Jazz & Improvisation / All styles

“In the afternoon we performed in a rather austere theatre in East Berlin. Then I remember we crossed Checkpoint Charlie that evening to play in a club in West Berlin. The atmosphere was completely different. I felt as though we were living in a black and white spy movie.” Nicolas Fiszman recalls that chaotic day of 13 June 1982. Two outstanding guitarists, Philip Catherine and Nicolas Fiszman, who at the time was only seventeen years old, were taken from one side of Berlin to the other in pouri…

Tip! *Silkscreen printed cover. Edition of 200, hand-numbered on the back cover. Totally sold out at source *Muumiot is an Italian-Finnish sextet, which also features Ho Chi Moon’s Pekkola. Gau Ri Laa is a set of four songs, released on ten-inch vinyl and digitally. V. Genta - eceltric piano & saxophones, T. Kemppainen - double bass, S. Pekkola - saxophones & shrutiboxes, T. Tammi - trumpet, T. Tiheäsalo - electric guitar, D. Vanzan - drums  Killer stuff!

*In process of stocking* 'This album pays homage to being, existing, and becoming Ancestors in the Universe. It is a dialogue between an Elder Griot and a young Jali. The story is about each and everyone that gives life, becomes life and ascends through all of our struggles. It is in the House of Good Spirit, that we present an acknowledgement within the African Oral Tradition which represents who we are. A legacy of sound that will give everyone a message. Ashe.' - Neo Griot and the Afrocentric…

*In process of stocking. 2023 stock* Devin Daniels’ Trio Exposition is a bold yet vulnerable body of work that highlights his unique sense of rhythm and harmony through relatively obscure songs by jazz greats. Joined by bassist Logan Kane and drummer Christian Euman, the lack of a harmonic instrument gives the three musicians space to fully explore and push each other. Very rarely do saxophonists choose this instrumentation- especially as their breakout record as a bandleader.

*In process of stocking* "Wild, wooly, wet, wacky, and quite wonderful new outing from Discus’s primo sound-warping sextet, led by arch poet/spoken word maven Bo Meson. Eccentric is but one mild way to describe the spontaneous wordplay, improvisational acrobatics, and general weirdness to be found percolating across this bafflingly odd disc. Behind Meson’s stream-of-consciousness phrasing lurks guitarist Andy McAuley, synthesist Jez Creek, saxophonist Martin Archer, bassist Peter Rophone, and ce…

*In process of stocking* "Ostensibly ‘jazz’, but you’d be hard-pressed to adopt that term here, as the duo stretch the definition of such pat categorizations to the point where genre effectively becomes meaningless. Just gorgeous, pure music. Softly, as in a morning sunrise." - Darren Bergstein Music the listener can sink into, immersing themselves in lush textures, and bathing in the richly varied harmonies and sonorities. Ripples began life with an experimental session designed to explore the …

*2023 stock. Edition of 100 copies* Brodie West draws upon a vast array of experience to formulate his unique take on jazz. West was a member of Dutch avant-punks the Ex during their collaboration with Ethiopian saxophone legend Getatchew Mekurya, recording and touring worldwide. He's also worked extensively with drummer Han Bennink, appeared alongside the likes of Hamid Drake, Achim Kaufmann, and Sandro Perri while fronting the octet Eucalyptus and collaborating in the duo Ways with drummer Eva…

*100 copies limited edition. 2023 sock* When Christopher Shannon (of bands Bart and Possum) and Benjamin Pullia started High Alpine Hut Network, the intention was to explore cosmic extensions of house music. However with the addition of Jason Bhattacharya on drums, HAHN's recording sessions rapidly became a site of experimentation where members would generate raw material through structured improvisation and sheer spontaneity. Through this process, the project eventually evolved into a collabora…

** 2021 Stock ** Don’t let the date fool you, released back in 1983 this modal to slightly free jazz outfit from California takes you on a journey back to the late 60s and very early 70s, into the spiritual realms of greats like John Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, John McLaughlin and Miles Davis among others. A soul jazz treasure from the LA scene of the early 80s – a fantastic record that I rank with the best Strata East sides of the time! The group's led by alto saxophonist Dadisi Komolafe, and fe…

**CD version** New Rituals is exploring the relation between form and freedom, between modern Western culture and traditional Eastern culture, and between written and open musical material. The piece is written in three parts for (1) ensemble and a chant-choir, (2) ensemble, and (3) solo bass.The three parts are all rooted in and based on the same source material: 10 ancient Zen Buddhist sutras, or chants. The music is presenting Buddhist philosophy in a nutshell: What we experience as an indepe…

