Jazz & Improvisation / All styles

Grey-area LP reissue, exact replica of the original * ldris Muhammad's legendary first album for Prestige, a great synthesis of the disparate elements that went into the era's Spiritual Jazz, Grooves, Soul and Free Experimentation and an indication of the many changes that were to occur in Black Music generally over the immediate years following the end of the 1960s.   "Parts of the second solo album by Prestige Records' house drummer, Idris Muhammad, are an even poppier affair than Black Rhythm…

This is the long-awaited new CD release of percussionist Masahiko Togashi's previously unreleased recordings, supervised by Mitsuhiko Sato. In this ultimate performance, Yuji Takahashi steps away from playing computer and synthesizer and randomly utters texts he has written (mostly from his own book "Kafka"), while Togashi responds with perfectly tuned percussion. This is the ultimate performance, a century-old discovery that shines brilliantly in the history of free music.

Third volume of Masahiko Togashi archives features a concert by a trio consisting of Masahiko Togashi, Haruna Miyake, and Yuji Takahashi held on July 8, 1989 at Fukaya Egg Farm. Supervised by Masahiko Satoh.

Recorded in Stockholm on October 25th, 1962, this session marks one of Ayler's earliest recordings, featuring a European backing group he assembled during his brief stay there, before returning to the States in 1963 and beginning his legendary run with ESP-Disk and Impulse! Though his genius was not yet fully formed, one can easily hear he's headed that direction, and this rare and long out of print recording is an essential piece of the history of one America's most uniquely lyrical voices on t…

The reputation of members of the AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians), of which Abrams is a founding member, has long been one of adventurous, dangerous, and difficult music. But in fact, much of the music created out of this organization shows enormous appreciation of the blues and earlier jazz forms. Sightsong is a splendid case in point. The album opens with four duets (two dedicated to Chicago legends Wilbur Ware and Johnny Griffin) which have a swing, a groove, and a…

Bush Brothers & Space Rangers sees Oneness Of Juju at the peak of their powers in 1977. Oneness had enjoyed two fruitful years with Black Fire prior to these recordings, breaking through with the African Rhythms and Space Jungle Luv albums. “When we recorded African Rhythms we didn’t use a guitar,” explains bandleader Plunky Branch. “So, when vocalist Jackie Eka-Ete and guitarist Ras Mel Glover came in around ‘75, that moved our sound into a more soulful direction. The drummer on this album, Ton…

*2023 stock. 300 copies limited edition* The cooperation between Bruno Vansina (saxes - see also ORT007 Vansina Orchestra) and Teun Verbruggen (drums - see also almost all on Rat-Off) makes the pivot of this trio that was formed at the conservatory of Brussels in 1996. They got their initial inspiration from the trio recordings of Sonny Rollins 'Live At The Village Vanguard'. The music of Miles Davis Sextet with John Coltrane and Canonball Adderley, and the music of Chet Baker had it's influence…

*2023 stock* Machine Mass started out in 2011 as an idiosyncratic MoonJune power duo made of longtime collaborators American drummer Tony Bianco (Elton Dean, Paul Dunmall, Evan Parker) and Belgian guitarist Michel Delville (The Wrong Object, Vegir). Hailed as a « feisty and rebel rousing exhibition that contains a surfeit of diametric contrasts and smoldering exchange » (All About Jazz), it has since then morphed into various forms and ventures involving guests such as Dave Liebman (Inti, 2014) …

When the best American sax player of the moment ( grammy, pools, magazines) James Brandon Lewis meets one of the most interesting French fretless bass electronic visionary Floy Krouchi and French avant-garde drummer Benjamin Sanz and they spend a week improvising in the south of France, they come with one of the best contemporary jazz album of the year!

