Jazz & Improvisation / All styles

Joan Bibiloni's Born is widely considered as one of the highlights of modern ambient music. Ever since it was first released in 1989 on Bibiloni's 'Blau' imprint, Born has been a sought after item by collectors of different backgrounds.The eight compositions that Bibiloni wrote, and then recorded with several gifted musicians, share the same vivid ethereal quality. From the emotive latin of El Sur, to the heart wrenching tones of Ballad For an Empty Street, Born is one of the pinnacles of the ba…

**1000 numbered copies** Jazzman Records presents a reissue of Steamheat's album of the same name, originally issued in 1975 and presented here as Number 30 in the Jazzman Holy Grail Series. Fable is a small independent record label started in Austin, Texas in the early 1970s by a young trombone player named Michael Mordecai. In autumn 1975 he debuted a trio of albums by Austin bands; with only 1000 of each pressed, and each carrying a different emphasis on soul, funk or jazz, all three have gon…

**1000 numbered copies** Jazzman Records presents a reissue of Forty Times Its Own Weight's Cumulo Nimbus, originally issued in 1975 and presented here as Number 28 in the Jazzman Holy Grail Series. Fable is a small independent record label started in Austin, Texas in the early 1970s by a young trombone player named Michael Mordecai. In autumn 1975 he debuted a trio of albums by Austin bands; with only 1000 of each pressed, and each carrying a different emphasis on soul, funk or jazz, all three …

“What’s Happening?” for me is one of the most exciting european jazz compositions of this year. Il will always remain a mystery for me the fact that brilliant Italian jazzists do not find greater recognition. In American jazz the italo-american “jazz-men” come immediately after musicians of colored and jewish origin. No other nation has given America vatid jazz representatives as Italy. In Europe however – and above all in Italy – Italian jazz musicians are almost completely unknown.” Joachim-Er…

This box provides a complete overview of this versatile artist, including Jutta Hipp’s complete recordings and featuring a collection of paintings, drawings and cartoons as well as letters and poems. The phases in her life – from post-war Germany to her new home in New York – are illustrated with a cornucopia of private pictures, art school sketches, paintings and interviews.  All included in a Hardcover book with 208 full colour pages. She was a cool jazz icon in post-war Germany and conquered …

Miles Davis' often overlooked masterpiece Miles in the Sky is his venture into the jazz-rock, which later became known as fusion. While working together with his second great quintet his interest in the usage of electric instruments was increasing every day. The first album from his “Electric” period is one big grooving adventure, in which he gets the support of the stellar line-up of Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams, Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock, and George Benson. It's a ground-breaking record from …

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…

Featuring some of the most innovative players from Beirut, Cairo and Istanbul, Karkhana met for the first time in Beirut in 2014, bringing together influences from the three major experimental music scenes of the region and beyond. Through their live shows, the band’s seven multi-instrumentalists build a transcendental atmosphere developing what could possibly be called Free Middle Eastern music. Shades and traces of shaabi, tarab, sufi and much more are heard in the distinct blend of free jazz …

A new chapter of the ongoing series of live recordings of the Turkish quartet Konstrukt, this time teaming up with saxophonist Akira Sakata, already a key character of the Japanese free jazz movement since the 1970s. Recorded at Kargart in Istanbul on January 17th 2015, this seventy-minute long jam is one of the most psychedelic act of the band so far, with Sakata's growling shomyo-alike chant finding the perfect setting - like a snake charmer - in a jungle of constantly reinvented sound. Killer…

**Exact LP repro edition. Limited Edition of 200 copies, remastered sound.** Although he was one of Italy’s leading jazz musicians, playing the piano at an international level in a mainstream style, it is probable that Romano Mussolini owed some of his fame to also being the third son of the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. A common idea that everyone had before listening to his music, and discovering the importance he always gave to every musician who had the opportunity to play and grow arti…

2013 release. Previously unavailable, this unearthed 1968 BBC Session contains markedly different versions from Michael Garrick's 1970 classic 'Heart Is A Lotus' album. A Londoner's rain-soaked riposte to modal jazz exotica, this long lost recording is already being hailed as an essential release. Michael Garrick’s 1970 LP Heart Is A Lotus went on to become one of the most important British jazz albums of the subsequent decade. For a few years prior to the record’s release Garrick and his sextet…

