Jazz /
Searching
** 2021 Stock ** Searching was self-recorded in Ronald’s living room on a 4-Track Tape Recorder in 1984. The recordings symbolise his engagement to cross-over everything that was known to him musically at that time. Most importantly, all recordings reflect his personal way of searching; searching for his own characteristic sound. Rhythmical patterns meet well balanced distortion, shaping the music into a mirror of his character. He was part of several Dutch Latin and Jazz bands, including Cascad…
Natural Information / Represencing
This special bundle collects both the Joshua Abrams LPs reissued by Aguirre, namely the following:Natural Information (2010)Represencing (2012)Since his emergence on the Chicago scene during the 1990s, the bassist and composer, Joshua Abrams, has woven a quiet and incongruous path. He is one of those rare talents who seems to place himself entirely in the service of music. Remarkably prolific, creatively ambitious, and seemingly indifferent to categorization or genre, it is as likely to encounte…
Piano Jazz Radio
** Edition of 103 hand-numbered copies. Gold vinyl ** Pianist and composer Alice Coltrane shimmers on a set of her original tunes and honors the legacy of her husband, saxophonist John Coltrane. She also duets with host Marian McPartland in Trane's "Giant Steps" and "Miles' Mode". Coltrane opens the program with two of her compositions: "Transfiguration" and "Prema". Her skill as a harpist is reflected in the sparkling, light treble notes of her right hand; with the other hand, she brings the br…
The Third World-Underground
** Edition of 102 hand numbered copies. Crystal, slightly orange/blue marbled vinyl ** A stunning little session – and every bit as wonderful as you'd expect from a lineup that includes Dollar Brand, Don Cherry, and Carlos Ward! The three players work together here in open, spiritual styles – with really long-flowing lines from Brand on piano, in a more modal style that's different from some of his other records – balanced out with bold trumpet lines from Cherry, and soaring alto sax from Ward –…
Descension "Out of Our Constrictions"
**CD edition** Rich in musical associations yet utterly singular in its voice, joyous with an inner tranquility, the music of Natural Information Society is unlike any other being made today. Their sixth album in eleven years for eremite records, descension (Out of Our Constrictions) is the first to be recorded live, featuring a set from London’s Cafe OTO with veteran English free-improv great Evan Parker, & the first to feature just one extended composition. The 75-minute performance, inspired …
Script Original
** Edition of 300 copies. Hard cardboard gatefold cover ** To Keith... “You were so afraid of death, you spoke about it often… often with lucidity, with reason, but this fear disappeared very quickly when you sat down at the piano… There, the demons vanished, The ghosts disappeared, the beauty s 'installed… Your piano, you caressed it for so long, barely out of adolescence. In 1975, in Nancy, you deployed nearly a hundred feet to play your music, this "Septober Energy", the energy that one has a…
Soul Love Now: The Black Fire Records Story 1975-1993
Strut present the first ever compilation bringing together classics and rarities from the seminal spiritual jazz and conscious soul label Black Fire, spanning 1975 to 1993. Formed by DJ and record producer Jimmy Gray in Richmond, Virginia, and following in the footsteps of other influential black-owned independent labels like Strata-East and Tribe, the foundation of Black Fire coincided with saxophonist James “Plunky” Branch returning to Richmond from New York to form Oneness Of Juju. The band’s…
My Pure Joy
"From A Love Supreme to The Sex Machine!" The personal musical mantra of the late Philadelphia reedman Byard Lancaster informed an open-minded and varied lifetime in jazz. Strut presents one of Lancaster’s lesser known classics, ‘My Pure Joy’, recorded in 1992 for Black Fire. Lancaster had initially cut his musical teeth with the avant-garde on New York’s Lower East Side in the 1960s (famously on sessions with pianist Dave Burrell and drummer Sunny Murray) and in Paris during the ‘70s after an a…
Live at 131 Prince Street
Strut continue their in-depth archive reissues from the Black Fire label with a definitive edition of JuJu’s ‘Live At 131 Prince Street’, recorded in 1973 at Ornette Coleman’s gallery in New York and featuring a previously unheard recording of the Pharoah Sanders composition "Thembi".
After forming in San Francisco while working on the Marvin X theatre piece ‘The Resurrection of the Dead’, JuJu began to hone their uncompromising fusion of Afro-Latin rhythms with free and spiritual jazz before si…
Augmented Space
Temporary Super Offer! Musicians as different as Bill Dixon, Wadada Leo Smith, Axel Dörner, Susana Santos Silva have experimented with the lonely, no-safety-net discipline of solo trumpet playing. It is one of the hardest avocations in music: no harmony instrument, no pedal notes, no supportive pick-up if things go wrong. Schmid seems to follow in that line and yet the solo performances on Augmented Space, for all the extreme discipline of his technique, seems very different to the artists abov…
Newport, New York, Alabama, 1963, Revisited
John Coltrane played the long game. Longevity in life wasn’t his lot; his fortieth year being his final bow. That circumscribed career, particularly in its final decade, evinced a trajectory of creative ascendancy that was as indelible to improvised music as it was omnipresent in impact. Charlie Parker arguably wears the posthumous mantle of most influential saxophonist, but Coltrane suggests a close contender in terms of ineluctable clout on those who play the instrument.