Adrian Lim-Klumpes and Nick Calligeros originally met 15 years ago under the dynamic of teacher and student, respectively. After finishing school, Adrian became a mentor to Nick and 15 years on from originally teaching him the fundamentals of improvisation, they have formed this group together. This album was conceived in one take, with only one simple, predetermined structural element guiding them. Everything you hear on the album is completely improvised. Nick says: "I feel my musical approach…

This special bundle collects the recent reissues on Superior Viaduct of two seminal albums originally released on Vortex records: Byard Lancaster "It's Not Up To Us" (LP, 1968)Sonny Sharrock "Black Woman" (LP, 1969)"Warren 'Sonny' Sharrock died of a heart attack at the age of 53 in 1994. At the time of his death, many writers noted that he had recently landed a contract with a major label (RCA) and was perhaps 'destined for big things.' In my opinion, these writers missed the point. Although Mr.…

Limited edition One Drop color vinyl Cape Town, South Africa-based drummer Asher Gamedze explores relationships of time between music and history on his new album Turbulence and Pulse, out May 5th 2023. Gamedze’s critically-acclaimed debut album Dialectic Soul was released at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in July 2020. Around the release of that record, with friend and writer Teju Adeleye he organized and participated in a joint online discussion “Poesis,” with historian Robin D.G. Kelley …

Tao Forms is chuffed to present this exquisite new solo bass work by young maestro Brandon López.On moving to NYC a little over a decade ago, López began making himself indispensable within many creative music scenes, from the New York Philharmonic to the DIY basements of Brooklyn. As with all bass players of great skill & commitment, López has been prolifically active because he has been in high demand & has made himself available. The Cleveland Review of Books noted: “This is virtuosity as vo…

** CD Edition ** This previously unreleased album by the Horace Tapscott Quintet was unearthed from master tapes in the Flying Dutchman archives. Recorded in 1969 and was intended to be a follow-up album to the classic "The Giant Is Awakened" which was released that year.The iconic pianist and composer Horace Tapscott was one of the most unique and important figures in LA’s jazz world. This lost recording was produced by one of the pivotal figures in jazz, Bob Thiele, a leading behind-the-scenes…

Peace Flag Ensemble are a free jazz collective from Saskatchewan. Their sophomore LP, Astral Plains, arrives July 18 via We Are Busy Bodies.

100 copies, colored vinyl. This is pure gold for the electro-Miles Davis’s lovers.  The great saxophonist Gugliemo Pagnozzi directs his band in compositions built on improvisation flows that unfold starting from a minimally organized accompanying rhythmic cell in continuous transformation and in the making, which in turn is developed and modified during the executive-improvisation flow chasing instant dialling. Pressed at Optimal Media.

In the late 1980s / early ’90s, pianist Matthew Shipp and drummer Whit Dickey were young musicians taking part in the cultural ferment happening on New York City’s Lower East Side, a place where free jazz, avant-rock and all manner of creative arts and political causes were colliding and combining to further the area’s legacy of progressive action. William Parker – although just 2 years older than Dickey – had been part of that progressive action since the mid-70s, and was already a world travel…

*2023 repress* "Meditation / Resurrection is a double-album presenting a bounty of beautiful new William Parker compositions performed by two of his flagship ensembles, the Quartet -&- In Order To Survive. It was recorded & mixed live during a one-day studio session in late 2016. With the tone of the pieces & performances reflecting our current moment, this is Parker & the groups' follow-up to 2013's epic Wood Flute Songs box (2013). At the core of both groups is Parker's foundational bass toget…

Composer, clarinetist, singer and spiritual jazz soothsayer Angel Bat Dawid descended on Chicago's jazz and improvised music scene just a few years ago. In very short time, the potency, prowess, spirit and charisma of her cosmic musical proselytizing has taken her from relatively unknown improviser to borderline ubiquitous performer in Chicago's avant-garde. On any given night you can find Angel adding aura to ensembles led by Ben LaMar Gay, or Damon Locks, or Jaimie Branch, or Matthew Lux, or e…

In process of stocking. A new project by Chicago-based drummer / producer Makaya McCraven. An addendum to his critically-acclaimed 2018 release Universal Beings, which The New York Times said "affirms the drummer and beatsmith's position as a major figure in creative music," Universal Beings E&F Sides presents fourteen new pieces of organic beat music cut from the original sessions, prepared and produced by Makaya as a soundtrack to the Universal Beings documentary film.Directed by Mark Pallman,…

