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Jazz & Improvisation /

Plays Exotic Jazz
**very last copies** Limited numbered 1/70 only with hand-made foder cover, printed labels and black inner sleeves! dj qbico mix a selection of very rare/obscure 45 from Us, none of these tracks had been reissued or appears on any compilations
To The Animal Kingdom
Three young musicians team up to form this exciting trio. Personnel: Mette Rasmussen - alto saxophone; Tashi Dorji - guitar; Tyler Damon - drums.
Klinker
Factory pressed double CD in printed triple panel Ekopack cardboard sleeve. Derek Bailey : guitar. Simon H. Fell : double bass. Will Gaines : tap dance. Mark Wastell : violoncello. Recorded live at The Klinker, London on Thursday 24th August 2000. Compèred by Matt Scott. Original DAT recording by Tim Fletcher.Mixed and mastered by Simon H. Fell. Produced by Mark Wastell. One of the special qualities of improvisation is the array of responses musicians and performers have to the environment …
Marvel Motor
**Edition of 110 copies only** A beautifully conceived record, housed in a silkscreend slip-in cover with a paste on picture – and one that sounds equally beautiful too – a super limited picture disc that features the mighty Mats Gustafsson working on bass sax and live electronics – while getting some heavy accompaniment from the flaming drums of Didi Kern (of Bulbul fame) The music is kind of a long, sonic text – with the drums almost always pointing forward with a pulsating vibe, which frees …
So Far
Between 1961 and 1965 Eje Thelin formed his first own group with which he toured across Europe. In 1964 he performed in Copenhagen with George Russell; from the late 60s to the mid-70s he played with Joachim Kühn and John Surman and turned to Free Jazz. This quintet is famous for the cooperation with Belgian Joel Vandrooogenbroeck, who had played with big names such as Barney Wilen and Zoot Sims. In 1968 Vandroogenbroeck formed the experimental rockband Brainticket. This 1963 session featur…
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Eje Thelin At The German Jazz Festival
An amazing set from Swedish trombonist Eje Thelin – a live date, but a totally excellent session that stands as one of the best demonstration of his talents in the 60s! On the European scene at the time, Thelin was easily one of the most inventive players on the trombone – one of the few who could hit the soulful swing of American musicians like Curtis Fuller or JJ Johnson, but also an artist who was starting to stretch out into new realms too – just a touch of Grachan Moncur and Roswell Rudd, w…
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Leave No Trace: Live In St. Louis
Proton Pump is a milestone achievement in the winding career of alto saxophonist, gibberish shrieker and jazz legend Akira Sakata. It’s a lightning-fast, real-time cut-up of melody and bare-knuckle action that swings between the avant garde and hardcore be-bop. Sakata is backed by his famed rhythm crew Chikamorachi -- drummer Chris Corsano and acoustic bassist Darin Gray -- and joined by composer and pianist Masahiko Satoh. Sakata and Satoh emerged out of the late-1960s Tokyo jazz scene -- S…
Brookland Suite
Brookland Suite is inspired by Micha Acher's travels to New Orleans and Johannes Enders's admiration for the soundscapes of Gil Evans. The unique instrumentation and the rough sound make Brookland a very special suite for lovers of deep sounds. Johannes Enders is a saxophone player with his own distinguished voice, and a rich international performing experience, covering gigs with artists as diverse as Donald Byrd, Jeff Watts, Roy Hargrove, Vincent Herring, George Cables, Lester Bowie, and Ja…
Le Stanze
It's been 6 years since Ingar Zachs critically acclaimed solo album; M.O.S. (SOFA 532). On his 5th album, Le Stanze, Ingar Zach continues to develop his unique, personal music, also this time with percussion and electronics. The four compositions show an highly original artist who constantly finds new surprising possibilities in the world of percussion. The music is recorded in a small church in Urueña in Spain and in his studio in Madrid. The result is a brilliant refined album which again c…
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Ah!
