Jazz & Improvisation / All styles

Doble Mano a two-way street, or anything with opposite directions within one road. One-way and two-way roads, imperceptibly moving in one and opposite directions. Similar instruments but from different geographies mirror each other, evoking ambiguity and unlike realities. Likewise, composer, conductor and performers all mirror each other, reflecting the shifting sounds. Laura Andel: "One of the focal points in my search as a composer is the concept of identity linked to the search of ambiguity. …

"Teshuvah' reflects a first meeting between of two experienced veteran improvisors: Tim Hodgkinson (Henry Cow, Konk Pack, etc.) and Milo Fine. The career of Fine goes back to 1969 when he started The Milo Fine Free Jazz Ensemble. Throughout his career he was dedicated to free improvised music. I guess both gentlemen are more or less of the same age. Also Hodgkinson has a longlasting relation with free improvisation, as it was already part of the Henry Cow. They combined rock and free improvisati…

About I n : : t e n s i o n : 'Since a very young age, I have always been attracted to journeys and traveling to places not known to me. Last year, I watched a film from Mongolia about a dog. Once the dog dies, its soul is free to travel and wonder through landscapes and memories as a disembodied spirit. Each part of I n : : t e n s i o n : . is part of a longer journey, where you can hear, sense and discover different memories that a wandering soul revisits. Percussive, intimate, visceral, ritu…

Tania Chen: objects, toys, violin, piano ; Steve Beresford: objects, electronics, toys, trumpet, water. Pieces beginning with 'C' recorded by Tim Fletcher at The Bonnington, Vauxhall, London on December 18 2002. Event organised by Adam and Jonathan Bohman. All other pieces recorded by Steve Beresford in west London - pieces beginning with 'L' on August 7 2003 and the rest on June 12 2003. All pieces composed by Tania Chen and Steve Beresford. Edited by Steve Beresford in March 2004. Not to rub i…

Leopardo is a solo recording by the Portuguese guitarist Manuel Mota, who might best be described as a somewhat more fluidly lyrical Derek Bailey. Lovingly recorded on solid body electric guitar, his improvisations have the spiky quality associated with the elder statesman of the freely improvised guitar, but Mota's lines sound as though coated in oil, possessing a slipperiness and liquidity that peeks back at Portuguese traditions. There are very few extended effects employed, the guitar string…

"The Diary of Dog Drexel" is a suite of five movements, each of which programmatically portrays an emotional state from the diary. One of the ideas behind "Dog" was to thoroughly blend improvised and composed elements. In the first four movements "Conflicted, Pissed, Bummed, and Agitated" there are at almost all times at least one thread of composition and another of improvisation. The balance between the elements shifts steadily. Muddying the waters further is that many of the extended techniqu…

A member of the radical black nationalist US Organisation, percussionist James Mtume championed the Kawaida way of life, aiming for collective creativity linked to its pan-African and Socialist ideals. With uncle Albert and father Jimmy Heath on board, Mtume cut this intense modal jazz concept album in December 1969 with Don Cherry, Herbie Hancock, Ed Blackwell and Buster Williams, yielding a masterpiece of percussion-heavy jazz, with every player on exceptional form, the five extended tracks re…

Lucky restock, sold-out at source - "Don Cherry delves into Turkish rhythms, accompanied by his long-time Don Cherry Trio members: Turkish drummer Okay Temiz and South African bassist Johnny Dyani. The vinyl LP is manufactured in Istanbul under the guidance of Mr. Okay Temiz, the only living member of this iteration of the Don Cherry Trio. The LP has been remastered from original material housed in BYG Records' vaults by Okay Temiz & Mert Ucer and licensed from BYG Records, France. This LP featu…

"Sophie Agnel and Michael Zerang are relentless on every surface and in the diving pit of improvisation. You've got to hear it to see it to believe it: it's a water lily drum set in the soundboard of a pond piano. At times, it seems as if a single instrument is being played by two people, with razor-sharp clarity" - Alexandre Pierrepont

"We hear harp, electronics, piano, cello and percussion convene in clash and collusion, setting forth a dazzling array of sound and expression. Plains of disarticulation and misdirection are cut by moments of inextricable entanglement, where we hear discrete sounds fuse, instruments bleeding into one another, at times taking on the warp and weft of a companion. The recording is of an extraordinary performance of improvisational prowess by four musicians working at the very limits of their techni…