Atalaya is new work by bassist Dezron Douglas, and it is alive. That is, ‘alive’ in all the ways that jazz is at its best – as a pure and personal expression of Black Music channeled through time-honored traditions by a group of musicians who practice sonic coherence through musical unity. As Dezron puts it in the opening statement of his liner notes for the album: “Mysticism, Magic, Faith, Love, Power, Discernment! These are words that embody the creative process of Music.” Followers of contemp…

"Heritage of the Invisible II" follows Navarro and Holmes’s rise to prominence as members of free jazz collective Irreversible Entanglements. In March of 2020 in "The Nation" writer Marcus J. Moore said "Irreversible Entanglements’ fearless music takes to task the police, American politics, capitalism, and racism." The revolutionary ethos that drives Irreversible Entanglements is no less present in Navarro and Holmes’s duo work, though their duo finds them much more wholeheartedly and jubilantly…

Anteloper is the electric brain child of Jaimie Branch (fly or die, high life) and Jason Nazary (little women, helado negro, bear in heaven). Branch and Nazary have been playing together as trumpeter and drummer for years, since meeting at the New England Conservatory of Music in 2002, but in this duo both musicians include synthesizers to push further into the spectral space ship ether. With deep rhythmic passages, telepathic improvisations and effortless melodic negotiations, Anteloper pushes …

Highly Rare is a new mixtape produced & arranged by Makaya McCraven. It’s titled Highly Rare not only for the format of its initial release (a limited-edition run of cassettes packaged in screen-printed, string-sealed, firecracker red envelopes), but foremost for the context of the source material’s capture. The sounds were recorded to four track cassette tape at a DIY show packed into the confines of Chicago dive Danny's Tavern, a place definitely not known for having live bands, let alone…

Heavyweight old-style tip-on jacket with IARC obi strip and dome pattern inner-sleeve. Album insert includes production credits and vintage portraits of Jeff's father Ernie Parker. Best known as a multi-instrumental member of Tortoise and a pillar of the Chicago jazz and experimental music scene, Jeff Parker has been incomparably prolific over the last 20+ years while merely producing 5 albums as a “lead artist” (just 2 since 2005, including 2016’s duo recording with Rob Mazurek on Rogue Art). “…

"Head-spinning and heavily arresting free jazz cyclones and meditative downstrokes from American jazz bassist Junius Paul, following from Angel Bat Dawit’s incredible LP The Oracle on Chicago’s International Anthem Recording Company.“Polychromatic low tone poems, free form funk flight & Great Black Music turn the page to a brand new chapter in the Chicago sound.” Ism opens audaciously with the spiritual mic-check You Are Free To Choose, a track that features Junius Paul alongside Vincent Davis (…

Flowing water is an essential element of Earthly existence, a living force, a process of nature, a path-making which combines infinite sources mixing imperceptibly into a singular energy. It’s also a potent metaphor. A childlike wonder at flowing water’s presence and power, all the impressions it makes and creative neurons that it fires, happens to be a personality trait shared by Evan Shornstein (aka Photay) and Carlos Niño. The two producers/musical connectors may have grown up and reside a co…

Recording in Brooklyn's Seaside Lounge in 2014, these five previously unreleased collective improvisations bring together West Coast reedist Vinny Golia, performing on clarinet, saxello, sopranino, baritone saxophones with double bassist Max Johnson and drummer Weasel Walter, an absolutely impressive example of free playing intent and well-balanced conversation.

"Every gesture and nuance of [Dickey’s] percussive pronunciation is telling.” –Thomas Conrad, JazzTimes

Allen Lowe writes: In the Dark is a commemoration (sic) of the worst time of my life – a period of time during which, having been operated on to remove a cancerous tumor in my sinus, I slept for only brief periods of time. Sometimes I made it as long as two hours continuously, but most often I dozed off for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, maybe an hour – encamped as I was on my couch, trying not to wake my wife as I wandered in the dark contemplating the long night ahead. Sometimes I turned the televisi…

Allen Lowe writes: "America: The Rough Cut is my statement not only on American music and American song, but also my commentary on the way American musicians of all styles handle that old-time music and those old song forms . . . The old things -- not just the blues, but gospel music and pre-blues shouts and language, plus hillbilly/minstrel song and medicine show irony -- reflect a disinterest in the polite trappings of (primarily but not only white) society, an implicit rejection of basic tona…