George Khan could be called a forgotten pioneer of the London free music scenes, except that anyone who has heard or seen or met him could surely never forget him. A superb saxophonist and flautist, as well as one of the nicest and most laid-back people - he is capable of outputting an apparently endless stream of what is generally called Fire Music. Meeting up with Terry Day in the mid-1960s, Khan became a member of the People Band, and since then has mostly combined his musical and theatr…
Love's dream
Reissue of this 1974 Emanem LP, with bonus tracks. Hard-swinging Free Jazz recorded in a club in Paris, featuring original tunes by the vastly under-rated Bradford (cornet) with Trevor Watts (alto sax), Kent Carter (bass) & John Stevens (drums). Reissue of Emanem 3302 with extra material. Recorded Nov. 1973.
the geometry of sentiment
John Butcher is up there with the Parkers, the Rothenbergs, the Zorns and the Harths, yet his style is inimitable; he has arrived at the top at last, and dominates in a world of bent overtones and multiple subdivisions of a single note. THE GEOMETRY OF SENTIMENT - which I perceive as his masterpiece - presents seven tracks recorded at various places between 2004 and 2006, each one with a different kind of resonant space forced by our man to respond in a unique way, at the same time exploring tha…
Chapter Two 1981-83
PAUL RUTHERFORD (trombone, euphonium & electronics), PHILIPP WACHSMANN (violin & electronics), and BARRY GUY (double bass & electronics). The first time some early recordings of this trio have been issued. The bulk of the music in this set comes from a late 1983 tour of England - 4 concerts in 6 days - during which this trio used more electronics than before or since. The music in each concert moved in a different direction, so it all had to be included. There are also two slightly earlier perfo…
The gentle harm of the bourgeoisie
Reissue of the definitive solo trombone album, from 1974, with additional material from the same sessions. His first album of this sort, it has been described by Derek Bailey (rather famously) as still the best record of solo free improvising you are likely to find. Maybe it's the only one... if you're thinking of buying a record of solo improvisation you should try and get this one. It's the genuine article.
Fairly early with postscripts
IMPROVISED GUITAR SOLOS also with: Anthony Brax ton flute & sopranino saxophone (on 3 & 4 only) .Kent Carter: double bass (on 9 & 10 only). John Stevens: percussion (on 9 & 10 only).
Fixations (14)
Though saxophonist John Butcher is not short on instrumental prowess, his primary assets lie in the realm of ideas. On Fixations, Butcher has rejected conventional jazz thinking (swing, melodicism, harmonic cycles) in favor of creating his own personal language of improvisation. As Butcher puts it in the liner notes, "...improvisation can only make sense when it is somehow connected to the hope of finding, spontaneously, some music you don't really know about beforehand." So the pursuit of a…
Digswell duets
The 39 minute duet with Simon Emmerson is an early example of interactive saxophone and electronics, wherein Emmerson modifies Coxhill's sound, and Coxhill reacts accordingly, etc. The 34 minute duet with pianist Veryan Weston is an early example of their very compatible duo, which is still going strong. Reissue of Random Radar RRR 005 with extra material from the same sessions. 73 minutes.
Karyobin
Invaluable CD reissue for Spontaneous Music Ensemble’s groundbreaking and inspirational Karyōbin (1968) - a pivotal moment in the history of free-jazz/improvised music featuring the combined talents of Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Dave Holland, John Stevens and others, now presented by Martin Davidson’s lagendary Emanem label on its golden jubilee, remixed and remastered from the original tapes with new liner notes.The histories of free-jazz, with subsequent narratives of improvisation which grew…
DJ Qbico Plays Ndo Clements
1/99 only with hand-made cover on a beautiful paper and printed labels. dj qbico mix a selection from rare & oscure 7"/LP by Cameroon legend Ndo Clement
Tension
** 2012 Audiophile Remastered Edition of 500 copies with Original 3page-Multi Fold Out Cover, long out of print, few copies available ** Incredible early work from one of Germany's greatest modernists – one of the key records that showed the world that German jazz was way more than just a rehashing of American modes in the postwar years! This rare 1963 recording features the quintet of trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff – a groundbreaking unit that includes tenorist Heinz Sauer, altoist Gunter…
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Confusion
Over a decade a half after his death, vindication has come to Fela Kuti, Africa’s musical genius. AfroBeat, his gift to the world, is now an international staple on his own uncompromising terms, social content intact. Throughout his life, Fela contended that AfroBeat was a modern form of danceable, African classical music with an urgent message for the planet’s denizens. Created out of a cross-breeding of Funk, Jazz, Salsa and Calypso with Juju, Highlife and African percussive patterns, i…
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Jellyspace
eruption of energy and musicality! The group play with a forward energy that takes off right from the start - Mikołaj Trzaska on alto and baritone saxophones, Peter Ole Jørgensen on percussion and percussion, Rafał Mazur bass guitar.Mikolaj Trzaska is ne of the main figures of Polish avan-jazz, free improvised music scene. Cofounder and saxophonist of Miłość, one of the main pillars of so called yass scene. The group cooperated with among others Lester Bowie and Tomasz Stańko. They recorded f…
Apteryx Mantelli
Portugal's IKB Ensemble is an electracoustic improvising ensemble with a strong string and wind section, balanced with electric guitar, electronics, and percussion. This is a beautiful example of communal playing allowing textures and unique voices to surface and submerge, where no voice subsumes the other, but work together to create a unique and intriguing tapestry of sound.
