Jazz & Improvisation / All styles

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 …

Killer! Seminal and much sought after Afro Jazz session recorded in Paris in 1979 featuring Senegalese percussionist Cheikh Tidian, produced by Jean-Paul Rodrigue for his cult Freelance label. The session features saxophone player Jo Maka - leader of the Celestial Communication Orchestra but perhaps best known for his work with Angolan singer Bonga - and regular Steve Lacy collaborator Bobby Few, in a Parisian answer to Black Jazz and Strata East. A Brilliant leftfield spiritual jazz release fr…

Crossings was the second release by the Herbie Hancock Sextet lineup known as the Mwandishi Band, following 1971's Mwandishi which stretched Hancock's already-adventurous writing and expanded the music through post-production. This approach would play an even larger role on Crossings, the pianist's final album for Warner Bros. For two of Crossings' three pieces ('Quasar' and 'Water Torture'), Hancock took basic instrumental tracks to Patrick Gleeson's Different Fur Studios, hoping to learn how t…

If Fat Albert Rotunda sounds like the most fun Herbie Hancock had in his early years as a band leader, it should. He composed the music for the pilot of the children's television show Fat Albert, redirecting the post-bop jazz he honed in a five-year stint with the Miles Davis Quintet towards the R&B and funk styles with which he was becoming enamored. The result was a playful, joyous album in which Hancock clearly had a great time.The same goes for the rest of his Sextet, which by the time…

Some of the earliest music from groundbreaking French drummer Jacques Thollot – and proof that right at the start, he was already in a unique space that was all his own! His first release, released on the Futura Records in 1971, is called "Quand Le Son Devient Aigu, Jeter La Giraffe A La Mer"; it is a splendid example of spacey-like, fragile and imaginative compositional style fusing jazz, electronic experiments, culminating in a blissful listening experience and it has earned Thollot the place …

A monographic box-set collection aimed at recounting the most beautiful chapters that revolutionised the history of jazz. This new series was launched in March 2010 with the simultaneous release of four box-sets, including albums by some of the artists who participated in the success of the outstanding labels. A philological work, beginning with the original recordings on multi-track master tapes, patiently integrally remastered paying strict attention to the sound quality. Bill Dixon organized …

Svart Records is proud to reissue Olli Ahvenlahti’s first three solo albums on vinyl. This is is debut, Bandstand.When legendary producer Otto Donner of Love Records approached Olli Ahvenlahti and said: ”Olli, maybe it’s time for you to record your first solo album”, the pianist did not hesitate. After all, not too many jazz musicians had such a lucky break in 1970s Finland. Moreover, Donner was right. Olli Ahvenlahti had studied church music at the Sibelius Academy as well as English philology …

The Pop-Liisa and Jazz-Liisa broadcast session series presents previously unreleased and forgotten gems from the biggest names of Finnish prog and jazz of the 1970’sNever bootlegged and known up until now only to a few faithful servants (and largely thought to have been lost for ever), these sessions offer a hitherto unrivalled look into the state of Finnish jazz and progressive rock between the years 1972-1977. Imagine if the sessions recorded by John Peel had only recently been discovered, and…

Piirpauke was founded in 1974 by saxophonist Sakari Kukko, bassist Antti Hytti, guitarist Hasse Walli, and drummer Jukka Wasama. It has been considered one of the very first “world music” groups, and thus way ahead of its time. The ensemble played their first gigs in 1974, originally named as the Walli–Kukko quartet.Piirpauke was affected by folk music from Finland, Romania, Turkey, Ethiopia, Balkans, South America, and the Far East. Before recording the album Piirpauke, the band played in front…

The Pop-Liisa and Jazz-Liisa broadcast session series presents previously unreleased and forgotten gems from the biggest names of Finnish prog and jazz of the 1970’sNever bootlegged and known up until now only to a few faithful servants (and largely thought to have been lost for ever), these sessions offer a hitherto unrivalled look into the state of Finnish jazz and progressive rock between the years 1972-1977. Imagine if the sessions recorded by John Peel had only recently been discovered, and…

The Pop-Liisa and Jazz-Liisa broadcast session series presents previously unreleased and forgotten gems from the biggest names of Finnish prog and jazz of the 1970’sNever bootlegged and known up until now only to a few faithful servants (and largely thought to have been lost for ever), these sessions offer a hitherto unrivalled look into the state of Finnish jazz and progressive rock between the years 1972-1977. Imagine if the sessions recorded by John Peel had only recently been discovered, and…

