Jazz & Improvisation / All styles

* Gatefold with session photos. Hype sticker. HQ Virgin Vinyl 180 gram. 2020 Stock * "Very few albums can match this Miles Davis's 1959 classic, often considered the greatest album in the history of jazz. Backed by an exquisite combo, this is an essential recording even for those who don't listen to jazz. With Davis himself on trumpet, Julian "Cannonball" Adderley on alto saxophone, John Coltrane on tenor saxophone, Wynton Kelly and Bill Evans on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Jimmy Cobb on d…

Distinguished Los Angeles-based jazz pianist Horace Tapscott is probably best-known as the founder of the Pan-Afrikan People’s Orchestra of PAPA, also known as The Ark, though he began his career as a trombonist, working with Lionel Hampton and others during the late 1950s. The 1978 solo album, Songs Of The Unsung, released in small number on pianist Toshiya Taenaka’s Interplay label, features Tapscott alone on piano, delivering a superb set of freely interpreted jazz tunes, including an unfette…

Superb performance recorded in Paris, March 1967, and broadcast on French radio station ORTF.From the very beginning, Los Angeles-raised Don Cherry (1936) displayed an anti-virtuoso attitude that contrasted with the ruling dogmas of jazz music. Cherry shunned both acrobatic exhibitions and radical experiments in favor of humility and pathos (thus appealing more to the rock crowd than to the jazz crowd). His style focused on the idiosyncratic timbres of his pocket trumpet and on languid phrases t…

Small repress available, in process of stocking. The mid 80s were a pivotal period for Don Cherry. Much of his energies had been devoted to co-op projects like Codona and Old and New Dreams and he also helped jumpstart the Leaders. The time being ripe to form his own ensemble, Cherry created Nu, a quintet with saxophonist/flutist Carlos Ward, bassist Mark Helias, percussionist Nana Vasconcelos and drummer Ed Blackwell. Live at the Bracknell Jazz Festival, 1986 confirms Nu to be an ensemble that …

** In process of stocking ** Craftman Records presents Tomorrow by Hideo Ichikawa Trio. Recorded July 27 & August 17, 1976 at Epicurus Studio, Tokyo. Art Direction – Ben Nishizawa, Bass, Cello, Percussion [Kokiriko], Shaker – Isoo Fukui, Drums, Cowbell, Agogô [Au-go-go], Bells – Hideo Yamaki, Engineer [Recording] – Yoshihiko Kannari, Piano [Yamaha], Electric Piano [Fender Rhodes], Recorder, Bells [Wind-bell], Tambourine, Quena, Wood Block [Wood Brocks], Maracas, Composed By – Hideo Ichikawa, Pro…

** In process of stocking ** Craftman Records presents Samba De Sun by "Sleepy" Matsumoto Quartet. Recorded on March, 18 & 19, 1979. Bass – Takashi Mizuhashi, Drums – Hideo Sekine, Piano – Hideo Ichikawa, Tenor Saxophone – Sleepy Matsumoto.

** In process of stocking ** Craftman Records presents Back to the Sea by Bingo Miki and Inner Galaxy Orchestra. Recorded at Epicurus studio, Tokyo, Japan on June 20, 27, 28 & 29 1978. Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar – Masatsugu Matsumoto, Alto Saxophone, Tenor Saxophone, Clarinet – Kenji Mori, Bass Guitar – Yukinori Narishige, Bass Trombone – Sumio Okada, Bassoon – Josuke Ohata, Clarinet, Soprano Saxophone, Alto Saxophone – Masao Suzuki, Composed By, Liner Notes – Bingo Miki, Double Bass – Mit…

