Jazz & Improvisation / All styles

*Includes 20 page booklet.* Each with five decades of musical knowledge and experience in free improvisation under their belts, the trio of saxophonist John Tchicai (also heard, for the first time on record, on vocals), bassist Reggie Workman and dru…

A Love Sonnet For Billie Holiday brings Wadada Leo Smith, Jack DeJohnette and Vijay Iyer together for the first time in this meeting of creative giants. Smith first met and played with DeJohnette in the late 1960s and the two have collaborated with i…

Despite the fact that they've shared several stages over the past 40 years, Ancestors marks the first occasion that trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo have ever recorded together. Smith, one of the true progenitors of creative…

Acclaimed trumpeter, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and educator Wadada Leo Smith has released an oratorio of seven songs inspired by the iconic civil rights leader Rosa Parks. In his own words, Rosa Parks: Pure Love. An Oratorio of Seven Songs is …

With Celestial Weather, Wadada Leo Smith and John Lindberg employ a spare, conversational approach. Smith whispers on the mute and issues plaintive cries with the open horn. Lindberg bows and goes pizzicato. Smith searches for and finds very un-trump…

Wadada Leo Smith comes to the music of Thelonious Monk from a childhood admiration of the artist. As a pre-teen he was already playing trumpet and composing and instinctively knew that Monk's understanding of music and sound would influence his own c…

"Manfred Schoof grew up perfecting his innovative jazz style, often practicing on either his jazz trumpet or his flügelhorn. By the time he reached high school, Schoof was composing his own arrangements. In 1955, Schoof decided to purse a musical car…

As jazz's first extended, continuous free improvisation LP, Free Jazz practically defies superlatives in its historical importance. Ornette Coleman's music had already been tagged "free," but this album took the term to a whole new level. Aside from …

This is a 2023 reissue vinyl LP pressing of Clay by Yosuke Yamashita Trio. The Japanese jazz composer and pianist originally released his live album in 1974, via Enja Records. Produced by Horst Weber, and Matthias Winckelmann, the album features live…

Music for Piano and Modular Synthesizer is a suite of compositions utilizing piano, modular synthesizer, piccolo trumpet, launeddas and various other sound devices in order to express certain emotions clear and bright.  Resonant Stacks of Energy in s…

Matthew Bailey, Carl Schilde, and Scott Harper play improvised music oscillating somewhere between bingo hall Casio suites and kosmische dreamscapes. Performing under the name Playdate, the trio is sometimes accompanied by ‘90s instructional videos, …

*Limited Edition* Terumasa Hino ventures into a new realm with a spiritual approach in this New York recording, featuring an extended track that balances improvisation and structure. Collaborating with notable musicians like Steve Grossman, Dave Lieb…

*Limited Edition* Embark on a captivating collaboration between Japanese trumpeter Terumasa Hino and avant-garde bassist Reggie Workman. This partnership, from the early 70s, marked a spiritual awakening in Hino's music. The tracks, expansive and exp…

*Limited Edition* Experience the musical journey of Japanese trumpeter Terumasa Hino in this 1970 recording from his early New York trip. With a sextet, including Reggie Workman on bass, Hino explores two expansive tracks, "Gongen" and "Peace & Love,…

*Limited Edition* Soundtrack to Koji Wakamatsu's 1972 pink film "Ecstasy of the Angels".  Japanese pianist Yosuke Yamashita formed a bass-less trio in 1969 with drummer Takeo Moriyama and tenorist Seiichi Nakamura. Yamashita's Bill Evans-influenced s…

Ensamble Acústico was conceived in the early 1980s by Billy Pereyra and Eduardo Roland in Blancarena, a resort on the coast of the Río de la Plata, east of Colonia, Uruguay. In 1989, after only a few performances, the duo released their first and onl…

"The title Composer in Dialogue stands for a biennial cooperation between the ICI Ensemble and a contemporary figure, the aim of which is to create a kind of 'work in progress' through composition itself but also by involving improvisational forms. P…

Joëlle Léandre : doublebass, voice. Phil Minton : voice. Recorded by Jean-Marc Foussat in Paris on October 2016. Incredible concert of these two great improvisers!