*Great spiritual jazz album. Blue Vinyl* Much-needed reissue on vinyl for this classic Jazz album originally recorded in September 1975 at A & R Recording Studios in New York and released in 1977 on Baystate Japan. Charles Greenlee worked extensively throughout his career with Archie Shepp who also participated in the sessions for John Coltrane's A Love Supreme in late 1964. Late in the 1940s he converted to Islam, changing his name to Harneefan Majeed; he continued to use Charles Greenlee for p…

The jazz giant Thelonious Monk is here featured in this live recording in New York. Monk is in his best form during this ‘Village Gate’ gig, along with famed session men accompanying him here and forming this solid Quartet - namely, Charlie Rouse on Tenor Saxophone, John Ore on the bass and Frankie Dunlop on the drums.  The album features three Monk’s originals (“Rhythm-A-Ning”, “Evidence”, “Jackie-ing”) and two jazz standards (“I’m Getting Sentimental Over You” and the immortal “Body And Soul” …

Recorded in May 1960 this is probably one of Lateef’s more straight jazz releases with almost no trace of his famous Eastern sound experiments. This is a beautiful and dynamic album based on a balanced mix of originals and standards including great numbers by Dvorak, Ellington and Zawinul and with Lateef who’s literally shining on both tenor sax, oboe and flute. A fine document from a master musician caught during one of the peaks of his career.

Before joining vibraphonist Terry Gibbs’ quartet in 1962, Detroit-born pianist Alice McLeod played intermissions at the Paris Blue Note and appeared on French TV with saxophonist Lucky Thompson, reaching Gibbs’ attention in a duo with vibraphonist Terry Pollard; in the quartet, she became the perfect foil for Gibbs, her understated piano making room for his intense improvisation, stepping up with her own expression when needed. El Nutto, their third LP, captures Alice at her best in this setting…

This is the dangerous tandem of Gil Scott Heron and Brian Jackson caught in action at the NYC Bottom Line in hot August 1977, just a week before the release of "Bridges" one of their best and durable efforts of the season. At the head of a super tight line up the two deliver a dense performance of politically conscious music based on unapologetic words and soulful sounds. Not just a stream of hits but dense, expanded renditions full of improvisation including timeless pieces such as "Home Is Whe…

*In process of stocking* "A magic dwells in each beginning.” The members of the freeform psych-inducing collective known as Spiritczualic Enhancement Center are of the same mind as Hermann Hesse on that one. Within the mythologically-rich universe assembled by the band - Transporting Salt - Enhanced Edition is a serious deluxe revisit of their most original encounters. In the five years since it was hermetically spawned, the group has stretched into an esoteric wave of musicians counting well ov…

What constitutes an unidentified sighting, the rarely heard "alien" clarinet playing of Joe McPhee and the ineffable electronics of Bryan Eubanks? Penultimate Press present My Undocumented Alien Clarinet: a strange sensual addition to the ever inquisitive McPhee canon. My Undocumented Alien Clarinet is a beguiling document of a performance held at Alternative Books, Kingston, New York, Sunday, August 6, 2006 under the auspices of the Pauline Oliveros Foundation's New Vanguard Series. My Undocume…

* Limited LP reissue, and the first time the album has been in print on vinyl since its initial release* Our swimmer presents a reissue of Misha Mengelberg's Groupcomposing, recorded in 1970 and originally released in 1978. Comprised of a one-time international free music supergroup, and originally released as the sixth production on pianist Mengelberg and drummer Han Bennink's ICP label, Groupcomposing has been largely absent from the history books. This is the case because the record has been …

Vi Är Alla Guds Slavar is the latest missive from the long-running duo pairing of Mats Gustafsson (The Thing, Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet, etc) and Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth, Chelsea Light Moving, Dream/Aktion Unit, etc).Thurston had first come across Mats' playing on a duo disc with Barry Guy and had assumed he was one of those older beardy European improv guys - Remember this was before the internet and everyone knew everything. Their first actual meeting goes back to the early 90s at Bl…

Adele Sebastian was an Afro American jazz flutist and singer, active from the early 70s  (when she was still a teenager) until her untimely death at the age of 27 (!) in 1983 from a kidney failure. In fact she had been depending on monthly dialysis to stay alive for years. She lived through and for the music and you can hear it on her only solo album “Desert Fairy Princess” which was first issued in 1981. The mostly acoustic instrumentation brings a very natural and therefore rather retrospectiv…

