Jazz & Improvisation / All styles

"sublime afro funk/spiritual jazz from Sudan, originally released in the early '80 on a small private label out of Kuwait (very rare LP) ?! 3 tracks on side A and 4 on side B. if you like Mulatu/ethio jazz, you'll love this one. top sound quality + super clean pressing = sounds better then the original." punzmann

Modern Silence present a reissue of Oeil Vision, originally released in 1964. One of the best albums by legendary French pianist Jef Gilson, recorded in 1963 with Jean-Luc Ponty on violin,Daniel Humair on drums, Jean-Louis Chautemps andPierre Caron on tenor sax, Guy Pedersen and Henri Texieron bass. A superb line up for this beautiful album including two splendid versions of "Chant-Inca" (a hidden cover of Pharoah Sanders "Creator Has A Masterplan"). Essential French spirit/avant jazz. Gilson wa…

The Lady With The Golden Stockings" is a propulsive, forthright groove – a decisive, deep-space, pre-dawn party jam, emitting golden sparks from the black hole center which begat "Africa" and "Watusa." Quantum-elasticity of temporal equations, bubbling bass, trumpet dancing on light waves, tenor sax serenade across the galaxy, signaling yonder... vessels... beings... femaliens... Pure poetry in sublime, delicate, rhythmelodic motion becomes "Spontaneous Simplicity.” A centerpiece among the gentl…

Among Sun Ra's most famous and jet-propelled anthems, "Rocket Number Nine" is heard here in one of the earliest renditions from a marathon June 1960 session, with a staggering, swaggering, hip-bop beat. Ignition. Liftoff. "Rocket Number Nine Take Off for the Planet Venus, Zoom Zoom! Up in the air! Zoom! Up!" Paired with originally unknown recordings, including the driving, bossa nova-infused "Ankhnation" from 1959 and "Project Black Mass" from 1962. More energized and driving in contrast …

Cultures Of Soul compile a selection of music culled from rare private press Jazz LPs, pressed in small quantities of a few hundred for band members and the local jazz community. This group existed in the creatively fertile, Boston jazz scene at the time. Presented as a double LP set, packaged in deluxe box with each piece of vinyl housed in its own euro-style glossy jacket. In the 1970s Boston was a fertile ground for a very creative jazz scene. Small, independent venues ranging from lofts…

Daunik Lazro, alto saxophone, Joëlle Léandre, bass, voice, George Lewis, trombone, toys. Recorded at Dunois in Paris on January 8, 1984, by Jean-Marc Foussat.

At the time of its original release in 1973, Morning Glory, seemed a surprising departure for saxophonist John Surman. It seemed to owe more to the music being made by Miles Davis, Weather Report andTony Williams' Lifetime in the USA or Ian Carr's Nucleus and Soft Machine in the UK than it did to the often abstract, free but determinedly acoustic music that Surman had pioneered up to that point. Hindsight tells another story. Morning Glory stands as both a consolidation of his work to date and, …

At first look this might seem like a weird move for the Constellation label as Matana Roberts’ debut for the imprint is pretty much straight-up free jazz. But she’s got some serious history with the Montreal collective, even throwing down horns with Godspeed on the fabled ‘Yanqui UXO’. Thinking about it too, there’s always been a nod towards the free jazz scene (not least on Colin Stetson’s recent genre-bending LP) but where others were a nod, ‘COIN COIN Chapter One : Gens de Couleur Libres’ is …

In a time before jazz music went free and ‘avant-garde’ there were a couple of inspired souls who put an emphasize on extended jams and improvised yet melodic parts based on a rather repetitive rhythm background. The result in turning away from the rather artistic and complicated bebop was the modal jazz that came up in the second half of the 1950s and lasted as the leading style until the mid to late 60s when bands either became free avant garde or discovered rock music to boost up their sound.…

