Jazz & Improvisation / All styles

"The CD surprised me because it could be listened to with many ears. At first I felt I could not separate it from contemporary composed music, soon after that I could still place it in the context of contemporary improvised music, and finally the fantasticness of a journey that takes the best both worlds have to offer revealed itself to me. Much of the merit can be attributed to the sensible arrangement of the four movements, which, despite being at least superficially similar procedures - mixin…

The work of JJJJJerome Ellis lives comfortably in the gaps between silence and possibility. The Black disabled Grenadian-Jamaican-American artist creates atmospheric soundscapes with saxophone, organ, hammered dulcimer, electronics, and their voice. Improvisation is at the core of their artistry – often chipping away at large slabs of recordings to reveal the piece like a marble sculptor. It’s an expansive and interdisciplinary practice that allows JJJJJerome to adapt to any medium or form, incl…

On a perfectly smooth surface of silence, three hurled stones create their patterns of waves. The lines intersect, unite, cancel out, or reinforce each other. Sometimes, they form together a harmonious pattern. At other times, they express the beauty of chaos and entropy. But they always remain in relation to each other - no movement goes unanswered. No energy escapes into nothingness. These three stones are Scratching Fork. Three musicians with different characters, histories, and registers. Ma…

"There are many illusive or ephemeral descriptions that are often part of how words seek to elucidate the listening experience. In the music we have on this recording from Florestan and the trio he has formed to venture his musical initiatives, words such as space, transparency, suspension, stasis, momentum, tension, multiplicity, flow, cohesion, dimension, release are some of the ingredients that come to mind to articulate the musical experience this recording offers. To me, Florestan’s musical…

Is an open dialogue of polarity possible? A dialogue of human existence in the cosmos and in nature, set against the backdrop of contemporary technology? That the feeling of being torn or detached is permanently inscribed in human nature is a truism. Yet we don’t always recognize the nature of this detachment—sometimes it seems like a separation from something immense, completely different from what humanity itself is. From a certain perspective, one could say that the many myths, symbols, ritua…

*250 copies limited edition* "Play" is a set of 100 cards with instructions for ensembles of any size and instrumentation. The individual instructions vary from precise (two contrasting sounds, a very long sound) to vague (something funny, thinking of something you smell), sometimes requiring a high degree of interpretation. The release combines two excellent recordings of the piece: one including the composer himself with a group of Israeli musicians, the other introducing an ensemble around th…

Vocalist and songwriter Laura Ann Singh presents her new album Mean Reds, a deeply personal and sonically expansive project that traverses jazz, folk, and global influences with fearless honesty. Known for her evocative voice and ability to blur genre boundaries, Singh brings listeners into an intimate conversation about vulnerability, resilience, and the beauty that can emerge from darker emotional landscapes.   Mean Reds captures a spectrum of moods—from haunting ballads drenched in longing to…

Tip! In 1975, under the oppressive air of military dictatorship in Brazil, brothers Lelo and Zé Eduardo Nazario invited bassist Zeca Assumpção to join their musical experiments in a basement under Sao Paulo’s Teodoro Sampaio Street. As teenagers, the trio had already been playing together in Hermeto Pascoal’s Grupo, alongside guitarist Toninho Horta and saxophonist Nivaldo Ornelas, and it was while working together under Hermeto’s direction that the Paulista rhythm section (as they were then kno…

“Thollem is a modern griot who has absorbed sounds from every place he has visited.” – William Parker, from Conversations II (Rogue Art)

** The first cassette edition of this album to exist in the universe, ltd to 100 copies in white **Malik King was an important part of the St Louis jazz scene of the 70's & 80's. He studied under Albert Ayler in NY in the early 70s before returning to the Midwest. He was a member of the Shirley Le Flore's ensemble "Free N' Concert". He also served as musical director of The Creative Arts & Expression Lab, The African Peoples Continuum, & The Black Arts Alliance, The worrier poets, The Human Arts…