The Hands
Very much a tight knit unit with three equal players, Fire! has been likened to powerful guitar led trios such as Cream and The Jimi Hendrix Experience, but with Johan Berthling's heavy, doom-laden basslines being such a typical identifier, you can't help but think of Black Sabbath's debut album (1970) when it comes to hypnotic impact. The Hands is the trio's sixth album and it once again displays a totally uncompromising and intriguing mix of (mostly) heavy, dark, and intensely burning music …
Plutonian Nights / Reflects Motion (Part 1)
"Plutonian Nights," the opening jam from the 1959 Afrofuturist classic album Nubians of Plutonia, is Sun Ra's quintessential, astro-majestic party joint. Among the top grooves in his immense catalog, Ra reveals his love for R&B is inseparable from his embrace of Jazz. (He once told bassist Richard Evans, "We don't play Jazz, we play Dazz.") Pat Patrick's bari sax morphs into a Fender bass, while the swinging flow of John Gilmore & Co. gives new meaning to the notion of 'Blowing' (Out From Chica…
Saturn / Mystery Mr. Ra
Sun Ra's angular yet strident and soulful "Saturn,” recorded in 1958, displays bluesy cubist bop in perfect alter-dimensional extension of Fletcher Henderson. It's also a showcase for John Gilmore's sax acrobatics and supersonic swing. Gilmore dove deep into the Ra Omniverse; "got the concept" - as Coltrane described the tenor giant - hooked by this composition, and never left. Dual baritones of Pat Patrick and Charles Davis (who continues in the front line of the living, glowing Arkestra of 201…
El Is A Sound Of Joy
Shining sounds from the dawn of the Sun Ra Arkestra. "El is A Sound of Joy" was recorded in 1956 and appeared the following year on the very first Saturn LP, Super-Sonic Jazz. Incredible is the fact that saxophonist Charles Davis, here providing the soulful baritone anchor line (counterpoint to Ra's formidable left hand), remains in the front-line of today's Sun Ra Arkestra directed by Marshall Allen. Shuffle swing breakdown jets leisurely, casually, masterfully, painting lush, post-modern impre…
Live 1980
**ltd/numbered 1/50, with paste-on cover** Three long tracks, amazing/perfect duo (they'd have played a lot together, real tight/know each other real well); both musicians are still very very underrated ?! fantastic solos by Mr. Reid. Recorded at the New England Repertory Theatre; Feb. 25 1980 . One of the unsung baritonists in jazz, Charles Tyler had a huge tone on his instrument and played with a great deal of fire, usually in fairly free settings. After studying piano growing up in Indianapol…
On The Radio : BBC Sessions 1971
This debut release of The New Jazz Orchestra BBC broadcasts from 1971 measure a year of change for the band’s musical director, Neil Ardley. The first session captures the full majesty of the NJO at the height of its powers in a ‘Jazz Club’ session from February with a 20-performer line-up pre-recorded at London’s Camden Theatre. Humphrey Lyttelton helms proceedings; musicians include Ardley, Harry Beckett, Ian Carr, Henry Lowther, Derek Wadsworth, Mike Gibbs, Don Rendell, Barbara Thompson, Dick…
Edge of Time
Voted top singer in Melody Maker’s 1971 Jazz Poll, Norma subsequently recorded this, her first album, to be released the following year on Decca’s Argo label. Although she began her career in 1965 singing jazz standards, her exploration of the use of voice took Norma to experimentalism and the evolvement of a wordless approach to improvisation that she was to make distinctively her own.Featuring the cream of modern British jazz talent including Kenny Wheeler, Paul Rutherford, Frank Ricotti, …