CD version. Peter Brötzmann and Swedish drummer Peeter Uuskyla, a veteran of saxophonist Bengt Nordström’s groups, first recorded together in 1999 with bassist Peter Friis Nielsen, and have since met numerous times in trio and duo settings. Previous to A Crack to Beauty was a 2LP set: Red Cloud on Silver, on the young Swedish label Omlott, which has also released Uuskyla’s solo music as well as reissuing part of their previous duo disc, Born Broke, as a single LP titled Dead and Useless. …

Fledg'ling Records proudly presents the long-overdue CD release of this remarkable solo performance from 1987 by Chris McGregor. Sea Breezeswas recorded during an emotional visit to his homeland by the great South African composer and pianist. McGregor played "an energetic mixture ofDuke Ellington, Charles Mingus and Sun Ra, but always retained a unique feel due to his South African influences and the intelligent arrangements." Over the last four years, Fledg'ling has been collaborating with the…

Recorder on September 4th, 1973, this is one of/if not The funkiest and hippest Byrd to date, available here for the 1st time. what a band/what a concert/what an excellent recording (WBCN-FM broadcast) !" punzmann

South African pianist and composer Abdullah Ibrahim (aka Dollar Brand) featuring Hamiet Bluiett (baritone sax) and Don Cherry (trumpet). Exact repro, originally released in 1977.

Exact repro of pianist Abdullah Ibrahim's 1976 album as Dollar Brand, featuring tenor saxophonist Basil Manenberg. Includes a cover of Thelonious Monk's "Blue Monk."

"In 1983, Paul Rutherford was performing with a trio that was very different in style from the highly abstract Iskra 1903, the trombonist's main trio vehicle for a long time. This group, billed simply as the Paul Rutherford Trio, is busier, wilder, more energy driven and free jazz-oriented. Joining him are two players that were new to the free improve scene at the time. Bassist Paul Rogers was a young cat, although this recording doesn't let it show. He already displays an impressive musical voc…

Three early recordings by the long lasting duo of Milo Fine (clarinet, percussion and piano) and Steve Gnitka (electric guitar). The first two sessions, HAH! from 1976 and "The constant extension of inescapable tradition from 1977, were issued on two hat Hut LPs (with two tracks missing). The third, "When I was five years old I predicted your whole life" from 1978, was scheduled to appear on Horo, but that label went bust before it happened, so this material is now making a very belated first ap…

"An improvising trio absent the traditional markers of a rhythm section (bass and/or drums), the musicians on HASTE explore longer forms with a balance of gestural, painterly swoops and pointillist detail. The trio works through three collective pieces totalling just shy of an hour. Weston is an incredibly resourceful keyboardist, but his penchant for poise and deep listening ensure that his glisses and clusters remain on axis. It’s important to note that both Weston and Laubrock are accomplishe…

Makaya McCraven's In The Moment E & F Sides contain 40 minutes of additional music from the original In The Moment sessions. These 9 pieces of organic beat music were sampled concurrently, but not fully completed, with the 19 that comprised the January 2015 release. Slowly refined by McCraven and mastered in November 2015 by Daddy Kev (founder of Low End Theory, Alpha Pup Records), the In The Moment E & F Sides demonstrate McCraven's further actualization as a unique composer/producer in an…

2016 restock. One venue, 28 shows and 48 hours of live, improvised music. These are the ingredients for Chicago-based drummer Makaya McCraven's album In the Moment. However, McCraven, as the producer he also is, has not just thrown some random sounds together. Instead, he has carefully culled, cut and remixed the music into a coherent whole and 19 complex and catchy compositions emerge from his hands. The meeting between completely fresh improvisations from some of Chicago's finest musicians and…

This is the sixth album by Dorothy Ashby, a Detroit born jazz harpist who passed away in her early 50s in 1986 way before her time. She left us a rich legacy of music with this 1965 release being one of her milestones. The music is pure bright and swinging with a joyful mood. Dorothy Ashby performs her lines big time with her harp and captures your soul with the melodies she picks from its strings. She is always there upfront while the brass section mostly fills the background with colour if the…