** In process of stocking ** Craftman Records presents Sei Shonagon by Jimmy, Yoko & Shin. Produced For Three Blind Mice Records, Inc. Recorded June 22, 23, 1978 at AOI Studio Tokyo. Acoustic Guitar, Electric Bass, Vocals – Jimmy Shironaga, Drums, Congas, Bongos, Wood Block, Electronic Drums [Moog Drum], Synthesizer [Mini Moog], Percussion, Vocals – Shin Okabe, Liner Notes – いソノてルヲ, Piano [Steinway], Electric Piano [Yamaha CP-30], Organ [Yamaha YC-30 Combo], Synthesizer [Yamaha CS-60 Combo, Mino…

** In process of stocking ** Craftman Records presents Lover Man by Yoshio Otomo and Hidefumi Toki Alto-Madness. Recorded May 26, 1975. Alto Saxophone – Hidefumi Toki, Yoshio Otomo, Art Direction – Ben Nishizawa, Bass – Nobuyoshi Ino, Drums – Steve Jackson, Engineer – Yoshihiko Kannari, Guitar – Kazumi Watanabe, Producer – Takeshi Fujii.

** In process of stocking ** Craftman records presents Greensleeves by Shoji Yokouchi Trio Plus Yuri Tashiro. Art Direction – Ben Nishizawa, Bass – Kunimitsu Inaba, Drums – Hajime Ishimatsu, Electric Guitar – Shoji Yokouchi, Engineer [Cutting Engineer] – Mitsuharu Kobayashi, Guitar [Folk Guitar] – Shoji Yokouchi, Guitar [Gut Guitar] – Shoji Yokouchi, Liner Notes – 岩浪洋三, Organ [Hammond] – Yuri Tashiro, Producer – Takeshi "Tee" Fujii, Recorded By – Yoshihiko Kannari.

** In process of stocking ** Craftman records presents Maya by Shunzo Ohno Quintet. Recorded July 22 and 23, 1991. Alto Saxophone – Steve Wilson, Bass – James Genus, Drums – Billy Drummond, Engineer – Michael McDonald, Flugelhorn – Shunzo Ohno, Mastered By – Yoshio Kobayashi, Piano – Renee Rosnes, Producer, Liner Notes, Photography By – Takeshi "Tee" Fujii, Tabla – Ray Spiegel, Trumpet – Shunzo Ohno.

**300 copies** Reptiles was recorded on 14th November, 2017 at Splendor, Amsterdam, Netherlands by Marc Schots. Bones are Ziv Taubenfeld - bass clarinet, Shay Hazan - double bass, Nir Sabag - drums. Mixed by Marc Schots. Mastered by Arūnas Zujus at MAMAstudios. Design by Oskaras Anosovas.

** 2021 Stock. In process of stocking ** Craftman Records presents Fine and Mellow by Shigeko Toya. Recorded May 17, 18, and 24, 1973. Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar – Masayuki Takayanagi, Alto Saxophone – Akitoshi Igarashi, Art Direction – Ben Nishizawa, Bass – Takashi Mizuhashi, Drums – Tetsujiro Obara, Engineer [Recording] – Yoshihiko Kannari, Piano – Masaru Imada, Producer – Takeshi Fujii, Vocals, Piano – Shigeko Toya.

** 2021 Stock. In process of stocking ** Craftman Records presents Concierto de Aranjuez by Hideto Kanai Quintet. Recorded November 2, 1978. Alto Saxophone, Tenor Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone – Mikinori Fujiwara, Bass – Hideto Kanai, Drums – Michael Reznikoff, Piano – Yoshito Osawa, Tenor Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone – Toshihiko Inoue.

** 2021 Stock. In process of stocking ** Craftman Records presents Shuko Mizuno's "Jazz Orchestra '73". Recorded August 23, 1973 (Part 1), and September 2, 1973 (Part 2). Alto Saxophone – Isao Kimura, Kazumi Oguro, Baritone Saxophone – Shigeru Hirano, Drums – Isao Yomoda, Electric Bass – Masaaki Ito, Tenor Saxophone – Mamoru Mori, Seiji Inoue, Trombone – Masamichi Uetaka, Takahide Uchida, Takashi Hayakawa, Teruhiko Kataoka, Trumpet – Kazumi Takeda, Shuji Atsuta, Shin Kazuhara, Yoshikazu Kishi.