**Limited edition, double-LP; comes in a gatefold sleeve; edition of 750** Previously unreleased and not known to exist soundboard recording of Alice Coltrane Sextet live in Berkeley, California in 1972. Featuring a dream line-up of Charlie Haden, Ben Riley, Ashish Khan, Pranesh Khan, Bobby W., and Alice Coltrane. Newly re-mastered from the original tapes. In 1972 (Journey In Satchidananda/Lord of Lords era), during one of Alice Coltrane's most creative periods, she gathered five musicians for a…

**Edition of 300, gatefold cover, newly remastered from the original tapes for optimal sound** What can be said about Don Cherry that hasn’t been said? He was musical bridge between countless cultures - a titan of the avant-garde and jazz - one of the great, visionary voices of 20th century music for whom there was, and remains, no equivalent. A giant. Like Miles, Ayler, Mingus, Bird, Dizzy, Trane, Ornette, and Pharaoh, the power of his voice carved such a deep path that, more than half a centur…

** 500 copies white vinyl** An ongon is an important shamanic tool inhabited by spirits. An anthropomorphic ritual object, highly abstract in form or more realistic, that at the same time attracts and contains spirits. A fetish. In the same way, some traditions, some melodies, some rhythms, sounds and instruments attract special spirits and energies. "Exuvia" is the first work in which Antonio Bertoni uses the pseudonym Ongon. Ongon's music originates from multiple influences and researches: gna…

Masterful ‘60s pop by a jazz guitar guru! Not many jazz artists were interpreting popular songs in the late ‘60s, but Hungarian-born Gabor Szabo looked past the oft-covered standards to put his trademark jazz transformations on a set of fashionable tunes on 1969, including major hits for the Left Banke, the Beatles, and more songs that his contemporaries neglected. Guitar master Szabo’s 1969 platter of folk and pop music touchstones is highlighted by the rock’n bossa spin on Sealed With a Kiss! …

"Sometimes there are weird coincidences. When we got new albums on our review list recently, many of them included reminiscences of the golden jazz eras in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Rob Mazurek's Pulsar Quartet sometimes sounds like the seminal Miles Davis Quintet, Sam Rivers' trio with Dave Holland and Barry Altschul brings back memories of his RivBea studio days, Michael Blake taps the great jazz-rock bands of the 70s, Joe McPhee's plays "Naima" and "Round Midnight" on two new reissues, and even…

Frode Gjerstad, alto saxophone, Bb clarinet. Jon Rune Strøm, double bass. Paal Nilssen-Love, drums & percussion. Recorded live in concert at Casa del Popolo, Montreal, Canada on the 27th of November 2015 by Mathieu Bélanger. Mixed and mastered by Frode Gjerstad. Photos by Petra Cvelbar. Cover design by Lasse Marhaug. Produced by Frode Gjerstad Trio.'Frode Gjerstad and Paal Nilssen-Love collaboration goes back to 1992 when Paal joined Frode's Circulasione Totale Orchestra as their second drummer.…

**Legendary "lost" album originally due to be released on the ESP-Disk, but the label folded before its release. Limited Edition** Masayuki "Jojo" Takayanagi (1932 - 1991) was a maverick Japanese guitarist, a revolutionary spirit whose oeuvre embodied the radical political movements of late '60s Japan. Having cut his teeth as an accomplished Lennie Tristano disciple playing cool jazz in the late '50s, Takayanagi had his mind blown by the Chicago Transit Authority's "free form guitar" in 1969 an…

**One of the greatest Spiritual album ever made**180-gram vinyl reissue, new re-edition, reduced price. Improvised spiritual jazz from Joe Henderson and Alice Coltrane. "The Elements" was originally recorded in 1973 and marked a move away from the post bop that Henderson was known for. Working with Coltrane on piano and harp, violinist Michael White, Charlie Haden on bass, percussionist Kenneth Nash and Baba Duru Oshun on tablas, the veteran saxophonist explored themes inspired by the four eleme…

**25 copies** Brand new sparkling hard-bop in the Quintet formula, from aspiring Finnish drummer talent Aleksi Heinola featuring a top cast of Finnish jazz-men: Mikael Jakobsson on keys (Five Corners Quintet), Mikko Gunu Karjalainen on trumpet and flugelhorn, Manuel Dunkel on tenor saxophone (UMO Jazz band) and Swedish Daniel Franck on double bass.