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Le Déjeuner Sur L'Herbe
Reissued for the first time, The New Jazz Orchestra’s 1968 release ‘Le Déjeuner Sur L’Herbe’ features key players in modern British jazz including Henry Lowther, Ian Carr, Michael Gibbs, Derek Wadsworth, Barbara Thompson, Dave Gelly, Dick Heckstall-Smith, Frank Ricotti, Jack Bruce and Jon Hiseman, under the directorship of Neil Ardley. ‘Nardis’ features solos by Ian Carr on flugelhorn, George Smith on tuba and – rarely heard – Jack Bruce on acoustic bass.  Complementing this is what might be…
The Beginning Of A New Birth
"Both World's Experience Orchestras albums were recorded in and around Boston, Massachusetts in the mid to late 1970s and committed to vinyl in minuscule press runs by a visionary, bassist/composer/arranger John Jamyll Jones. Jones is a magical type, who communicates with his instrument, his ensembles, and jazz's ancient lineage in a manner so profound that his late-'70s album are out of time with jazz's trajectory, but timeless when presented today. By the late '90s the music of World's …
Rebirth Cycle
Limited remastered edition of 250 copies only. Nearly everyone on the planet has heard Mtume. Notorious B.I.G.’s sample of his 1983 single Juicy Fruit, is as iconic as they come. What few know, is that prior to entering the world of R&B, the drummer James Mtume was a seminal figure in the 1970’s New York free jazz scene - among the wildest of its fiery voices. Part of a remarkable musical legacy - his father and uncles made up the Heath Brothers, he began his career working with Don Cherry, Herb…
The Lost Arkestra Series Vol 1 & 2
A double 10" set featuring Sun Ra recordings. Initially released on two separate 10"s back in 2010/13. Volume 1 features "Along Came Ra", a previously unissued live track recorded in Paris in 1983. The legendary Disco 3000 concert tapes are on the flip. Volume 2 lifts three fine selections from the Sub-Underground Saturn LPs. "Love Is For Always" and the driving, roots-y "The World Of Africa" come from 1974's Temple U; while the myth-science poetics of "Space Is The Place/We Roam The Cosmos" com…
Space Is The Place
The holy grail for Sun Ra collectors and fans, his original album previously released on Jackpot, with Tip-on Gatefold Jacketand Transparent Blue Colored Vinyl and an album that forever gave them a slogan to live by! The record's different than some of the other Arkestra work from the time – in that it's a bit tighter and more spiritual, more in keeping with the style of the Blue Thumb label, for which it was recorded – and soaring along on a wave of post-Coltrane spiritual jazz enthusiasm…
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Dissonanzen
When, back in 2013, we were asked by the Ensemble Dissonanzen to publish a massive retrospective edition of some of their most representative works, to celebrate their 20th anniversary, we knew it would have been a challenge. We were – and are – quite conscious of the fact that the work of an all-acoustic New Music ensemble with a heavy dose of improvisation may appear out of place within the Die Schachtel's catalogue that. although eclectic, is more biased towards electronic/experimental …
A Philosophy Warping, Little by Little That Way Lies A Quagmire
Karl Records catch Konstrukt and Keiji Haino in collaboration as you’ve never heard them. Veering from a killer spin on Turkish psych disco with wigged sax, wails and electronics harnessed to a disco thump on the 1st track, thru to mathy free jazz, exothermic outbursts, and a thrashing avant-punk piece, then coming to rest on a cooler ‘70s jazz-fusion tip. We’d love to hear someone deploy that 1st cut on an unsuspecting disco crowd!