The high impact duo of Paal Nilssen-Love (drums) and Ken Vandermark (reeds) has been working together at an accelerated rate since 2002, and they have put out seven albums of exceptional and wide ranging improvised music since then. Though they have both worked in many critically acclaimed groups- from the Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet, Lean Left (with Terrie Hessels and Andy Moor of The Ex) to Double Tandem (with Dutch saxophonist, Ab Baars)- they have continued to return to their duo for more…

Italian composer and bass-player Massimo Pupillo (ZU) and Australian drummer Tony Buck (The Necks) collaborate in a beautifully haunting, absorbing ambient set, taking in electronic abstraction and free improvisation. Pupillo and Buck are well known for their work with their long-running bands, as well as for their collaborations with musicians of the current international avantgarde scene; Pupillo released for instance with Cindytalk, FM Einheit, Oren Ambarchi, Chris Corsano; Buck with Fennesz,…

Astro-Black mythology, astro-timeless immortality! Astro Black has long been known as a cornerstone of the Sun Ra catalog. It is well recorded, features a superb Arkestral lineup, and successfully combines several of the styles in which Sun Ra orbited, from Saturnic jazz to astro-funk. And now it’s finally back in the earthly bins! Pressed on colored vinyl, and packaged with new cover art, with liner notes by Robert Campbell (author of The Earthly Recordings of Sun Ra), and includes a poster ins…

Second album by Turkish free jazzers Konstrukt and the Japanese avant-garde/noise icon Keiji Haino, this time recorded live in concert. Celebrating their tenth anniversary these days, Konstrukt have since been creating an impressive catalog including collaborations/performances with significant musicians like Peter Brötzmann, Joe McPhee, William Parker, Akira Sakata, Marshall Allen, Evan Parker, Thurston Moore, Michael Zerang, Alfred Harth, or Alexander Hawkins that gained them an ever growing a…

**Original 1985 vinyl edition of the album. Few copies available**  What emerges from Giorgio Gaslini’s various suites is a happy explorer, recalling worldly journeys and launching musical adventures. He was the first Italian jazz musician to play in India and China and the result of each journey was an extended suite. Gaslini’s own language that emerges triumphant, a fondness for floating clusters and fractured boppish themes (his writing can hint at influences from Monk to Schoenberg, George R…

**Original 1981 vinyl edition of the album. Few copies available**  A real piece of creative madness. With "Swimming Pool Orchestra", Mario Schiano decided not only to continue with the humor of provocation (two musicians are locked in a dilapidated recording studio, where the sound engineer tries to repair the water pipes. The two try to wait, quarrel, until the studio is flooded and the record can no longer be made), but also inviting in the studio Umberto D'Ambrosio, aka Trottolino, a minstre…

Due to overwhelming demand for our 5LP boxset which sold out on the day of release, here are the first ever official individual re-issues of all five of the iconic Lansdowne recording sessions by the legendary UK jazz combo, the Don Rendell/Ian Carr Quintet.The five albums; Shades Of Blues (1965), Dusk Fire (1966), Phase III (1968), Change Is (1969) and Live (1969), have reached almost mythical status in the collector's world. Regarded as holy grail artefacts for even the seasoned aficionado, th…

Due to overwhelming demand for our 5LP boxset which sold out on the day of release, here are the first ever official individual re-issues of all five of the iconic Lansdowne recording sessions by the legendary UK jazz combo, the Don Rendell/Ian Carr Quintet.The five albums; Shades Of Blues (1965), Dusk Fire (1966), Phase III (1968), Change Is (1969) and Live (1969), have reached almost mythical status in the collector's world. Regarded as holy grail artefacts for even the seasoned aficionado, th…

Due to overwhelming demand for our 5LP boxset which sold out on the day of release, here are the first ever official individual re-issues of all five of the iconic Lansdowne recording sessions by the legendary UK jazz combo, the Don Rendell/Ian Carr Quintet.The five albums; Shades Of Blues (1965), Dusk Fire (1966), Phase III (1968), Change Is (1969) and Live (1969), have reached almost mythical status in the collector's world. Regarded as holy grail artefacts for even the seasoned aficionado, th…

The complete remastered recordings on Black Saint & Soul Note is a monographic box-set collection aimed at recounting the most beautiful chapters that revolutionised the history of jazz. This new series was launched in March 2010 with the simultaneous release of four box-sets, including albums by some of the artists who participated in the success of the outstanding labels. A philological work, beginning with the original recordings on multi-track master tapes, patiently integrally remastered pa…