Super rare 1970s British jazz from Joy: Chris Francis, James Dvorak, Frank Roberts, Ernest Mothle, Keith Bailey reflecting the young, multicultural, vibrant flavours of mid-70s London. Funky, hip, committed, Joy is one of the forgotten gems of London jazz. Originally released in 1976, Cadillac and Joy are delighted to offer the first CD/Digital reissue of this great album - remastered by Keith Bailey and including extra, previously unissued, material and a vinyl reissue of the original release i…

The term “private” is used quite liberally in the promotion of rare groove compilations these days. The team at Tramp Records tends to be rather defensive when it comes to such terms. Although, and this should not be misunderstood as arrogance, label boss Tobias Kirmayer & his crew have been doing nothing else for 22 years, strictly speaking. Every compilation series from the Upper Bavarian label, be it the “Movements,” “Feeling Nice,” “Praise Poems,” or “Can You Feel It” series, specializes in …

A punk trio that is influenced by middle eastern psych, free jazz, and improvisation. While not recorded in a traditional studio, these recordings represent the first studio-produced sounds from this group. The group is built around Joel Robinson and has had as many as eight to ten members in recordings and live performances, but more recently has been focused on a trio that composes music that challenges every notion of what rock, punk, or psych can be; however, at the same time, the music is c…

Sweet World was recorded in the summer of 2023 in Brooklyn. It features a book of songs that my trio with drummer Nathan Ellman-Bell, and cellist Christopher Hoffman performed for a year or so leading up to the recording. I wrote most of these songs with Nathan and Chris in mind. I tried to bring my whole musical self to this project. I love so many kinds of music. Improvisation is central to everything I do. The written material for these pieces all fit on one or two pages and each of them crea…

* Edition of 300 numbered copies * The Sam Rivers Archive Series looks to be a beautiful physical manifestation of the love and respect that NoBusiness Record's Danas Mikailionis has for NYC loft era free jazz (we're working with PDFs and digital files but I, for one, have my copy on pre-order!). Over the years, NoBusiness has been dedicated to unearthing and releasing long-unheard music from a number of musicians (like Peter Kuhn, Billy Bang, Jameel Moondoc, among others) and quite notably, in …

*400 copies limited edition* Brooklyn-born trumpeter and composer Adam O’Farrill, hailed as a leading light of the new American jazz scene, announces his bold new quartet project Elephant. With this ensemble, O’Farrill expands his sonic language into a fresh, genre-blurring space that fuses the intimacy of the jazz quartet with the emotional depth of 20th‑century minimalism and the rhythmic urgency of contemporary electronic and dance music. Elephant features a powerful lineup: O’Farrill on trum…

With Writing, Ahmed - the quartet of Pat Thomas, Joel Grip, Antonin Gerbal and Seymour Wright - turn a decade of notes, essays and sleeve texts into a woven chorus, mapping how their deep dive into Ahmed Abdul‑Malik becomes a living method for making future music.

The first time the band that became LuMiSong ever played together was during the Great Lockdown of July 2020. The others wore masks while I stood twenty feet away with the door behind me open to a Gowanus side-street. I hadn’t shared a sound or negotiated an eighth-note with anybody for months and the experience overwhelmed me with emotion. (The most basic facts of collective music-making are the most profound.) We all brought in music to that session and to the many that followed. Matt and Sant…

Tim Berne - alto saxophoneTom Rainey - drumsGregg Belisle-Chi - guitar All music composed by Tim Berne Party Music BMI except Julius Hemphill by Julius Hemphill.Subito Music Publishing (ASCAP).Mixed and mastered by David Torn.Vinyl artwork + design Steve Byram.CD artwork + design TJ Huff (huffart.com).Digital artwork is a collaboration between Steve Byram and TJ Huff. Tracks 1-10 recorded April 20th 2024 by Greg DiCrosta at The Studio at Firehouse 12. Tracks 11-18 are a live concert recorded Mar…

**2009 release, long out of print, very few copies available** Mooko was the first installment of a short-lived "power trio" comprised of Japanese free saxophonist Akira Sakata, bassist Bill Laswell, and drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson. At the time of this recording, the latter two were deeply into their Last Exit project, a band with whom Sakata sat in during their tour of Japan. This trio is a bit like a pared-down version of Last Exit, without the incendiary guitar work of Sonny Sharrock…