BE! JAZZ is happy to come up with a limited edition (500 copies) of a true “holy” modern/free jazz gems of the late 1960s. The original double LP was issued by Meno Liechtenstein’s CB Records – he was also the organizer of the “International Holy Hill Jazz Meeting” in Heidelberg/Germany. The sound quality on the original album was not really bad – but it certainly was not really good as well. We spent a lot of work on a proper restoration of the live tapes. The result is truly amazing – after al…

Miller's Tale is the high point of the collaboration of the distinctive musicians Sylvie Courvoisier, Mark Feldmann, Evan Parker and Ikue Mori. In September 2015, they recorded the fully improvised pieces for this album. The album's track sequencing of first four whole group pieces followed by five duo pieces offer multifaced aural impressions and a rich listening experience. Henning Bolte writes in the liner notes: "Our ears usually first adhere to the known, the familiar. But they 'squint' to …

Outside of the 2CD release ‘Never Too Late But Always Too Early’ (Eremite, 2003) there has been scant documentation of one of the most dynamic pairings in all free jazz. Featuring unique material on each format Song Sentimentale rectifies this anomaly with a full blown audio account of the breathtaking communicative heights obtained by these three legends of the living. Over 3 nights in January 2015 the trio seduced a winter worn crowd with the kind of organic interplay only these three can conj…

Axel Dörner trumpet. Franz Hautzinger trumpet. Mazen Kerbaj trumpet. Carl Ludwig Hübsch tuba. Recorded (on the 20th and 21st of november 2013). Artwork & design by Mazen Kerbaj.

The hearing continues. The playing continues. The listening continues. The music continues. The London Improvisers Orchestra (LIO) continues to play the first Sunday of every month (except December & January) at the Red Rose. Every concert is different - has its own flavour - largely due to who is performing that night, and whose pieces are performed. Some musicians have other commitments on the night. Some musicians drop out completely, others join afresh. Some are just in London for an extende…

Two complete solo soprano saxophone concerts, from Chicago and London, show that Coxhill is as inventive as ever some four decades after his first solo performances. In between there is a 10-minute improvisation by an impromptu 13-piece orchestra. 77 minutes -- previously unissued.

Virtually the whole of the 1976 Montreal solo concert -- one of his best -- including the complete Tao cycle and several other pieces, one of which ('Hooky') is not on any other record. Reissue of half of Quark LP 9998 with over 50 minutes of previously unissued material from the same concert.

"Outrageous sounds produced by a workshop orchestra directed by John Stevens - an SME-type improvisation; instrumental & vocal drones; a mechanically rhythmic yet unpredictable piece; and an all-out improvisation featuring non-vocal mouth sounds, vocal sounds & instruments. The exact line-ups on each of these ensemble pieces are not known (apart from the leader on cornet), so they are not given." (Emanem)

If you have only heard the more recent, understated recordings of this giant of the soprano saxophone, you may wonder what all the fuss is about. Just listen to this seminal album and you should understand right away why Lacy is such a formidable force. The initial eight tracks are a reissue of the first LP issued by Emanem, which was Lacy's first solo recording. Each is a gem: radical, accessible, and fascinatingly offbeat. One uses a random radio selection as a backdrop, another mimics duck wa…

After the internationally and heavily praised Caspar Brötzmann Massaker in the early '90s, not much was heard from the German "Modern Primitive" guitar player Caspar Brötzmann, aside from some collaborations for theater. Now he is back with a new band -- extreme, heavy, intense. In summer 2012 he was invited by the A L'arme Festival for a special gig with Swiss musicians Michael Wertmüller(drums) and Marino Pliakas (ebass) (those two form the group Full Blast with Caspar's father and free-jazz l…

Fledg'ling are very proud to bring Westering Home to CD. Westering Homewas originally released in 1972. John Surman plays everything on the album, drawing together many of the threads of his earlier recordings with the possibilities offered by technology (and his own prodigious musicality). "I took a break from being on the road. This was just around the time when mono had become stereo, and then - in a flash - multi-track recording became possible. I was fascinated by the possibilities of, say,…