** 2021 Stock. In process of stocking ** Craftman Records presents Touch by Isao Suzuki & His Fellows. Recorded November 20 and 26, 1975. Art Direction – Ben Nishizawa, Bass – Isao Suzuki, Congas – Yoichi Ogawa, Drums – Tetsujiro Obara, Engineer [Recording Engineer] – Yoshihiko Kannari, Guitar – Kazumi Watanabe, Masayuki Ise, Liner Notes – いソノてルヲ, Piano – Kunihiko Sugano, Producer – Isao Suzuki, Takeshi Fujii.

** 2021 Stock. In process of stocking ** Craftman Records presents Scandinavian Suite 三木敏悟 / Reissue album from Bingo Miki, Tatsuya Takahashi & The Tokyo Union. Originally released by Three Blind Mice in 1977. Recorded May, 15 and 22, 1977.

** 2021 Stock. In process of stocking ** Craftman Records presents Live At The Misty by Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio. Recorded live on December 25, 1974. Tsuyoshi Yamamoto: Grand Piano, Akira Daiyoshi: Ac-Bass, Toshio Osumi: Drums, Koji Moriyama: Congas.

** 2021 Stock. In process of stocking ** A live recording of 1974 released by Hokkaido-born bassist Takashi Mizuhashi from [Three Blind Mice] in his own group after working for Masaru Imada and Isao Suzuki. Seiichi Nakamura (TS) and Shigeharu Mukai (T) participated in the quartet of Yoshio Otomo (AS), Fumio Karashima (P), and Hideo Sekine (D) only for B1 "Sugar". Includes the hit song A1 "When A Man Loves A Woman" sung by Percy Sledge in 1966, and A2 "So What", a thrilling performance of Miles D…

** 2021 Stock. In process of stocking ** Craftman Records presents Debut by Takao Uematsu Quartet/Quintet. Art Direction – Ben Nishizawa, Bass – Yoshio Suzuki, Drums – George Ohtsuka, Electric Piano [Fender Piano] – Sadayasu Fujii, Engineer [Recording Engineer] – Yoshihiko Kannari, Producer – Takeshi Fujii, Tenor Saxophone – Takao Uematsu, Trombone – Takashi Imai.

In process of stocking. Craftman presents a live concert by New Direction recorded at Jazzbed, Tokyo on September 27, 1970. The album includes 2 tracks performed by Masayuki Takayanagi - Guitar, Kaoru Abe - Alto Saxophone, Bass Clarinet, Performer, and Hiroshi Yamazaki - Drums, Percussion. Masayuki 'Jojo' Takayanagi was a Japanese jazz / free improvisational musician. He was active in the Japanese jazz scene from the late 1950s. Was one of the earliest noise guitar improvisers, and the first (wi…

Jinya Disc presents Masayuki Takayanagi Archive 1. The equivalent of the long-out-of-print box, reprinted in simple CDs on standard slimline cases,  without any booklet. Recording studios: Jean-Jean, Shibuya, Pulcinella, Shibuya. Bass – Nobuyoshi Ino (tracks: 5-1 to 5-4), Clarinet, Flute, Alto Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone – Kenji Mori (tracks: 5-1 to 5-4), Electric Guitar, Acoustic Guitar [Gut] – Akira Iijima, Masayuki Takayanagi, Engineer [整音] – 小島幸雄, Flute, Clarinet, Alto Saxophone, Soprano Sa…