Limited Clear Vinyl edition, 500 copies! Originally released in 1961 by Prestige/New Jazz label,  "Straight Ahead" marks the last Eric Dolphy's appearance within a series of  fortunate collaborations with saxophonist Oliver Nelson. This is a great modern jazz album taking shape from a quintet studio session (all first takes) engineered and supervised by master Rudy Van Gelder and featuring: Oliver Nelson - alto and tenor saxes, clarinet - Eric Dolphy - alto sax, bass clarinet, flute - Richard Wy…

Composer Valtteri Laurell Pöyhönen presents his Nonet formation on We Jazz Records. Their debut album Tigers Are Better Looking is released 3 Feb and the ensemble features internationally renowned Finnish clarinetist Antti Sarpila, plus a strong cast of Helsinki-based musicians from several of the top Finnish groups. Based on the writings of British-Caribbean author Jean Rhys (1890–1979), the 6-track album is a melancholy, intimate chamber jazz creation. Laurell's music swings, yet he doesn't st…

Finnish bassist Antti Lötjönen returns in February 2023 with his second Quintet East album on We Jazz Records. With Verneri Pohjola on trumpet, Mikko Innanen and Jussi Kannaste on saxes, and Joonas Riippa on drums, Quintet East is a hard-hitting ensemble of Helsinki scene A-listers. The new release sees the quintet work with Lötjönen's inspired new music with remarkable spirit, spreading out on a quest for new sounds and ideas, and returning to base with a fresh batch of acoustic creative music,…

*2023 stock* "Even though they’re often neighbors in the rhythm section, piano and guitar are not typically a good fit for jazz duets. Some of that has to do with the difference between an electrically amplified instrument and a percussive acoustic one, and some with the fact that the close voicings pianists favor are difficult on guitar, while the open voicings guitarists love don’t easily translate to piano. But as Sylvie Courvoisier and Mary Halvorson suggest on Searching for the Disappeared …

*2023 stock* "This record documents long-term musical partnerships; duets with artists who have helped me refine my creative vocabulary. Yet my deepest musical relationship is with the bassoon itself, the kernel of my inspiration. It is the nurturer, the supporter, the quiet glue in an ensemble. It is awkward, huge, and demure. Even as a child, I was drawn to its uniqueness—its textures, timbres, and a sound that inspires movement. While I certainly appreciate orchestral playing in the Western c…

"This album is dedicated to those who recognize living as a heroic act: the occupiers of sunup barstools; the cubicle-planted; the ghosts of Greyhounds; the reasonably sketchy. A burlap hero is one who marches—consciously or not—back to the sea in hopes of making no splash, who understands and embraces the imperfection of being, and in that way, stretches the definition of sainthood to fit." - Nate Wooley

"I imagined the four ensemble pieces that begin this album as belonging to the repertoire of a speculative musical culture — one potentially not so far removed from my own — whose sonic and lyrical affinities reflect chronic, hazardous inundation, and mystifying betrayal. Without my realizing it at first, they became, in their own way, more-or-less oblique renditions of the Jerome Kern / Otto Harbach standard “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” an object lesson in the transmutation of weather and grief i…

*In process of stocking. 2023 stock* "I chose the name "Everywhere to be Lost" as a means of summing up the ideas behind the compositions on the record. My personal growth as a musician is one thing but my growth as a person in general has been a different journey that I want to reflect on through this music. There have been times when I felt lost, times when I needed to assess my purpose and direction in life, times where my self esteem, mental and emotional health has gotten the best of me and…

*In process of stocking* On November 8, 2015 Jesse Sharps, one of the great composers to emerge out of the Los Angeles progressive jazz scene and an early bandleader in Horace Tapscott’s Pan Afrikan Peoples Akrestra, brought together a select group of musicians at the Mayme Clayton Library and Museum in Culver City, California for special concert to celebrate The Gathering, a historic recording summit that had occurred a decade earlier at Cal Arts in Valencia. This album is a select representati…

Family Band is the eponymously titled 3rd release from this quartet of like-minded friends and collaborators. This is a band in the truest sense, with no leader contributions come equally from Kim Macari on trumpet, Riley Stone-Lonergan on tenor saxophone, Tom Rivière on double bass and Steve Hanley on drums. The group met while studying at Leeds College of Music in 2008, founding the band in 2015. The album was recorded over two days in early February 2020 by Tim Thomas in an old farm outbuildi…

