Jazz /
Jazz In Silhouette
Enshrined in the Penguin Jazz Guide’s "Core Collection", this quintessential platter of Sun Ra’s late 1950s Chicago ensemble showcases the brilliant tenor sax stylings of John Gilmore, and introduces Arkestra mainstays Marshall Allen, Pat Patrick, and Ronnie Boykins. Recorded and issued in 1959, it marks a coda for the bandleader’s bebop/hard-bop stage, as his interstellar traveler persona began to transform the band (and the music). Many of the early works on these recordings would remain stapl…
Divisions
A suite of four new compositions from Johnny Hunter, performed beautifully, stylishly, and most creatively by this trio of great players. The music treads a fine line between free jazz and free improvisation, areas where these musicians live easily and naturally. By turns exciting, textural, sensual, joyously cool. Johnny writes "The recording came off the back of the trio's tour where they were performing purely Free Improvisation. The interest is in how they would now treat some composed mater…
11th Street Fire Suite
11th Street Fire Suite is a post-BAG (Black Artists Group) classic. An emotionally ranging set of blues-drenched duets by alto saxophonist Luther Thomas and flutist Luther C. Petty, it's one of the great documents of the St. Louis creative music diaspora, a wild ride through turbulent and beautiful terrain on a slab of vinyl that's as rare as hen's teeth in its original form. Relocated from their midwestern hometown to New York City, Thomas and Petty entered the studio in 1978 with a fellow musi…
3D@Paris
Paris, marked by the passage of time - Paris, alive and cosmopolitan -Paris, inspiration to poets - The City of Light!
“3D@Paris” interweaves music with the sounds of everyday life in Paris. Let yourself be swept along on a dreamy stroll through the city. The charm of murmuring voices. The fascinating musicality of crumpling paper, the rhythmical beat of the Metro. The musicians respond, enhance, offset. There is a beguiling story being told here.
As a composer, Cécile Broché proposes a complete…
Mountains, Meditations, Murmurations
Two mountains, three meditations, and three murmurations, interwoven in dynamic duo performance, presented in order of emergence at the time of the music’s making. Tromans and Sanders have worked together on a number of projects in the last decade, including Tromans’ Birmingham-Chicago Improvisers’ Ensemble (as featured on BBC Radio 3) and Sid Peacock’s acclaimed Surge Orchestra, but this is the first time they have recorded together in a duo setting. The session was suggested by Sanders in earl…
Hidros 9 - Mirrors
Conducted by Mats Gustafsson for two 9 piece chamber ensembles, 4 soloists, tape machine, turntable. Recorded at the Avant Art festival, Warsaw, Poland, 2022. The monumental composition for 27 musicians by Swedish saxophonist, improviser and composer Mats Gustafsson is an in-depth exploration and continuation of the previous piece Hidros o.T. (2019), commissioned by NyMusikk Trondheim, inspired by the mirrored forms and visual structures of artist Mathias Pöschl. Controlling 3 different groups o…
Opus One
'The initial idea behind Ensemble E was to combine traditions of Contemporary Music, Noise, Improvised music, Free Jazz and other experimental music fields and traditions with the deeper music traditions. This is deeper research of traditional and non-traditional ways of expressing folk music of Scandinavia, Portugal, Poland, Ukraine and more. Much more. By putting them next to each other/ on top of each other/ inside of each other. Creating new ways. The instrumentation of Ensemble E is spectac…
Gomberg III-V - Airplay
Mind altering quartertone trumpet experiments from one of the world's most highly regarded and idiosyncratic players.
Space Is The Place: Music From The Original Soundtrack
A celestial journey is just what Sun Ra and his Arkestra have created with Space is the Place. Sun Ra's opus is at its simplest, a trip through outer bound melodies! Planetary bodies, eras in time, crystals, space caravans
Le Cri Du Caire
"Cairo, late 2013. In a city in turmoil, where the curfew had just been lifted after a second coup d'état, where the walls were still covered in dreams and revolt, where even the clubs of the city-centre echoed with anti-Islamist and anti-army slogans, I was deeply touched by the voice of Abdullah Miniawy at the 100Copies music studio, a stone's throw from Tahrir Square. A singer, writer, poet, poetry-slammer and student from the El-Fayoum oasis, this spokesman for Egyptian youth was shaking up …
Secrets
*2023 stock* Secrets is a jazz-funk album by keyboard player Herbie Hancock. It is also Hancock's seventeenth album overall. Participating musicians include saxophonist Bennie Maupin and guitarist Wah Wah Watson.
