers, Joe Fonda, John Powell, Mchaka Uba, and Bobby Naughton, this was the first album to showcase Smith's expansive vision, which included all forms of black music -- from the myriad languages of jazz to gutbucket blues, reggae, and various African folk musics as well as…