Never before released fantastic Modal Jazz/Free/Hard-bop from Norwegian NRK radio archives. First official release, limited to 500 copies. Two exclusive quartet tracks taken from NRK radio archives 1969. Recorded in 1969 by NRK broadcasting, these two tracks are lifted from a showcase program featuring Norwegian jazz musicians. Contains the beautiful lyrical modal piece ‘Cointreau’ and the Jon Henderson penned ‘Upsurge’ Featuring Erik Andresen on Alto-Sax, Egil Kapstad on Piano/electric piano, T…

**250 copies** More music from trumpeter extraordinaire Etuk Ubong! We’ve run a limited hand-stamped vinyl run with the best tracks from his first album and EP from 2016 and 2017, 'Miracles' and 'Tales of Life'. The music is simplistic yet thoughtful modal jazz that was written around the time of the death of Ubong’s mother Margaret. The Quartet features an all-star Nigerian rhythm section rounded up with Ubong’s unique voicing. "Short and snappy, ‘Battle For Peace’ opens with a tight electric b…

"This dialogue between the two musicians sounds both genuine and profound; a sort of four-handed diary, reflecting throughout the natural moods, signs, colours, and spaces. Allusions, rips, bursts of humour and sudden gusts of poetry flow into each other in an unusual animation based on strings, wood, breaths and brass. Musical stories that linger with you." (Fabrizio Spera) Luca Tilli: celloSebi Tramontana: trombone

**100 copies** Blend 3 is an organism made up of three different but similar personalities. The group explores the diverse sonorities of a trio that, without a predetermined set, utilizes composition and improvisation as its only resources. By means of this combination of composition and improvisation, what is already written is proposed in an original and revisited way time after time. Concurrently, improvisation as an actual practice rather than as a genre is developed with a deep compositiona…

**800 copies** Key System Recordings present a reissue of Yusef Lateef's "Hikima: Creativity", originally released in 1983. In the early 1980s, famed jazz saxophonist and musical luminary Yusef Lateef traveled to Nigeria as a Senior Research Fellow to study, write, and teach at Ahmadu Bello University. He cut this record while there; pressed locally in Nigeria, it remained virtually unknown by jazz fans and collectors for over 30 years. On Hikima, Lateef leads a nonet of African musicians in sev…

Phil Ranelin's "Collected Works 2003-2019" features songs with Pharoah Sanders, Kamasi Washington, Donald 'Duck' Bailey, Henry Franklin, Big Black, Calvin Keys, Roger Glenn and many, many more. Phil founded cult label Tribe Records in 1973 then went on to perform with artists such as Max Roach, Gary Bartz, Freddie Hubbard, the Temptations and even the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Here in this collection of 16 years of Phil's work, his 'Tribe' spiritual root continues to grow into greatness and he is a…

**300 copies** "Stereo" is the latest studio recording by Berlin based duo of Tony Buck and Magda Mayas. Conceived as rendering of a live concept the two have been developing over the last year or so, featuring multi-speaker and multi-layered audio, the essence of "Stereo" sees Spill performing in the studio, improvising and reacting to previously recorded improvisations and pre-structured, pre-recorded elements. The result creates a music with a sense of space and depth and an internal logic no…

**Edition of 500** First ever commercial release of the 1962 Maida Vale session on 180gr vinyl. The Joe Harriott Quintet was one of the most forward looking in Britain, but no jazz man works in isolation from the past and the great tradition of jazz is never absent from the work of the Joe Harriott Quintet. "Shepherds Serenade", composed for the Joe Harriott group by Dizzy Reece, one of Britain's many distinguished gifts to the jazz scene in New York. But jazz enthusiasts not only like to know w…

Professor, herbalist and healer, Milford Graves is first and foremost one of the world's great geniuses of the drum. Rarely heard live, even more rarely found in the studio, a new recording by Milford Graves is a special event. Long overdue, this is the CD that free jazz fans and every drummer in the world has been waiting for: his music for solo drums. Intense, shooting off in all directions at once and yet always firmly rooted in the tradition, Tzadik is proud to release this important and his…

Between 2006 and 2016, Fred Frith played 80 concerts at New York's unique space for experimental music 'The Stone'. A selection of his encounters with such powerful and creative personalities as Laurie Anderson, Pauline Oliveros, Sylvie Courvoisier, Evan Parker, Nate Wooley, Ikue Mori has been combined in this 3-CD box set comprising 23 fascinating tracks which cover a decade-long adventure in improvisation.The musician Theresa Wong was quite impressed with this collection: "I was struck by the …