Practice and the pursu…
The London Musicians' Collective
The third instalment of Trevor’s accounts of the seeds and growth of free improvisation in the UK, The London Musicians’ Collective (LMC), spans a 30 + year period and tells the story of one of the most celebrated of all British organisations for the experimentally inclined. With many illustrations of LMC festivals, adverts, fliers, posters, etc, the book follows the twists and turns of this most polymorphic of collectives, interleaving these with contemporaneous societal, cultural and political…
J Jazz Volume 3: Deep Modern Jazz from Japan
**In process of stocking** BBE Music presents J Jazz volume 3, the latest in its definitive compilation series exploring the finest modern jazz from Japan. Since the first volume in February 2018, the J Jazz compilation series has showcased some of the most creative, inspired, and sought-after jazz recorded in Japan during a golden period spanning the 1960s to the 1980s. Illustrating the richness and versatility of the composers and musicians on this collection, the music spans a wide yet cohere…
Evolution
**In process of stocking** BBE Music presents the seventh release in its highly acclaimed J Jazz Master Class Series: ‘Evolution’ by Shintaro Quintet. Recorded in 1984 and originally released on the private label Streetnoise Records, ‘Evolution’ is a perfect example of stately modal jazz with every one of its five tracks composed by band leader and bassist, Shintaro Nakamura. A cut from the album, ‘A Blind Man’, was included on the BBE Music compilation ‘J Jazz – Deep Modern Jazz from Japan 1969…
Stop Over
**In process of stocking** BBE Music presents the sixth release in its acclaimed J Jazz Masterclass Series: ‘Stop Over’ by Hideto Sasaki – Toshiyuki Sekine Quartet +1. Released at the height of the electric fusion era, ‘Stop Over’ is an all-acoustic hard bop killer, sounding like the Jazz Messengers on speed. When it was originally issued on the private Smile label in 1976, only 100 copies were pressed, making ‘Stop Over’ one of the most sought after and rare LPs in the J Jazz canon.
Trumpeter H…
Animals Garden
**In process of stocking** The fifth release in the BBE Music J Jazz Masterclass Series has the perfect combination of rarity and exceptional musicality that inspires seasoned collectors to break out in a sweat. Animals Garden by Miyasaka + 5 was originally issued in 1979 on the cult private Japanese label ALM and is reissued for the first time in a 180Gram 2LP edition.Animals Garden was a one-off project led by master drummer Takashi ‘Bear’ Miyasaka and features a powerful and progressive jazz …
Topology
**In process of stocking** BBE Music presents the fourth release in their acclaimed J Jazz Masterclass Series: Topology by Makoto Terashita and Harold Land. Originally released in 1984 on the cult Aketa’s Disk label, Topology captures a surprising yet fascinating and engaging collaboration between a young Japanese jazz pianist and an elder American statesman of jazz.Reissued by BBE Music for the first time since original release 36 years ago, Topology showcases the extraordinary compositional an…
East Plants
BBE Music is proud to present another instalment in the J Jazz Masterclass Series: East Plants by Takeo Moriyama, one of Japan’s finest jazz drummers. A genuine ‘under the radar’ album known only to a handful of Japanese jazz collectors, East Plants is now available again, reissued for the first time as a double 180g LP, with exact reproductions of the original artwork, obi strip and insert. It also comes with the original notes fully translated. This reissue is fully endorsed by Takeo Moriyama …
Jazz in Detroit / Strata Concert Gallery / 46 Selden
**In process of stocking 5CD boxset includes poster, CD booklet, 5 CDs in cardboard wallets, housed all together in a clamshell box ** The radical discovery by Amir Abdullah of 5 two-track master tapes in the care of Hermine Brooks – widow of innovative Detroit drummer Roy Brooks – of the Charles Mingus Quintet recorded live in Detroit at Strata Concert Gallery is cause for some serious celebration. These electrifying recordings took place during Mingus’ week-long residency in February 1973. Th…
Location
**In process of stocking** Following on from the welcome revival of Lyman Woodard’s classic ‘Saturday Night Special‘ and drummer, Bert Myrick’s ‘Live ’n Well’ – which features the epic ‘Scorpio’s Child’ – BBE Records continue to dig deeper into the vaults of Detroit’s Strata label with The Contemporary Jazz Quintet album ‘Location’.
Working in conjunction with 180 Proof’s Amir Abdullah BBE are poised to unearth a steady flow of hard to find or previously unheard gems from the short-lived but con…