The album clearly followed from its predecessor Man-Child. As ever, Paul Jackson's basslines were critical, and the other regular member Bennie Maupin continued to provide most of the solos alongside Hancock. Man-Child had seen the addition of electric guitar to Hancock's sound, and Sec…
Paris 58
A never-before released Donald Byrd & Bobby Jaspar 1958 studio recordings. First official release with the full permission and cooperation INA (Institut National de l’Audiovisuel). Available on vinyl only. No CD, No Digital is scheduled.In July 1958, Donald Byrd made a lengthy visit to Europe, not returning Stateside until December. He fronted a fine quintet that gave concert appearances at festivals held in many countries, Knokke-le-Zoute (Belgium), Cannes (France), Sweden, Norway, Germany – an…
Stream
European fusion at its best ! Philip Catherine has been on the forefront of the European jazz scene since the sixties, working with the likes Chet Baker, Larry Coryell, Tom Harrell, NHOP, Stéphane Grappelli, Charles Mingus. At the age of 18 he toured Europe with Lou Bennett and in 1971 Jean-Luc Ponty asked him to join his quintet. In 1971 he made his first record under his name - Stream – with a stellar line-up comprised of Freddie Deronde (bass), Frédéric Rottier (Drums), Giggs Whigham (trombon…
Indo-Jazz Suite
The magnificent Indo-Jazz suite by The Joe Harriott Double Quintet Under The Direction Of John Mayer. Features Kenny Wheeler on trumpet, band leader Joe Harriott on alto saxophone, sitar player Diwan Motihar and more. On Indo-Jazz Suite's release in 1966 its four tracks – ‘Overture’, ‘Contrasts’, ‘Raga Megha’ and ‘Raga Gaud-Saranga’ – freeze-framed something in Indo-jazz fusion that was unique to Britain. The States may have had ‘happening’ notables like Don Ellis but never a John Mayer or a Jo…
Tapestry Koto & The Occident Sea
'Tapestry: Koto' is a 3-album series produced by Nippon Columbia in the mid-1970s dedicated to one of the main instruments of Japanese traditional music: Koto. The beauty of the trilogy curated by composer Kiyoshi Yamaya, whose chapters are respectively dedicated to Sea, Hillside and Country, lies in the fact that they are a modern translation of tradition using newer and more avant-garde sound idioms, integrating the koto with jazz musicians. An original mix, a 'crossover’ that allows for the a…
Next Door
Adroit jazz guitar, prog rock fantasia, and Japanese environmental music all rest comfortably behind Leo Takami's Next Door. The follow up to the acclaimed Felis Catus & Silence, Next Door finds Takami ruminating on passages — of time, seasons, consciousness. Through music, Leo contemplates daily events and finds beauty in ordinary moments. He also seems to be questioning the value of being stuck in the world, allowing his mind to wander towards something beyond it. His music is earnest, deeply …
All Of You
All of You is a live album by American jazz pianist Ahmad Jamal featuring performances recorded at Jamal's own club in Chicago in 1961 and released originally on the Argo label. Jamal's group had a personal sound of its own, often playing quietly and leaving space but never losing the passion. These versions of "Time on My Hands," "Star Eyes" and "All of You" in particular are well worth hearing. On the cover, photographed by Don Bronstein, one of the first staff photographers for Playboy magazi…
At The Village Vanguard 1961, Revisited
'Mention of Motian and LaFaro brings us to this disc, perhaps belatedly. But other than observing that the music is presented here following immaculate and unprecedented sound restoration, what more needs to be said about it? What more, usefully, can be said? The performances are as close to perfection as makes no difference, and as close to immortality, too, and if you are still reading thesenotes, you will not need to be told why.' – Chris May
Executive producer’s notes: 'Once you start to …
Mona Call
Two long-lost recordings from Marc Moulin's Placebo band, and it's earliest incarnation, Kiosk. Debuting unreleased outtakes from Placebo's second album, '1973', and the first ever official reissue of the proto-Placebo single by Kiosk. Originally pressed in tiny numbers in 1970 as a promotional release for Moulin's Sunday night radio show, Dimanche Musique, at RTB, Brussels. Taken from the only existing mastertapes, just recently resurfaced!
Phalene I / IV
*300 copies limited edition* Two long-lost recordings from Marc Moulin's Placebo band, and it's earliest incarnation, Kiosk. Debuting unreleased outtakes from Placebo's second album, '1973', and the first ever official reissue of the proto-Placebo single by Kiosk. Originally pressed in tiny numbers in 1970 as a promotional release for Moulin's Sunday night radio show, Dimanche Musique, at RTB, Brussels. Taken from the only existing mastertapes, just recently resurfaced!