"This record has stark aesthetic shifts, going between bluesy and abstract territory. After the first two pieces, which “set the ends of the spectrum”, the others move between these two languages. What’s cool is that this allows you to pay close attention to textural qualities of Luciana’s playing. She gets good snap on her pull offs and picking. There is a personal quality to this record that comes out of the juxtaposition of these sounds. As someone who started with rock music and now improvis…

"As a band leader, Lugerner has released multiple albums to critical acclaim - Narratives (2010) These Are The Words (2010) & Live at The Bunker (2012). His compositions have been described as "a textured, nearly seamless blend of composition and improvisation" by Francis Davis of The Village Voice - while the New York Times calls him "an impeccably trained multi-reedist, with an emphasis on 'multi' - he plays clarinet, bass clarinet, oboe, English horn and flutes, along with saxophones...…

This trio is on to something extraordinary; full on furor brushed w thin melodic lines or rage contained in a certain kind of drunken beauty and bliss - all stumbling on towards the heard and the unheard - in a whisper, in a shriek, forces joined and disjoined....This trio is the whole in the never ending audible crack Johan Berthling: double bass; Martin Küchen: tenor and soprano saxophones, retardophone, flute; Steve Noble: drums and percussion. Recorded by David Carlsson at Gula Studion, Malm…

2024 stock. Dave Tucker says that he brought this disparate group of musicians together for a live performance at London’s Cafe Oto last March on “an educated guess,” predicting that the artists - Mark Sanders (Drums & Percussion), Pat Thomas (Piano & Keys), Dave Tucker (Guitar) and Thurston Moore (Guitar) - would be able to create something extraordinary through improvisation. The condition of their encounter would later become the collective’s name, an “Educated Guess” and the eponymous title …

Original release completely reproduced as faithfully as possible. Pressed and printed in Japan. A recording of a passionate live performance held in the northern land of Nemuro, which continues to be loved along with the first album "Tact." The title song is literally epic, like ice floes colliding in the ocean. Played by a group under the direction of the legendary Japanese drummer Motohiko Hino, the music is firmly in the finest modal way. The reed players, Mabumi Yamaguchi on tenor and Yasuak…

*2024 stock* ‘Live in Oslo’ is the sophomore album from Shifa, the outstanding UK trio featuring pianist extraordinaire Pat Thomas, celebrated saxophonist Rachel Musson, and sonic transcendent drummer Mark Sanders. The group derives its name from the Arabic word for healing and the music they make aspires to do just that. This album follows their acclaimed, Downbeat 4-star debut ‘Shifa Live at Cafe Oto’. Listen to ‘Shifa Live in Oslo’ and discover contemporary master musicians celebrating the mo…

Respected Swedish Drummer and Composer Dennis Egberth Introduces New Sextet in His First Album with 577 Records. If you love the era in which electronic elements began to enter contemporary jazz, you’ll LOVE what Sweden’s Dennis Egberth has been creating. The esteemed drummer/composer introduces us to his hand-chosen ensemble, The Dennis Egberth Dynasty, in the artist’s first album with 577 Records. The self-titled release highlights his creativity, painting a hypnotic soundscape that soothes th…

*2024 stock. 300 copies limited edition* Silenced is a project by Donald Sturge Anthony McKenzie II playing improvised/one take duos with legendary musicians. This second volume features duets with Elliott Sharp, Vernon Reid, and Bill Laswell. “Ramarley Graham is the first tune of Silenced II, and it features Elliott Sharp. It is one of those performances that, when I listen back, I think someone else is playing drums. That’s how great it sounds, to me. It sounds so good; it just has to be someo…

*2024 stock* "Look: one take is all it took - nothing fake or by the book. "Silenced" giving voice to choice. A cookbook for the now, shaking and shook.’ -Nels Cline "In Silenced Don McKenzie has reconnected contemporary improvisational music to one of the most crucial & controversial issues facing us today- the misuse of lethal force by those sworn to Serve & Protect all of us. I am proud to be amongst the artists participating in this remarkable project" - Vernon Reid