Six years in the making, Micromotives represents a dynamic and empowering vision of real-time collective composition, created by composer Moss Freed and showcased by large ensemble Union Division. With improvisation and sociality at its core, this is dazzling and surprising music that shifts nimbly between materials and structural events, encouraging synchronicity and collaboration while giving unusually high levels of creative control to individual performers. The aim of the project was to engi…

On July 16 2021, Shiver (Guitarist Chris Sharkey, Bassist Andy Champion and Drummer Joost Hendrickx) met up with Pianist Matthew Bourne at his house in Airedale, Yorkshire. Hungry to make music following various lockdowns, cancellations and disappointments, the quartet embarked on a ferocious two-day journey of exploratory music-making. The weather was good, the connection was immediate. There was much laughing, tea-drinking and storytelling. In the evening, the stove was lit and we listened to …

This special bundle includes the latest two Souffle Continu reissues from the Palm catalogue, namely the following:- Jacques Thollot "Watch Devil Go" (LP, 1975)- Jean-Charles Capon / Philippe Maté / Lawrence 'Butch' Morris / Serge Rahoerson "Untitled" (LP, 1977)Jacques Thollot "Watch Devil Go" (LP, 1975)* Deluxe reissue, with obi strip + 8 page booklet, 180g vinyl *To write these few lines, we spoke to saxophonist François Jeanneau, an old friend of Jacques Thollot who also played on several of…

The Quartets album, Paris Smith and Kenneth Hill's first album together with original material. A truly remarkable underground jazz album from 1977 that sounds like it was recorded 15 years earlier, top feeling and very much alive. Paris Smith – vibes, Kenneth Hill – sax, Michael Smith & Donnell Lambert – Bass, Usama – Drums. Comes with new pictures, download codes and new liner notes and remastered sound. 

'On Unity, jazz organist Larry Young began to display some of the angular drive that made him a natural for the jazz-rock explosion to come barely four years later. While about as far from the groove jazz of Jimmy Smith as you could get, Young hadn't made the complete leap into freeform jazz-rock either. Here he finds himself in very distinguished company: drummer Elvin Jones, trumpeter Woody Shaw, and saxman Joe Henderson. Young was clearly taken by the explorations of saxophonists Coleman and …

** Carefully remastered and pressed on 180g vinyl. Including extensive biography & photos from the Schwarz family's archives. ** In the beginning of the 1970’s, Guinea-Bissau was a country broken up into many ethnic groups and at the heart of a war for independence. By reviving traditional musical genres as Gumbé and singing in guinean Kriol, José Carlos Schwarz & Cobiana Djazz established an immediate affective bond with their audiences. Through its music and the politically engaged spirit of i…

Unique and beautifully recorded, with a breezy feel brought by the synthesizers, Sacbé could be likened to what Azymuth was doing at the same time in Brazil. Available as a vinyl-only limited pressing Deluxe Tip-On LP, coming with its original printed innersleeve. Sacbé was composed of Eugenio Toussaint (keyboards), Enrique Toussaint (electric bass) & Fernando Toussaint (drums), three brothers hailing from the huge Mexico city, and their friend and sax player Alejandro Campos. Growing up in a fa…

*Limited edition of  300 copies.* Recorded in 1961 and released on Blue Note in 1964, "It May As Well Be Spring" is often considered as an ideal companion to Quebec's famous "Heavy Soul" . Here the saxophone player displays a relaxed set of standards, including classic songs from the American repertoire such as "Willow Weep For Me", "Lover Man" and "Ol Man River". Perfect material to express his warm, lyrical tenor sax voice while Freddie Roach on organ, Milt Hinton on bass, and Al Harewood on d…

**1000 copies** New Superfly reissue of French progressive Jazz rarity on private label with Teddy Lasry and Bernard Lubat, totally unique cinematic Jazz suites, pretty unique concept album! - strictly limited release to 1000 copies, printed in Japan, with insert and obi

Here's another beautiful example of the great impact of Brazilian music on American Jazz in the '60s. Vibraphonist Dave Pike, mostly known for his work with the likes of Herbie Mann, Bill Evans, and Paul Bley, displays a marvelous sextet performing music of Brazilian composer João Donato. Recorded and released in 1962 on the New jazz Label, and considered as one of Pike's essential albums, "Bossa Nova Carnival" sounds like a perfect combination of Brazilian sensuous flavor and Jazz-swing sensibi…