Pisaro’s “Hearing Metal” series is a multipart lecture of the above, now on its third rendition. Each is in dedication to the sculptor Constantin Brâncuşi, with track names and piece subtitles littered with Brâncuşi references (Sleeping Muse, The Endless Column, Prometheus, 1911). Although the orchestration differs across each entry, each piece is primarily composed of electronic (sine tones, field recordings, a guitar, etc.) and percussive (cymbals, tam-tams, ‘surfaces,’ almglocken, etc.) eleme…

A groundbreaking release from two youngish Japanese improvisers. Sachiko M plays sample-less sampler, and Nakamura uses the no-input mixing board--both instruments which conceptually produce no sound, yet these two conjure it out, somehow."Do" was recorded live in Europe and Tokyo last summer, and features three improvisations varying in length from just over two minutes to slightly under 40. While the shorter tracks are worthwhile and hold moments of greatness, it is the first, very long track …

On Live at the KiMo Theater Albuquerque 1979, Cecil Taylor leads a newly reconfigured Unit through a rare Western American performance of volatile grace and immense detail. Piano, alto saxophone, violin, bass, cello and multi-instrumental percussion form a shifting, luminous organism - less gladiatorial than Taylor’s 1978 bands, but no less radical in its freedom.

As wonderful is his duo with compatriot Cor Fuhler, who, like Prins, has gradually progressed from Bimhuis improv into electronic experimentation. This is a quite befuddling duo (as on Live, Prins utilises electronics, FM modulations and radio; Fuhler employs EMS Synthi AKS, turntables and mbiras), whose interaction is in a constant state of flux, and one whose ideas flow so liberally and create music which is at times so disorientating that it feels as though one is listening to it through some…

Norwegian saxophonist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist Harald Lassen returns with Rik, a vibrant and exploratory new album that picks up the threads of his acclaimed Balans - the album that earned him a Spellemannprisen (Norwegian Grammy) - and weaves them into something stranger, softer, and more surprising. “It’s the little brother,” Lassen says. “Same blood, same environment, but making different choices.” Across seven tracks, RIK builds a world that is both cinematic and deeply intimate.…

Tomin’s debut full-length work, A Willed and Conscious Balance, answers a set of questions left unasked in recent years, as a new generation of artists re-energizes the tradition often referred to as “jazz” into its own directions: Where are the composers working with large ensembles? Who are the arrangers creating unexpected charts and dreaming up new orchestral sounds, layered tones and harmonically vibrant colors, the kind that have amended jazz’s “music for soloists” reputation since the swi…

Norwegian coastal culture meets American dreams in Trond Kallevåg’s most cinematic work yet. Imagine Ry Cooder, Daniel Lanois, and David Lynch sharing a rowboat on a misty West Norwegian morning – that’s the world of Minnesota. With Minnesota, guitarist and composer Trond Kallevåg deepens his image-rich sound – a warm, wistful universe where the atmosphere of Norway’s rugged west coast drifts seamlessly into the wide horizons of the American Midwest. Drawing inspiration from traditional music, j…

"Hey, there's this new guy around that plays like Herbie Hancock!!". When Chilean pianist Matías Pizarro arrived in Argentina fleeing Pinochet's dictatorship, word spread like wildfire in the local jazz scene. In the two short years that Pizarro spent in Buenos Aires, he became one third of the Viejas Raíces project alongside local jazz heroes Jorge López Ruiz and Pocho Lapouble, recorded with famed Italian trumpeter Enrico Rava and released his own solo album, Pelo de Rata ("Rat's hair"). Pizar…

On Friday, September 5, Liv Andrea Hauge Trio releases its third album, Døgnville, on Norwegian label Hubro. The record explores the feeling of being “døgnvill” – a Norwegian term describing the sensation of being out of sync with time and reality, like during jet lag or insomnia. The music inhabits this liminal space between structure and freedom, consciousness and dream. Half of the compositions were written while pianist and composer Liv Andrea Hauge was bedridden with a high fever – in a sem…