'High quality music to be enjoyed by many people all around the world, no matter where they are' Andreas Brunner-Schwer, MPS Records

Unknown spiritual jazz gem recorded in Argentina in the 80s, under the influence of Pharoah Sanders, Don Cherry, Archie Shepp, and originally released on Litto Nebbia's label Melopea. Already supported by Gilles Peterson on his radio show, this mind-blowing album combines ethno-free jazz passages and deep progressive compositions led by saxophonist Marcelo Peralta resulting a very impressive ode to the legacy of Coltrane. First time reissue. Includes extensive notes and many previously unpublish…

Phil Dawson, UK guitarist and producer, learned his trade with legends like South African jazz trumpet giant Hugh Masekela, Nigerian Afrobeat co-creator Tony Allen, Ethio- jazz pioneer Mulatu Astatke, and Ghanaian afro-rock dons Osibisa as well as a large handful of Brit Jazz and cultural fusion projects. 'Don't Waste Your Ancestors' Time'creates a new blend of Afro- and Afro-Brazilian grooves, high-level improv and dub, and boasts an array of collaborators that push the music in new directions …

*100 copies limited edition* As always in U Jazz Me Rec. there is 100 copies of numbered black vinyl and a colored vinyl version made only for the band's live shows. Both 180g vinyl records with insert. Twoosty Mayonez is a duo consisting of Bartosz Wolert (drums) and Kornel Karolak (synthesizers), creating post-jazz music and is considered to be part of the new Polish wave of this genre. The album is a continuation of the story begun in 2123, when Captain Harrison Focus, as a result of an emerg…

2024 edition - 180 Gram, Tip On Sleeve. One of the rarer records of the mythical Strata East. The 1974 recording of Earth Blossom, the John Betsch Society's one and only album, seems something of an enigma nowadays. For even though Nashville is clearly one of the towns in the US with the highest number of recording studios, who would have thought that the capital of country music would give birth to one of the forgotten masterpieces of 1970s spiritual jazz. The path leading to the album starts i…

For Those Who Chant, a record by trumpeter Luis Gasca that was published in 1972 and recorded at Columbia Studios in San Francisco, included a "who's who" of the city's A-tier musical scene from that time period with the participation of musicians. Carlos Santana and a pre-Journey Neal Schon on guitar, a rhythm unit consisting of Lenny White on drums, Stanley Clarke on bass (who were about to leap into a new band named Return to Forever), and the indefatigable Joe Henderson on tenor saxophone, t…

* Very last copies * Pressed on 180-gram vinyl; presented in gatefold sleeve. Cien Fuegos presents a reissue of an untitled LP by Peter Brötzmann, Fred van Hove, and Han Bennink, originally released on FMP in 1973. Peter Brötzmann: clarinet; alto, tenor, baritone, bass saxophones. Fred van Hove: celesta, piano. Han Bennink: drums, khene, rhythm-box, selfmade clarinet, gachi, oe-oe, voice, tins, homemade junk, elong, dhung, kaffir piano, dhung-dkar. Recorded by Dietram Köster on February 25, 1973…

Tip! The two recent Outspan 1 & 2 in a (slightly discounted) bundle. Joining their longstanding dedication to the back catalog of the legendary German imprint, FMP, Cien Fuegos returns with the first ever reissues of two towering artefacts of European free jazz / improvisation from the 1970s, the quartet of Peter Brötzmann, Han Bennink, Albert Mangelsdorff, and Fred Van Hove’s Outspan No 1, and the trio of Peter Brötzmann, Han Bennink, and Fred Van Hove’s Outspan No 2. Both recorded live in 1974…

** Black Vinyl edition **  A spiritual jazz masterpiece full of poetry by two geniuses of the Japanese musical scene. Masahiko Togashi and Isao Suzuki, pivotal figures in jazz with a unique talent and sensitivity that transcends conventional jazz forms and styles. In addition to being skilled performers they demonstrate extraordinary compositional talent that transcends their sensibilities and wisdom of more conventional jazz. They are together a wonderful combination of techniques, but without …