All music by Bennett – Johnston – Mezzacappa – Rosaly. Recorded 10th January, 2015 by Myles Boisen and Jonah Strauss at Shipwreck Studios, Oakland, CA. Mixed by John Finkbeiner at New, Improved Recording, Oakland, CA

Ornette Coleman has been a leading force in jazz since his startling debut in the late '50s, Coleman's emotive alto saxophone style relies on melodic improvisation unbound by chord changes. This style (and philosophy) was dubbed by Ornette 'harmelodics' and reached its peak in a small combo whose virtuoso playing had the power of the blues and the multi-rhythmic sophistication of Monk, Mingus, or Coltrane. The landmark series of albums Coleman released in the late '50s and early '60s still defin…

Mats Gustafsson, tenor & baritone saxophones. Ingebrigt HŒker Flaten, electric & double bass. Paal Nilssen-Love, drums, percussion. Additional guests on one track, Anna Högberg: alto saxophone, Goran Kajfes: cornet. Recorded June 1st and 2nd 2015 by J¿rgen Træen at Duper studio, Bergen, Norway.Two years after their The Thing Records label-debut with the legendary Boot album, the Scandinavian freejazz vikings release another heavy and wonderful monster of a studio-album! Intense, passionate and a…

In October 2015, a three-day was held at Porgy & Bess in Vienna for the 50th birthday of Mats Gustafsson, saxophone player extraordinaire in contemporary (free) jazz with The Thing, Fire!, and various duo/trio/ensemble formations. Many collaborators of Gustafsson's were invited to join in various formations. The first three discs of the four-CD set were recorded October 26-28, 2014 at Porgy & Bess in Vienna byMikael Werliin. The fouth disc was recorded October 26-28th, 2014 at "Strenge Kammer," …

First release on the Dutch Hidden Charms Records label. This LP merely brings together a group of damn fine jazz and blues recordings that make for a musically diverse and interesting listening experience. The 14 superb songs presented were recorded between 1927-1933 and feature the cream of the crop of Barrelhouse Piano, Country Blues, Jug Bands, Hokum Groups, Hot Jazz Orchestras and Medicine Show Songsters. Yes people, all the good stuff!!! Many of the more obscure tracks featured are hard to …

Reedist Peter Brötzmann, a grand old master of European free jazz, has created a body of music that is considered among the most influential and pioneering of the 20th and early 21st centuries, from Machine Gun (1968) to Full Blast (TROST 107CD/LP, 2011) with Michael Wertmüller and Marino Pliakas. Brötzmann's recording presented here, a 72-minute document made in collaboration with the Munich ICI Ensemble, consciously alternates between the intimacy of contemporary chamber music and virtuosic br…

Landmark work from the Finnish scene of the 60s – one of those ultra-rare European jazz records that collectors have dug for decades! The set's got a stark, modern sort of feel – but also a nice soulful swing, too – a balance that few of the other Scandinavians hit so well at the time – as they were either hanging between farther-out progressions, or more inside, tightly arranged jazz! Drummer Christian Schwindt's vision here is exceptional – full of rich feeling, deep tone, and careful…

Sebastian Smolyn, e-trombone. Artur Smolyn, electronics. Oliver Steidle, drums. Peter Brötzmann, reeds.Sebastian Smolyn (trombone) and Artur Smolyn (electronics) are Defibrillator. They have committed themselves to improvised music and do enthralling performances full of energy and love of adventure. They have been educated in classical music in conservatories in Germany, France and Switzerland. They have played in numerous well-known orchestras and ensembles. Their experience is the matrix for …

Swedish drummer Peeter Uuskyla performs all alone on this double-LP. The opening track ”The Dream” features two takes of drumkit mixed with one take of his piano-playing. The triptych ”Nerves I-III” presents Peeter Uuskyla´s everyday rituals as a drumkit-concerto. His primal, natural, basic, archaic music is illustrated by Johannes Brander´s cover art. Peeter Uuskyla has played many years with legendary saxophonist Bengt Frippe Nordströms group in Sweden. He has worked and toured internationall…