Conny Bauer, trombone. Johannes Bauer, trombone. Barry Guy, doublebass. Jean-Noël Cognard, drums. Another meeting organised by Mister Jean-Noël Cognard. Here he got some of the best European free improvisation musicians. A very nice yellow box with 3 LPs recorded in 2012, studio and live. Including a serie of photos from Philippe Renaud. Recorded and mixed by Patrick Müller. Limited to 300 copies."Released in 2013 but recorded in February 2012 is this improv sprawler featuring bassist Barry Guy …

**Edition of 300, deluxe Purple tissue box** After “Brigantin” & “L’étau”, here’s the third and last boxset from Bloc Thyristors. Another meeting of free improvisors around the drummer Jean-Noël Cognard (also head of the record label) may be more under jazz influence than the previous ones.Mark Charig : trumpet, alto tuba. Michel Pilz : bass clarinet. Quentin Rollet : alto and sopranino saxophones. Marcio Mattos : double bass, electronics. Jean-Noël Cognard : drums, percussion. Two black records…

**to be released on 29.05.2020** "WRWTFWW Records is proud to announce the official reissue of Motohiko Hamase’s extremely rare live album Anecdote (recorded in 1987). The album is sourced from original masters and available on vinyl (double LP) for the first time ever as well as on CD. It comes with liner notes from the artist. This marks the sixth release from the Esplanade Series which focuses on the works of Yoshio Ojima, Motohiko Hamase and Satsuki Shibano.Anecdote was recorded live June 12…

Genius work from the Detroit underground of the 70s – one of the greatest records ever on the now-famous Tribe Records label, and a masterpiece of soul, jazz, and righteous spirit! The session's headed by tenor player Wendell Harrison – and it's got an all-star Motor City lineup that includes Marcus Belgrave on trumpet, Phil Ranelin on trombone, Jeamel Lee on vocals, Charles Eubanks on electric piano, and Charles Moore on flugel horn.The tracks have a spacious spiritual approach that recalls som…

**2019 stock** 140-gram LP in gatefold sleeve with a special drawing by Mazen Kerbaj + bonus 7". Mastered for vinyl by Harris Newman. Edition of 500. Entirely recorded at Tunefork Studios on the outskirts of Beirut, Burj al Imam's five tracks include three largely improvised numbers, a loose reworking of Sun City Girls track "The Imam", and a cover of traditional Americana song "Gently Johnny" (a highlight of Alan Bishop's live Alvarius B. shows). True to their habits, the Lebanese trio of trump…

Very fine tuned, almost Mediterranean, Middle Eastern mainly string orchestra. A supergroup with members of Dwarfs Of East Agouza, Konstrukt, "A" Trio, Johnny Kafta Anti-Vegetarian Orchestra, etc. Umut Çağlar, Sam Shalabi, Sharif Sehnaoui, Mazen Kerbaj, Toni Elieh, Maurice Louca, and Michael Zerang unleash a blend of fiery and free psychedelic forms and un-jazz, with various shades and traces of shaabi, tarab, sufi, and post everything -- timeless, rock-free, kraut-jazz. Recorded during a wet,…

Five decades after the event, Charles Lloyd's Love-In, recorded live at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium in 1967, endures as much as an archaeological artefact as a musical document. From sleeve designer Stanislaw Zagorski's treatment of Rolling Stone photographer Jim Marshall's cover shot, through the album title and some of the track titles ("Tribal Dance," "Temple Bells"), and the inclusion of Lennon & McCartney's "Here There and Everywhere," Love-In's semiology is a powerful reminder of t…

A beautiful, dreamlike expression of spiritual jazz recorded at a time when the idiom was completely out of vogue, Gary Bias' East 101 remains little known even by cult-classic standards, but its free-flowing approach demands attention from listeners who believe this kind of LP ceased to exist somewhere around the late 1970s. Recorded with a stellar supporting cast including vibist Rickey Kelly, bassist Roberto Miranda, and pianist David Tillman, Bias unspools a suite of deeply soulful and profo…