Black Vinyl. For more than 20 years, Cinedelic has gained a remarkable reputation for illuminating unexpected trajectories within the world of avant-garde sound. While the primary body of their efforts has been dedicated to reissuing unconventional soundtracks and Italian library music, increasingly they’ve been casting their eye abroad. This was partially noteworthy with the launch of their Orient Series in 2021, which endeavors to make seminal gestures of historic Japanese music available to a…

Extempore, formerly known as Ad Libitum Quartet, is a band located in Vienna, Austria. It consists of Mark Holub on drums, Villy Paraskevopoulos on piano, Vinicius Cajado on double bass and Werner Zangerle on saxophone. The band was formed by Paraskevopoulos for a festival in Graz in 2021 as a trio, after which they became a quartet with varying bass players. Since this year Cajado is the definitve fourth member of the group, himself being an outstanding bass player that is active with many diff…

Flowers We Are consists of the versatile, Serbian-based exceptional pianist Marina Džukljev, the sound architect Matija Schellander on bass and electronics and the cello extremist noid /aka Arnold Haberl. The three musicians move with equal ease, playfulness and elegance from minimal electronic sounds to melodic fragments to orchestral fullness. The trio convinces with the wide spectrum of its musical languages. Marina Džukljev is a pianist and educator renowned for her dynamic performances in f…

Sainkho Namtchylak is a singer originally from Tuva, an autonomous republic in the Russian Federation just north of Mongolia. She is known for her Tuvan throat singing or Khöömei. Her music encompasses avant-jazz, electronica, modern composition and Tuvan influences. Once the Soviet Union had collapsed, she moved to Vienna, making it her base, although she traveled widely, working in any number of shifting groups and recording a number of discs that revolved around free improvisation. Amongst th…

Duo a la Bibliothéque de Massy le 13 novembre 1980.

Fou has struck again. Jean-Marc Foussat has volunteered so much of his time to collect all this free improvised music in its most explosive, confusing and emotionally charged moments that his litany becomes infinite! Summary of A Century (in Memoriam Annick et Fred). The musicians: the career of Antwerp pianist Fred Van Hove is so special (and ultimately little known to cognoscenti) that it seems to me to be a symbol of openness, a quality intrinsic to this “kind of musical practice. In the mid-…

Improvised music from Sophie Agnel, Kristoff K. Roll, Daunik Lazro.

"A newly discovered, enthusiastically received 1982 concert from three avatars of French Free Jazz captures the triumphs and the trajectories of improvised music at the time. Veterans, even at that time, saxophonist Daunik Lazro, now 78, and known for this work with Michel Doneda and many others; bassist Jean-Jacques Avenel (1948-2014), a Steve Lacy associate for years; and pianist Siegfried Kessler (1935-2007) who had a similar relationship with Archie Shepp; are as usual expressive and explora…

From Jean-Marc Foussat own Fou Records, comes one of the most striking archival releases of the year, “Concert 2009”, capturing a meeting between the French electroacoustic free improv trio, Marteau Rouge, and Japanese noise giant Keiji Haino. Pushing far beyond expectations of free improvisation, the group weaves blistering passages that incorporate touchstones from prog, punk, metal, noise, and drone, into more intricate movements of dystopian avant-gardism, culminating as a strikingly forward…

"There is a landscape of sonic ideas, of banging, of entity, of new forms of stimulating the body and of prehension moved by our human, urban, maybe even cubist surroundings, or by the big wild country where, we say, music does what it wants. Unless, we misread and “music knows what it wants.” Both! With one stroke, knowing and doing unanimously converge into one. A point of intersection - there are so many - between the desiredl iberties and sublime agitation provoked by the embrasure of paths …

Sophie Agnel, piano, Daunik Lazro, tenor and bariton saxophones. Recorded at Dom, Moscow, June 22, 2016 by Maxim Khaykin “C'était à Moscou au déclin d'une journée printanière particulièrement chaude. Deux citoyens firent leur apparition...”   Mikhaïl Boulgakov

"This disc represents the outcome of an improvised concert from February 2000 featuring double bassist Peter Kowald, saxophonist Daunik Lazro, together with the voice of Annick Nozati. Having had to resort once more to Google Translate I apologise in advance for misunderstandings and mistranslations. Comparing the French to Google’s English I can recognise the correctness of it but suspect that the nuances of language have been overlooked. The liner notes start with Nozati saying that she does n…