**Almost sold out in pre-order, don't sleep** Number 27 in the Jazzman Holy Grail Series. With a price of well over $1000 on the few occasions the original LP has hit the market, Infinite Spirit Music's 'Live Without Fear' is a beautiful album of humble purity and peaceful spiritual jazz vibes that lives up to the hype. With the blessing of creator Soji Ade and colleague Kahil El Zabar, we're delighted to be able to finally share their music with you, 40 years since it was recorded. As so often …

For the 2018 edition of the Roskilde festival in Denmark Paal Nilssen-Love was asked to put together two special projects. Nilssen-Love chose to put together two groups: one Japanese and one Brazilian-based band. Nilssen-Love has for a long time been influenced and inspired by a wide range of Brazilian music, and has in the last ten years also made the connection by collaborating with Brazilian musicians and bringing his own projects to Brazil. For the Roskilde project (now to become a steady ba…

A monumental 8xCD box overview on Joëlle Léandre (born 12 September 1951 in Aix-en-Provence, France) a legendary double bassist, vocalist, and composer active in new music and free improvisation. A staggering, foundational body of work from one of the most radical and influencial avantgarde performer of the 20th century. In the field of contemporary music, she has performed with Pierre Boulez's Ensemble Inter Contemporain, and worked with Merce Cunningham and John Cage. Both Cage and Giacinto Sc…

Recorded live at RedBull Studios as part of Improfest 4/2017 - Festival Internacional de Improvisação e Arte Sonora, São Paulo, Brazil. The legendary Otomo Yoshihide playing guitar and bass as well as turntables in company of: Antonio Panda Gianfratti (Contemporary Percussion, Drums) Marco Scarassatti (Viola de Cocho, Self-made instruments: Kraiser, PássaroCocho, Tromp Kirk Roland)  Paulo Hartmann (Prepared 3rd Bridge Guitar, Freteless preparerd Chiquita, Gambelão and Effects). Great!

Restocked, reduced price. A collection of rare free-jazz pieces performed by John Zorn and selected by the American guitarist and music critic Eugene Chadbourne. Come out in 1998 to accompany the book release “Sonora: John Zorn” (Materiali Sonori), the album is presented here for the first time in an exclusive release in limited edition on vinyl.The special issue includes the original book that features exclusive interviews, essays and photos about the artist’s entire oeuvre up to 1988.

Combining visual strategies, free improvisation, UK garage and punk, Still House Plants build melodic hierarchies scaffolded around ambiguities and intimacy. Fresh from being selected for the Cafe OTO Artistic Development fund, and following two sold out tapes on Glasgow label GLARC, the trio’s debut LP 'Long Play' collects their group's raw guitar-drum-vocal palette and stretches it to include violin, piano and intimate home recording. Ranging from seconds-long to seven:minute:somethings, the …

**First ever CD reissue, containing three Pathways session recordings left off the original, one never before issued** Intrinsic energies of mythic worlds! Pathways was originally issued on LP in 1975 as part of Sun Ra’s ill-fated and short-lived ABC/Impulse! partnership. This Modern Harmonic edition has been exquisitely mastered from the four-track session reel. The Impulse! LP was formatted as “Quad Compatible”—short for “quadraphonic”—which you could enjoy if you had four speakers, a custom q…

Studio Mule presents Yoshimi Ueno's Taiko No Uminari, originally issued in 1980 on Johnny's Disk Record. Johnny's Disk Record is an independent jazz label run by the owner of jazz cafe Kaiunbashi No Johnny, located in Rikuzentakata City in Iwate Prefecture, Japan. The legendary label released a string of albums of high quality but down-to-earth music, spanning from modern and avant-garde jazz to left-field pop. Albums such as Teru Sakamoto's Farewell My Johnny / Left Alone and Eiji Nakayama's Ay…

2016 Release. First time available since its original release in 1972. Jukka Hauru is hardly a household name, but in Finland he's a noted producer and journalist, and in the 1970s he released two albums featuring his wild guitar excursions. It's a basic psychedelic jazz avantgarde power-trio outing, featuring Jukka's ace six-string blasts, but is also joined by sax and violin, giving it a broader, more expansive sound. There is also a sense of humor prevalent on the album, as if Hauru didn't ta…