**2005 release, long out of print, very few copies available** This disc is a real brain ripping free jazzing blast from the past. Togashi Masahiko may be a name you have already encountered if you are a bit acquainted with Japanese free hardcore blowing jazz. He was the man responsible for churning out Japan's first free jazz disc being “We Now Create” for which he got assisted by Takayanagi Masayuki and Yoshizawa Motoharu amongst others. The following year in 1969, he teamed up with another ha…

Eremite present Byron And Gerald's Unity, a private press free jazz album recorded in 1969 at Howard University and the first release on Byron Morris's EPI label. It is the only hardcore free jazz record out of 1960s DC, and a viscerally powerful cultural dispatch on the sociopolitical upheavals of its time. From Byron's 2017 liner notes: "In the early spring of 1969, several months before moving to Poughkeepsie, NY, Gerald Wise and I, along with the recording engineer Len Jones, conceived of th…

Akira Sakata: alto saxophone, Bb clarinet, voice. Kiko Dinucci:electric guitar. Kohei Gomi: electronics. Paal Nilssen-Love: drums. Toshiji Mikawa: electronics. Produced by Paal Nilssen-Love and Lasse Marhaug Recorded live in concert at Roskilde festival 2018, Roskilde, Denmark, July 4th 2018 by Christian Brynildsen Obermayer. Mixed and mastered by Lasse Marhaug. Cover by Lasse MarhaugFor the 2018 edition of the Roskilde festival in Denmark Paal Nilssen-Love was asked to put together two special …

A fantastic set from the London scene – really powerful sounds from a group who are heavy on percussion, but also do plenty with their horns! On Your Queen Is A Reptile, Shabaka Hutchings lays out a very fiery, progressive musical vision, and it is something as informed by reggae, the Carnival tradition, and underground UK culture (grime / dubstep) as by the greats of jazz, many of whom also released revered works on Impulse!: John Coltrane, Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, and Charles Mingus, t…

Complete Communion was Don Cherry's first Blue Note release. One of the groundbreaking pieces of work from the mid-sixties Jazz scene, and here is the same great line up caught live in Hilversum (Holland) in May 1966, just five months after the studio recording session. Don Cherry - cornet, Gato Barbieri - tenor sax, Henry Grimes - bass and Ed Blackwell - drums, a marvelous quartet based on four of the most distinctive Free Jazz voices of the time. This highly energetic performance consists of a…

My Favorite Things October 14, 1977 presents a superb collection of tracks recorded by the great Sun Ra and his Arkestra at the Variety Recording Studio, NYC. One of the rarely heard documents of the El Saturn label of the ‘70s, these recordings catch Sun Ra and John Gilmore firmly in the foreground, especially when performing on masterly interpretations of John Coltrane’s My Favorite Things and Nat King Cole’s Nature Boy. The performance shows that both are capable of masterfully reflecting the…

Musicism is the core concept of transcultural artistic research that rose to prominence at the beginning of the 80s thanks to the ingenious mind of Karlton Hester. Composer, flautist and saxophonist Hester set himself as the promoter of a multidisciplinary idea in which musicians, visual artists and poets collaborate in a synergic manner to produce new art forms. Hesterian Musicism is an avant-garde spiritual jazz record composed and issued by Hester on his San Francisco based label Hesteria in …

2019 Repress. Jazzman presents the definitive anthology of pioneering ethno-musicologist, mystical adventurer and real life jazz guru Dr Lloyd Miller. This album tells the fascinating life story of one man and his journey through Europe and the Middle East, living off nothing but his wits, talent and an open-minded attitude towards music and jazz.Master of dozens of languages and hundreds of instruments, Miller has spent fifty years immersed in the music of Europe, Asia and the Middle East.Featu…

Pan-African manifesto It's Nation Time — African Visionary Music, out of print since 1972, is available once again via Motown. A poet, writer, theater director, activist and more whose career spanned five decades, Imamu Amiri Baraka (born LeRoi Jones) fearlessly vouched for racial equality until his passing in 2014. For It's Nation Time, his first album, Baraka was backed by many threads of African-American musical expression, including a funk band led by James Mtume and a free jazz quartet feat…

**In process of stocking** of Alice's four extraordinary albums Eternity, Radha-Krsna Nama Sankirtana, Transcendence and Transfiguration in bundle. With liner notes by Mark Richardson and rare photos by Gary Heery and Ginny Winn. Alice Coltrane was a pioneer - one of a tiny number of women in 1960’s jazz to be allowed through the door – wielding her instrument with a force and artistry which couldn’t be ignored. It was her visionary mind which helped push her husband toward the astounding sonic …