Jazz /
Original Gravity
1988 release ** "This is what you get when you put three nutcases like Tony Bevan, Greg Kingston, and Matt Lewis in a room together with their instruments and a case full of toys to play with and turn the tape machine on. Actually, it was recorded live in 1988, so there was the concert's respectability to hold them back somewhat, but not much. This is free improvisation completely realized, articulated, and cacophonously executed in front of a live audience by a group of musical troublemakers wh…
Beches Brew
1990 release ** "Swedish drummer Bengt Berger made one masterpiece, "Bitter Funeral Beer", an astonishing world jazz album beyond category, that is as hypnotizing as it is guaranteed to move you to tears as well. On Beches Brew, he combines it all, great compositions, with great influences from Indian traditional music, alternated with more or less interesting Scandinavian folk, silly beer brawl songs and boppish pieces. The band consists of Thomas Gustafsson on soprano and tenor saxophones, Jon…
Waterway
2025 stock ** "The quirky acoustic trio of German improvisers Udo Schindler on clarinet, saxophone, cornet, and Euphonium, Johannes Ollinger on acoustic guitar and toys, and Dine Doneff on double bass, waterphone, and toys, the odd instrumentation adding surprising textures and disorienting angles to really fine dialog, technically, melodically, and eccentrically. Two preformances are captured, one at Pollat Pavillon in Munich, Germany in 2015, the other from Schindler's own Salon fur Klang+Kuns…
Hell Dunkel
2025 stock ** "Live recordings from Pöllat-Pavillion in Munich, Germany in 2015 from this seriously fun spontaneous collective improvising trio of Udo Schindler on reeds, cornet, euphonium, and monophonic analogue synthesizer, Philipp Kolb on trumpet, tuba and live electronics, and Sebastiano Tramontana on trombone, voice and whistling; expect the unexpected! "
Procession Of The Great Ancestry
1989 release (RARE) ** "Recorded in 1983 in Nessa's Acme studio in Chicago, Procession of the Great Ancestry is among Wadada Leo Smith's most obscure, but ultimately most satisfying, recordings. Featuring Kahil El'Zabar, Louis Myers, Joe Fonda, John Powell, Mchaka Uba, and Bobby Naughton, this was the first album to showcase Smith's expansive vision, which included all forms of black music -- from the myriad languages of jazz to gutbucket blues, reggae, and various African folk musics as well as…
This Is Our Lunch
1996 release ** "The recording debut of Affinity finds the quartet (Joe Rosenberg on soprano, tenor saxophonist Rob Sudduth, bassist Michael Silverman and drummer Bobby Lurie) exploring nine Rosenberg originals and Eric Dolphy's "Hat & Beard." The music is essentially free bop, with strong solos from the two saxophonists, alert interplay from Silverman and Lurie, and an attractive group sound. This music rewards repeated listenings and acts as a strong beginning to this important if underrated b…
Urban Magic
2003 release ** "A lesser-known set from the Art Ensemble Of Chicago – a CD originally packaged with an Italian magazine, now presented here on its own! The performance is from 1997 – and the group features Lester Bowie on trumpet, Roscoe Mitchell on reeds, Malachi Favors on bass and percussion, and Don Moye on assorted percussion – all in a style that shows all the relaxed, confident modes of the group in their mature years. The ensemble's almost more compelling here than on some of their bette…
Room 1220
1993 release (RARE) ** "Three stunning tunes featuring some of the best improvisers in the world today, all of them written -- yes, written -- by trombonist Albert Mangelsdorf. Interestingly, with a band this diverse and dimensionally articulate, the composer has come up with a program addressing each of the band's particular strengths. The title track, clocking in at over 21 minutes, is a study in the spatial relationship of tonalities. Even so, with its slow unwinding passages -- and interesti…
Four Compositions (Quartet) 1983
1993 release ** "Before getting to the music of this Anthony Braxton recording, the listener is confronted with a highly calculated methodology. The album bears the stark title Four Compositions (Quartet) 1983, and each song (itself merely a cataloged number) is accompanied by its own highly cryptic diagram. This sets up a struggle, whereby musical/emotional ends must be achieved through Braxton's analytical compositional means. For this 1983 session, Braxton selected materials from his collecti…