Pianist Lonnie Liston Smith began his true professional career with Pharoah Sanders and then moved on to the very electric Miles Davis band before embarking on his own journey -- one that took him deep into the waters of pop music and disco by the late '70s. On "Visions Of A New World", Smith, accompanied by his working unit the Cosmic Echoes, digs deeper into the soul-jazz vein that he had begun exploring on "Expansions" and "Funk Extraction" in 1973 and 1974, respectively. In 1975, Smith was l…

Drummer Edward Vesala was an early Finnish pioneer of avant garde jazz, and he managed to release this lovely LP that has to be considered the first proper Finnish free jazz album in 1970. The Vesala trio was supposed to be a quartet, but trumpetist Mike Koskinen fell ill, and the remaining exploratory trio (Vesala, saxophonist Juhani Aaltonen and bassist Arild Andersen) recorded the album in a short, fiery session. The album Nana is an absolute rarity as well as an absolute beauty. As with many…

In 2002 Misha Mengelberg was invited for the second time to the AngelicA Festival in Bologna. That edition, the twelfth, took part entirely in a squatted social centre of the city, and, in collaboration with Tristan Honsinger, was conceived as one large opera lasting six days – an opera within which the performances of many national and international artists fitted in like individual mobile “modules”. Especially for this occasion and on the festival director’s suggestion, who had attended a perf…

George Lowen Coxhill, generally known as Lol Coxhill, was an English free improvising saxophonist and raconteur. He played the soprano or sopranino saxophone. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he was a member of Canterbury scene bands Carol Grimes and Delivery and then Kevin Ayers and the Whole World. He became known for his solo playing and for work in duets with pianist Steve Miller and guitarist G. F. Fitzgerald. Coxhill collaborated with other musicians including Mike Oldfield, Morgan Fishe…

Elisabeth Harnik, an Austrian based pianist and composer has created a multi-faceted body of work by blurring genre boundaries through various collaborations in the field of improvised music, interdisciplinary projects and contemporary compositional works. She studied classical piano and later -- with Beat Furrer -- composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Graz. As an improviser she works within an electro-acoustic inspired sound-world, using specific preparations and extended…

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…

First ever vinyl reissue of the debut solo album by one of the greatest UK jazz vocalists, featuring the cream of the crop of Britain's brilliant jazz wunderkind here: Kenny Wheeler, Paul Rutherford, Art Themen, Chris Pyne, Chris Laurence, John Taylor... Norma Winstone had began as a jazz vocalist in 1965 and soon entered the New Jazz Orchestra. Se also joined the Michael Garrick Quintet -where she added the wordless vocal improvisations that would become one of theelements she has developed to …

**2020 stock** Corbett Vs. Dempsey present a reissue of Amarcord Nino Rota, a tribute album assembled by producer Hal Willner, originally released by Hannibal Records in 1981. If you think you know how to put a mix-tape together, take a lesson from Hal Willner, the absolute master. In 1981, Willner produced a landmark record of interpretations of music written by Nino Rota for the films of Federico Fellini. With ten tracks and as many different lineups, this record set the template for a series …

Milestone reissue, one of the greatest singular sonic gestures of the 20th century.. Soprano saxophone solos recorded in 1986 in St. Paul's Church, Oxford by the late Michael Gerzon. One of the final Incus releases and one that was written up in The Penguin Guide to Jazz as ‘an essential document of modern music’. Otoroku is proud to release the first ever vinyl re-issue of Evan Parker’s legendary recording The Snake Decides. Featuring 4  solos recorded in 1986 in St. Paul's Church, Oxford by th…

Originally released on Saturn Records in 1979, both Sleeping Beauty and On Jupiter are studio recordings by the large Sun Ra ensemble (including electric guitar and electric bass) and, for the most part, feature the first recordings of the titles included on them (though most were played live a few months earlier). These two releases belong together, since they were recorded and released in close proximity and are both long, groove-based, pieces that range from proto-disco to relaxed groove-driv…