Throughout his long and prolific career, Matthew Shipp has presented several different and impressive trio formations. Among the featured members have been bassists William Parker, and Joe Morris, and drummers Guillermo E. Brown, Whit Dickey, and Susie Ibarra. In 2015, two other premier players, bassist Michael Bisio, and drummer Newman Taylor Baker stepped in as the rhythm section on The Conduct of Jazz (Thirsty Ear). Their fourth album as a unit, World Construct makes the group the most enduri…

Another legendary one out @Superior Viaduct, the super rare (and amazing) debut by sax / flute player Byard Lancaster on Atlantic's subsidiary label Vortex dedicated to avant-garde jazz. Featuring Sonny Sharrock on guitar. Quoting the Andy Beta's brilliant review on Pitchfork "When John Coltrane succumbed to cancer in 1967, free jazz/fire music was sucked into a giant vacuum along with him. A patron of music and patron saint to so many of its players, there was a crossroads left in his wake. Ele…

An extraordinary piece of energy music that goes way beyond jazz. A legendary album produced by Herbie Mann and originally released in 1969 on the Atco subsidiary Vortex. Sonny Sharrock (and his wife Linda) recorded these tracks with a cast of New York free jazz all-stars including pianist Dave Burrell, drummer Milford Graves, trumpeter Teddy Daniel, and bassist Norris Jones among the others. A radical album with uncompromising blasts of atonal electric guitar, free-form sonic explorations, ecce…

Aerophonic Records presents The Covid Tapes by Dave Rempis, Tomeka Reid, Joshua Abrams, Tim Daisy and Tyler Damon. All music recorded between May and September 2020 during the COVID era. Solo tracks recorded by Dave Rempis at Unity Lutheran Church, Chicago. Rempis/Daisy Duo recorded by Dave Zuchowski at the Sugar Maple, Milwaukee. Rempis/Reid/Abrams, Rempis/Abrams/Damon, and Rempis/Damon recorded by Matt Butchko at Margate Park, Chicago. Mixed and mastered by Dave Zuchowski. Design by Johnathan …

*222 copies limited release* In the tradition of toddler crayon scribbles on perfectly painted bedroom walls, multi-freshness composer Ben LaMar Gay expands on the teachings of Alabama star spirits and presents a collection of work involving sound, fabric, movement, rivers, shadows, Lagosian memories, light and listening. 'Certain Reveries' is a long-form composition by Gay, performed in duo with percussionist Tommaso Moretti. It was originally filmed by Chris Strong for EFG London Jazz Fest’s 2…

Dave Rempis and Tim Daisy are two musicians whose work together over the last 25 years has been the cornerstone of countless improvising bands: Triage, Vandermark Five, Rempis Percussion Quartet, The Engines, Earscratcher, and their longstanding duo, to name a few. Over the last decade they’ve purposely found ways to shake their interaction up, reconstructing and redefining the possibilities to keep the music moving forward. Part of that approach has involved bringing in countless musicians as g…

*First pressing of 200 copies*  Andreas Røysum (clarinet, bass clarinet), Christian Meaas Svendsen (double bass), Kresten Osgood (drums).Art & design by Dylan Marcus McConnell

Psychic Ills keyboardist, Brent Cordero and Sunwatchers bassist, Peter Kerlin’s, first full length collab A Sublime Madness is the culmination of decades of circling each other's creative orbits. After years of casual jamming, numerous fledgling one offs, and touring sideman gigs (ibrighden addition to Sunwatchers, Kerlin was also Chris Forsyth’s long time bass player and in the John Dwyer helmed improv project, Bent Arcana. Cordero worked for years with Psychic Ills and Mike Wexler among others…

What is a standard to a forest? What makes that different to what’s a standard, in that jazz classic compositional sense, to a desert? To a city? To a suburb? To a plain? A wetland? A grove? The only thing standard in a forest, like any other environment, is the search for balance. Nature seeks an equilibrium and, given enough time, it finds it. It’s the only way to ensure survival and growth. For three albums, David Lord has been exploring this idea, seeking out some sense of the ethereal, with…