Jazz & Improvisation / All styles

Before Jimmy Smith became one of jazz’s most influential organists, there was A New Sound… A New Star (Volume 1)—the 1956 Blue Note debut that announced a bold new presence on the scene. Recorded at Van Gelder Studio with guitarist Thornel Schwartz a…

Recorded at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in Hackensack, New Jersey, on May 19, 1957, Paul Chambers Quintet captures bassist Paul Chambers leading an exceptional ensemble at the height of the hard-bop era. Released by Blue Note in 1958, the album brings t…

More early-1970s free music from the MND circle, taped mostly at Hamburg's Fabrik: Sven-Åke Johansson, Norbert Eisbrenner and cellist Peter Dyck with guests, on a double LP that follows Freedom Suite.

First vinyl edition of Last Exit's 1989 live recordings from Stockholm and Munich, with Brötzmann, Sharrock, Laswell and Shannon Jackson.

Reissue of Zo, the first duo album by Matthew Shipp and William Parker, recorded in 1993, with an epic Summertime, on ESP-Disk'.

Vocalist and violinist Alice Zawadzki makes her ECM leader debut with Za Górami ("beyond the mountains"), a luminous and deeply personal song-cycle that gathers melodies from across the folk traditions of Central and Eastern Europe, the Sephardic and…

A fascinating solo album from the Swiss pianist, composer and conceptualist best known as leader of the bands Ronin and Mobile, Entendre offers deeper insight into Nik Bärtch’s musical thinking. As the album title implies Entendre is about hearing as…

French clarinet master Louis Sclavis and pianist Benjamin Moussay in a spare, searching duo. Composition meets free improvisation in delicate, chamber-like dialogues. European improvised music at its most refined.

A striking album of new music from pianist/composer Carla Bley, whose trio with Andy Sheppard and Steve Swallow is now in its 25th year. Individual associations among the players go back much further: bassist Swallow first recorded music by Carla in …

Norwegian trumpeter Arve Henriksen and pianist Harmen Fraanje in a duo of whispers: fragile melodies, ghostly vocals, electronic shadows and open silence. Ambient, melancholy and deeply atmospheric.

The debut album of Joe Lovano’s Trio Tapestry was one of 2019’s most talked-about releases. The trio’s musical concept – the Boston Globe spoke of “utterances of hushed assurance, lyricism and suspense” –  is taken to the next level on its second alb…

Andando el Tiempo features new music of wide emotional compass by Carla Bley, and underlines her originality and resourcefulness as a jazz composer.  “Saints Alive!” sets up animated conversations between the three musical participants with striking …

Keith Jarrett's most tender solo album, taped at home during recovery from illness as a gift to his wife. Standards and folk songs played with disarming simplicity. Hushed, fragile and deeply moving.

A cornerstone of the early Nordic ECM sound: Jan Garbarek's keening saxophone over shifting, atmospheric backdrops, with John Taylor, Bill Connors and Jack DeJohnette. Glacial, majestic, carved from northern light.

Flutist Nicole Mitchell and percussionist Joe Westerlund, a former mentee of Milford Graves, improvise in a rural studio near Chapel Hill: looped flutes, mbiras, metallophones and live electronics, with no overdubs.

First duo album by trombonist Kalia Vandever and DARKSIDE guitarist Dave Harrington, recorded in three rainy days in Los Angeles: brass and guitar between drum machines, samples and quieter, intimate pieces.

Enrico Rava's Pupa o crisalide, with tracks recorded by three different line-ups, sums up the first phase of the Triestine trumpeter's solo career, reissued officially for the first time.

Live quartet of Keiji Haino, Otomo Yoshihide, Chris Pitsiokos and Tatsuya Nakamura, recorded at Goodman in Tokyo on September 1, 2024.

CP Unit in real time: Chris Pitsiokos, Sam Lisabeth, Henry Fraser and Jason Nazary between harmolodic funk, noise rock and musique concrète, recorded in Brooklyn in 2018.

Second CP Unit album on Clean Feed: Chris Pitsiokos with Sam Lisabeth and two rhythm sections, between Ornette Coleman's harmolodics, noise and Stockhausen.