"Christopher Dammann Sextet is a debut record, but it’s by no means a first effort. Bassist, composer, and improviser Christopher Dammann has been making records for about fifteen years, first as a member of 3.5.7 Ensemble and more recently as the leader of Restroy. Throughout that time, he’s also gigged persistently in Chicago, notably as a regular substitute for Brian Sandstrom in the long-lived free improv collective Extraordinary Popular Delusions, and from Charlottesville, VA (between 2010-…

A live recording by Akira Sakata (alto sax, clarinet, voice), Masayasu Tsuboguchi (piano, synthesizer), Takeharu Hayakawa (bass), and Masataka Fujikake (drums). An improvisational giant, Akira Sakata, is a direct hit to the brain.

The third album of the quartet "Akira Sakata x Triple Edge," in which Masayasu Tsuboguchi, Takeharu Hayakawa, and Masataka Fujikake gather to create a rare improvised world with dynamism as if diverse organisms were wriggling under Akira Sakata, a giant tree several thousand years old.

The Kármán Line is the threshold - the precise altitude at which the Earth's atmosphere ends and open space begins. Outer Worlds Jazz Ensemble understood the metaphor immediately. This is music made at that exact boundary: grounded in groove and breath, but pulling steadily toward something without ceiling. The story begins in Tokyo. Neil Innes - bassist, producer, the animating force behind ATA Records and its consistently remarkable Leeds-centred roster - and woodwind voice Chip Wickham were n…

Taking a short sabbatical from their journey into the spiritual stratosphere and beyond, Work Money Death landed on terra firma just long enough to record a follow up to the critically acclaimed “The Space In Which The Uncontrollable Unknown Resides Can Be The Place From Which Creation Arises”. The new album “Thought, Action, Reaction, Interaction” explores many of the meditative motifs that mould this unique group in their quest for the perfect sound and space. Those who are familiar with Work …

Limited edition CD & download album from Danny Thompson’s group fusing jazz with folk music. The triple CD comes in an 8-panel digisleeve with 28 page booklet detailing the complete history of the band and illustrated with photos and images mainly from Paul Dunmall’s archives. When asked “is it jazz or folk?” about his band Whatever, Danny Thompson replied “well, it’s Whatever!” Hence the name. When Danny started Whatever, a trio with reed player Tony Roberts and guitarist Bernie Holland, and in…

Welcoming Tori Kudo back to A Colourful Storm with a new edition of Maher Shalal Hash Baz's Faux Départ, a document of a stateside tour that culminated in a recording session at the legendary Dub Narcotic Studio with a one-time ensemble of Greg Saunier and Chris Cohen (Deerhoof), Andrew Maxwell, McCloud Zicmuse, Arrington de Dionyso, Takashi Ueno, Saya Ueno, Naoki Otani, Akiko Hotaka, Masaaki Endo and Naoki Otani. Always spontaneous, never rehearsed. Music in and of this world, seemingly teeteri…

Following their debut “Jazz Report From The Hood", which proved a major success and brought attention to Omasta as one of the most distinctive groups emerging from the contemporary jazz scene, the musicians return with their second album, “Hits Different”. The record develops the language established on their debut, pushing it into new territory and shifting the perspective from that of the protagonists themselves to that of a narrator telling the story. In just one year, Omasta went from an eme…

Recorded in Paris in 1965, Don Cherry’s Togetherness is a five‑part live suite where pocket‑trumpet chants, Gato Barbieri’s searing tenor, vibes and a dancing rhythm section turn early free jazz into something fiercely open yet strangely joyful.

With With a Heartbeat, Pharoah Sanders and Bill Laswell ride the amplified pulse of the human heart into a slow, glowing trance, fusing tabla cycles, electronic drones and cornet smears into four long arcs of cosmic late‑period Sanders.

GBK are an Austrian free jazz trio that isn't afraid of being groovy. The band was founded in 2007 after a first meeting the year before, being thrown together in an improvised music session. They performed many years under the name of KGB before changing their name recently due to Russian war against Ukraine. All three musicians are happy to swap roles in their trio, therefore abstract experimental sounds have the same place in their repertoire as groove and melody. Drummer Didi Kern works both…