Jazz & Improvisation / All styles

Lingua Franca: the language that allows different peoples to understand one another. And what better instrument than the clarinet - voice of klezmer, Alpine folk, New Orleans jazz - to speak across borders? Daniele D'Agaro was born in 1958 in Spilimb…

The title comes from Langston Hughes: "What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?" For a pianist who traversed Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Amsterdam chasing a musical vision few could grasp, the question is anyt…

Solo piano. The format that separates the genuine article from the pretenders. No rhythm section to hide behind, no horns to share the weight. Just eighty-eight keys and whatever's in your soul. Curtis Clark came to this music through Horace Tapscott…

"Trying to play serious music in an area as shallow and fad-driven as Los Angeles were too much for this band to deal with." So reads the liner note epitaph for one of the most potent ensembles to emerge from the UGMAA constellation. One hundred minu…

One album. One statement. One of the great mysteries of the Nimbus West catalog. Born Arthur Wells, the alto saxophonist and flautist who became Dadisi Komolafe studied under Horace Tapscott at the Cross Roads Art Academy, the educational arm of UGMA…

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 bo…

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 Elv…

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 …

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 a…

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…

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 …

Recorded on February 26, 1980 at United-Western Studios in Hollywood, Dial B For Barbra stands as one of the absolute peaks of Horace Tapscott's output for Nimbus West. Following his monumental orchestral sessions with the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestr…

The Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara, built in 1872 by local composer José Lobero, has witnessed over a century of California cultural history. On the night of November 12, 1981, it became the site of one of the most powerful trio recordings in the Ho…

"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'…

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 Wis…

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 fi…

2412 South Western Avenue, Los Angeles. A mansion the Arkestra members had taken over for communal living. They called it the Great House. In the late 1970s, Michael Session - the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra's tenorist - brought a young pianist name…

Twenty years in a vault. That's how long I Want Some Water waited before anyone outside of a Los Angeles studio could hear it. Recorded on April 29 and May 3, 1980, at United Western in Hollywood, it wasn't released until 1999 - a small CD run that m…

She kept notebooks. Spiral-bound, lined, 8x10 inches. In her beautiful flowing cursive, Linda Hill documented every rehearsal, every concert, every recording session of the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra. The names of three hundred musicians passed thr…

Seventeen years. That's how long it took the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra to make their first record. Founded in 1961 by Horace Tapscott as the Underground Musicians Association, the orchestra had weathered the Watts uprising, the ferment of the Blac…

For nearly two decades, Horace Tapscott and his Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra made music without making records. They played in parks, on street corners, at fundraisers, churches, community centers - anywhere the people needed them. While the rest of …

There's a particular light in the music of Los Angeles's spiritual jazz community of the late 1970s - something warm, searching, unpretentious. Adele Sebastian's sole album as a leader catches that light perfectly. Recorded in 1981 and released on th…

1987 sole album by Giacomo Verde's punk music-theatre group, released on red vinyl by Attack Punk Records. Never re-issued on either vinyl or CD. With original innersleeve.

Grant Green's 1971 Blue Note album of jazz-funk versions of pop, soul and classical pieces, with Billy Wooten, Emmanuel Riggins, Chuck Rainey and Idris Muhammad, recorded on 21 May 1971. Blue Note Classic Vinyl reissue, 180g.

Jazz-funk album by trumpeter Eddie Henderson with Julian Priester, Hadley Caliman, Patrice Rushen, Paul Jackson, Mtume and three drummers, recorded at Wally Heider in San Francisco and released by Blue Note in 1976. Classic Vinyl 180g LP reissue.

Joe Henderson's 1966 Blue Note septet album, recorded January 27, 1966, with Lee Morgan, Curtis Fuller, Bobby Hutcherson, Cedar Walton, Ron Carter and Joe Chambers.

Known for their exhilarating live-to-record albums such as last year's critically acclaimed Wood Blues and Giant Beauty, سماع [Sama'a] (Audition) is the first of two releases that will surface after [Ahmed]’s first studio recording sessions at North …

Giovanni Tommaso is the greatest Italian Jazz bassist and founder and member of the most important ever Italian Jazz Rock ensembles, the Perigeo band. Sonor entirely restored the full session from the original tapes found, and digitally remastered th…

Original French edition on Europa of the second 1981 album by Evan and John Lurie's band, produced once again by no less than Teo Macero.

Original UK edition on Island of the third album by Evan and John Lurie's project, featuring Marc Ribot.

Talibam! delights in creating music that cannot be pinned down within the safe-spaces of existing genres. With each new album, Talibam! reinvent their methodological palette in order to bolster a fresh clarity of joyous auditory surprise, something t…

Tip! "I stood on top of the mountain and looked out over the landscape. It was so beautiful that my chest hurt. The light vibrated, time stood still, and the contours dissolved for a moment. Everything had changed; I felt it then. I took their little…

Includes Japan-only bonus track "Blackman".  Comes in gatefold mini LP replica with obi and insert. The label behind Angel Bat Dawit’s amazing debut present a glorious side from persistent jazz innovator Jeff Parker (Tortoise), melding deeply soulful…

Joe Henderson's second Blue Note album, a quintet with Kenny Dorham, Andrew Hill, Eddie Khan and Pete La Roca, recorded at Van Gelder Studio on 9 September 1963 and released in 1964. Classic Vinyl 180g LP.

The source material is drawn from moments of pure improvisation, recorded live in performance, shaped as much by the room and audience as by the musicians themselves.

Original 1975 LP on Cramps' highly collectable DIVerso series with original innersleeve, with confident and superb guitar improvisations.

First CD edition of the 1975 LP on Cramps' DIVerso series with confident and superb guitar improvisations. With original slipcase.

Freddie Hubbard with James Spaulding, Kiane Zawadi, Joe Henderson, Hank Mobley, Harold Mabern and McCoy Tyner, recorded for Blue Note on 19 and 26 February 1965. Japanese UHQCD reissue, UCCQ-9650.

Original double album released by Morgue in Japan in 1978 with gatefold sleeve. a fantastic 2-LP set and one of the rarest Bailey releases. No obi as issued and no insert.

Very rare 1985 LP on Incus of tasteful solo guitar improvisations never re-issued on either LP or CD.