The first CP Unit album: Chris Pitsiokos with Brandon Seabrook, Tim Dahl and Weasel Walter, jazz forms filled with noise and rock, recorded in Brooklyn in 2016.

Second solo alto saxophone album for Relative Pitch, eight pieces named after rocks, recorded in January 2022.

Solo alto saxophone: six pieces dedicated to Charlie Parker, Anthony Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell, Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy and John Zorn.

Double CD by the Berlin CP Unit (Chris Pitsiokos, Marta Warelis, Dan Peter Sundland, Luca Marini): studio takes from October 2025 and a concert from April 2026.

Slow, static forms for alto saxophone, accordion, synthesizer, bass and drums: the Chris Pitsiokos Ensemble between late-1960s Miles Davis and Morton Feldman.

CP Unit's first live album, recorded at the Moers Festival and at Unlimited in Wels in 2018: Chris Pitsiokos with Sam Lisabeth, Henry Fraser and Jason Nazary.

If you went looking for a poster-child for Chicago's multidirectional, cross- pollinating, interstylistic music scene, you couldn't find a better one than Jeff Parker. Parker: jazz guitarist with pro credentials, widely travelled and prized by top so…

Akira Ishikawa & Count Buffalos' 1976 direct-to-disc jazz-funk session for Toshiba, rebuilt from the best moments of the original takes.

Akira Ishikawa's 1972 Latin set with Count Buffalo Latin Beats, arranged by Naoya Matsuoka: Cuban, Mexican, Brazilian and Puerto Rican standards pushed through fuzz guitar, Hammond organ and heavy drums.

Karma is Pharoah Sanders' third recording as a leader, and is among a number of spiritually themed albums the Impulse! Record label released in the late 1960s/early 1970s. Although it is followed by the brief "Colors", the album's main piece is the 3…

Trost Records is delighted to announce the second album from the otherworldly improvising quartet of Tony Buck, Franz Hautzinger, Ignaz Schick, and Philip Zoubek, an ensemble now known as Pulsar. The new recording was made at a live performance at th…

The legendary Don Cherry with his great 1966 quintet featuring Gato Barbieri (tenor sax) Karl Berger (piano) Bo Stief (bass) Aldo Romano (drums) which can also be heard on three fine releases on ESP-Disk, and with the New York Total Music Company in …

2024 Repress. Masahiko Togashi was a pivotal figure in the development of the Japanese free jazz scene in late 60s. Percussionist and composer, he lost the use of the legs in an accident which nevertheless didn’t not prevent him from continuing an as…

Recorded over two December days in Copenhagen and shelved for nearly three years, Bjerge, Strand gathers Jakob Bro with Charles Lloyd, Larry Grenadier and Jorge Rossy, and arrives on Loveland Music on CD, alongside a limited double vinyl edition, wit…

Loveland Music presents 8, a studio recording featuring an all-star ensemble of Jakob Bro, Brian Blade, Craig Taborn, Chris Cheek, Jesper Zeuthen, Anders Christensen, Larry Grenadier & Marcus Gilmore, playing compositions by Paul Motian and Jakob Bro…

Loveland Music proudly announces the release of Live at The Village Vanguard, a remarkable new recording that brings together seven of the most distinctive voices in modern jazz. Recorded in the legendary New York room that has defined generations of…

Loveland Music is proud to announce the release of The Montclair Session, a rare meeting of four titans of contemporary jazz: trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, guitarist Jakob Bro, pianist Marilyn Crispell, and drummer Andrew Cyrille. Recorded in Montclair…

A powerful intergenerational trio emerges on Murasaki, featuring Wadada Leo Smith on trumpet, Marcus Gilmore on drums, and Jakob Bro on guitar. Recorded at Power Station (formerly Avatar Studios) in New York, this exploratory session unfolded spontan…

Souffle Continu Records present the first time vinyl reissue of Perception's Mestari, originally released in 1973. To finally become oneself: that was the lesson, in the 1960-1970s, that European musicians attracted to improvisation had learned from …

Diriaou (“Thursday” in Breton) captures the singular collaboration between Kristen Noguès-pioneering Celtic harpist and explorer of Breton tradition-and legendary British saxophonist John Surman, renowned for his atmospheric jazz on ECM. Recorded liv…