A study of contrasts as French improvising synth player Jean-Marc Foussat joins with legendary saxophonist & bass clarinetist Sylvain Guerineau, whose work in both jazz tradition and free playing finds him a lyrical and expressive player, bringing fl…

"Periferia is an ancient greek word which dérives from the verb perifero,i.e, to bear, bring about; Periferoalso means to let someone know or makesomething known to people, therefore to spread and communicate. Periferia as a specific area is the peri…

"Always at the helm, the sound magician Jean-Marc Foussat offers us four new releases from his catalogue. In April 2022 in Le Mans, this champion of combinations between electronics and acoustics brought together Emmanuelle Parrenin on the hurdy-gurd…

*Limited Edition* Pianist Takashi Kako brings a uniquely subtle and poetic approach to his instrument in this improvised music setting. Supported by a talented quartet featuring Keiki Midorikawa, Masahiko Togashi, and Masami Nakagawa, Kako paints in …

*Limited Edition* In the early 1970s, while studying contemporary music composition in Paris, Takashi Kako discovered and fell in love with free jazz, and soon became active as a pianist there. He performed with Bob Reed, Noah Howard, Motoki Takagi, …

*Limited Edition* Immerse yourself in a delightful offering of Japanese jazz from the 70s, featuring a straight-ahead approach complemented by captivating fusion elements, courtesy of keyboardist Mikio Masuda, whose electrifying presence enhances mos…

*Limited Edition* Pianist Shoji Aketagawa, the creative force behind the consistently unconventional Aketa's Disc label, presents an album with an unusual title that aligns with the label's distinctiveness. The material, while not explicitly erotic o…

Esteemed pianist Masabumi Kikuchi enjoyed a long and illustrious career in jazz that encompassed many forms. After playing in Lionel Hampton’s Japanese touring band, he played on five Sadao Watanabe albums in mid-1960s and backed Sonny Rollins before…

From 1960 era, Hiroshi Yamazaki played with Masayuki Takayanagi, Kaoru Abe, Masabumi Kikuchi, and so on. He plays from standard Jazz to Freeform Improvisation by his original drum sounds and now he put the focus on this unit called Tryangle. Also bas…

Japanese prog. irregular time signature drum master, Tatsuya Yoshida and crazy beautiful jazz pianist, Dairo Suga met and improvised first time at the venue “7th Floor”, Tokyo on 2021. This CD is the all recorded memorable live performance then. The …

"A critical point of explosive hardcore improv! A relentless mass of sound! The long-awaited first album of this hardcore trio, which has been steadily increasing its fan base by always running at full speed and radiating sound to the limits of their…

Collaboration between Japanese pianist Takehiro Honda and German saxophonist Gerd Dudek. Recorded March 1, 1971

Delve into the groovy sounds of a Japanese harp jazz trio led by Tadao Hayashi. Similar to Dorothy Ashby's small combo records, the trio, with Takao Kusagaya on bass and Koichi Suzaki on drums, maintains a lean approach. Hayashi's harp work, given am…

*2023 stock* A wonderful recording by Japanese first generation free improvisers Sabu Toyozumi, Syoji Ukaji and Ryoh Hara.

"A genuine ‘under the radar’ album known only to a handful of Japanese jazz collectors, ‘East Plants’ is now available once more, reissued as CD and digital formats. Originally released in 1983 on the Japanese VAP label, ‘East Plants’ is an essential…

I travelled to Los Angeles and the USA for the first time in 2019. Although I had not met Carlos Niño in person, we connected via Instagram where he saw a video of me playing a piano motif (titled ‘The One’ in this sequence) that he really liked and…

*50 copies limited edition* Consisting of Patrick Shiroishi on saxophone, Kevin Sims on percussion, and Lucas Brode on guitar, Spherule Trio is a (somewhat) newly formed group playing free and guided improvisational music. This debut release was reco…

Temporary nice price Eargong Records present the first vinyl reissue of Howard Riley's Flight, originally released in 1971. This landmark recording sees pianist Howard Riley with two of the greatest European improvisers Barry Guy on bass and Tony Ox…

*100 copies limited edition.* Mesfin’s recording career, captured in nearly two dozen 7” singles and numerous reel-to-reel tapes, shows the strata of the most fertile decade in Ethiopia’s 20th century recording industry, when records were pressed con…

Another one of the albums that Prestige would issue several years after it was recorded, Bahia is drawn from a couple of sessions that the iconic tenor saxophonist recorded for the label in the late 1950s, during a time in which he was exploring diff…

Svaneborg Kardyb are Nikolaj Svaneborg – Wurlitzer, Juno, piano and Jonas Kardyb – drums, percussion a multi award winning duo from Denmark, with a fast-rising international reputation and with an NPR Tiny Desk concert – number one on many artist’s w…

This is the one and only Rahsaan Roland Kirk caught Live in Paris in 1970 with one of his best lineups ever. A distinctive quintet featuring Ron Burton on piano, bassist Vernon Martin, drummer great Jerome Cooper, mostly known as member of the mythic…