Dorgon Y Su Grupo
2025 stock ** "Released not recently for the underground 'Jumbo' Dorgon y su grupo will make us discover and feel no longer a solitary and difficult Dorgon or immersed in impromptu and meticulous 'two-up' experiences. Accompanied and supported for the occasion by Curtis Hasselber (guitar and trombone), Ted Reichman (accordion), his partner Laura Cromwell (drums) and Matt Moran (vibes), this phantasmagoric figure of 'metropolitan minstrel' will confirm his multifaceted soul and desire to push him…
Etchings In The Air
1996 release (RARE) ** "This encounter between Japanese mystic guitar/hurdy gurdy/percussion and voice demon Keiji Haino (leader of the power rock trio Fushitsusha) is a free for all of textured noise and plucked and bowed notes -- screaming, yelling, hollering, and percussion-like sounds that have nothing whatsoever to do with rhythm. In fact, to be perfectly honest, it is quite difficult to find a language in which to review a music that has no linguistic precepts at all. When Haino is screami…
Sustain
2002 release ** "It is difficult to think of this as anything but pure joy, although in some ways it is less intense than other releases led by the remarkable violist Mat Maneri and it is stamped with a cerebral quality from the start. There is a surprisingly charming density, too, that comes through on most tracks, though as with most of his work, there are few if any melodic references but instead a focus on color and sound. Maneri carefully paces himself and the quintet so that every note cou…
Kouartéto
"We recorded this CD in May 2023 on the magical Greek island of Hydra in the Old Carpet Factory Studio. The title Kouartéto emanates from the cover image by the artist William Pownall who in the true spirit of Hydra has for many years been an important focus for visitors seeking original artistic creations. And so, in this spirit. The music on this CD reflects a multifaceted response to a multicultural and open understanding of how artists can work together.
Every project involving these four cr…
Live At Jazzdor
Jazz Festivals have often provided the opportunity for a first encounter with musicians that were “on the radar” , so to speak , but for various reasons (often geographical) never came to fruition. Jazzdor in Strasbourg was no exception, and on the 15th November 2023, at the invitation of its director Philippe Ochem, the Trio of Angelica Sanchez, Ramón López and myself performed a set that continued my lifelong association with piano trios.
Ramón is no stranger to me and we have collaborated on …
Voyage À L'Intérieur D'Une Trompe
1992 release ** "Descriptive work comparable to film music or the story of Babar... First collective composition of the Compagnie d'Eustache by Jean-François Bovard, Pierre Cochard, Philippe Genevay, Jacques Henry, Philippe Krüttli, Jean Rochat."
A Sea of Faces
2025 stock ** Recorded in Milan (Italy) and originally released in 1975, Sea of Faces stands as one of Archie Shepp's strongest recordings of the Seventies. A highly varied program, covering Shepp's entire spectrum and performed by an all-star line-up featuring Archie Shepp - tenor & soprano sax, piano, vocals, Charles Greenlee - trombone, tambourine, vocals, Dave Burrell - piano, Cameron Brown - bass, Beaver Harris - drums, tambourine, vocals, Rafi Taha - vocals, Bunny Foy - vocals, maracas, pe…
Sidereus Nuncius – The Starry Messenger
*2025 stock* "It was at Ramón’s suggestion that we record as a duo in the downtime of another studio session, and perhaps it was his constellation of drums and cymbals that prompted the thought of a metaphorical planetary system. So Sidereus Nuncius - The Starry Messenger the title of Galileo Galilei’s short astronomical treatise published in early 1610, did not necessarily stretch the imagination unduly – there it was in front of me!
Galilei’s telescopic observations of the moon and other celes…
So It Goes...
*2025 stock* "Barry Guy and I first met and played together in a version of the Spontaneous Music Ensemble in the days of the legendary Little Theatre Club. The late John Stevens, visionary prophet of the coming music was the key figure at the centre of things who brought us together. “So it goes“ – John often used this figure of speech.
I was reminded of this when I was looking through Samuel Beckett’s Collected Letters, hoping to glean some titles, knowing that Barry would be happy with a Beck…