Jazz /
Live at Yubin Chokin Kaikan Hall, Tokyo,14.05.1986
For this historical concert held at the Yubin Chokin Hall, in Tokyo on May 14, 1986, the legendary Japanese drummer Masahiko Togashi brought together an amazing line-up with such modern jazz luminaries as Steve Lacy (soprano sax), Don Cherry (pocket trumpet) and Dave Holland (bass). This particular album consists of four previously unpublished tracks (on vinyl), including some highly regarded Lacy's compositions such as The Crus and Quakes, and Don Cherry's African flavored anthem called Mopti. …
Spirits Rejoice!
**1000 copies** Otoroku is extremely proud to present the first vinyl reissue of one of the most legendary free jazz records ever produced. Originally released in 1978 on Ogun recordings, Louis Moholo Octet’s Spirits Rejoice! is a high achievement in the movement of the era as it soars beyond oppression with a raucous and spiritually uplifting surge of movement and melody. Featuring Harry Miller, Johnny Dyani, Keith Tippett, Evan Parker, Nick Evans, Radu Malfatti and Kenny Wheeler, this is forme…
Alligator Bogaloo
To believe in serendipity - that’s the operative word when it comes to alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson’s soul-jazz hit, Alligator Bogaloo, the opening track from the leader’s heralded -artistically and commercially - album of the same name, released by Blue Note in 1967. The tale of its origin has been told so many times that it holds mythic status of affirming the power of improvisational jazz. For his LP session at Rudy Van Gelder’s Englewood Cliffs, N.J., studio, Lou finished recording five tr…
Ethiopian Knights
Right from the stop-start bass groove that opens The Emperor, it's immediately clear that Ethiopian Knights is more indebted to funk - not just funky jazz, but the straight-up James Brown / Sly Stone variety - than any previous Donald Byrd project. And, like a true funk band, Byrd and his group work the same driving, polyrhythmic grooves over and over, making rhythm the focal point of the music. Although the musicians do improvise, their main objective is to keep the grooves pumping, using their…
Universal Beings
Paris-born, New England-raised, long-time Chicago-residing Makaya McCraven has been at the forefront of genre-redefining movements in jazz since 2015, when he introduced the world to his unique brand of ‘organic beat music’ on the breakout album In the Moment. Culled, cut, post-produced and re-composed by Makaya using recordings of free improvisation he collected over dozens of live sessions in Chicago, through incubation and experimentation In the Moment established a procedural blueprint that …
Baroque Jazz Trio + 7"
**Bundle edition, LP + 7"** Souffle Continu Records present a reissue of Baroque Jazz Trio's self-titled album, original released on Saravah in 1970. Mixing Baroque, free-jazz, and world music, the unique album of the Baroque Jazz Trio (which is in fact 3/5 of the Bach Modern Quintet) is a difficult-to-label sound object which is far from being typical of the psychedelic sounds associated with the early 1970s. Because, although fusion with Indian music (amongst others) and jazz (but also pop) wa…
Mr. Shing-A-Ling
This 1967 recording was always the best of Lou Donaldson's funky albums. It's just amazing that Blue Note put this back into circulation on 180 gram vinyl. Mr. Shing-A-Ling is worth the investment for the ultra-funking Peepin' alone. Composer and organist Lonnie Smith lays down a basic fatback groove and manages to glean a funk anthem that set the foundation for a whole decade worth of Lou Donaldson LPs (Midnight Creeper is a mere rewrite of this classic). Among Donaldson's big funk classics - t…
Palina'tufa
Empty Editions presents Palina’tufa, the newest work from saxophonist Seymour Wright and percussionist Paul Abbott’s long-running duo XT. Wright and Abbot’s respective practices have been marked by a simultaneous engagement (with) and desire to challenge the limitations (of) the British tradition of improvised music - represented by groups such as AMM and John Stevens’ Spontaneous Music Ensemble. This album charts a new trajectory for Wright and Abbott, as they draw on recent live collaborations…
Vwayajé
“Stop here!” exclaimed Robert Oumaou as we passed a mango tree on the side of the road just outside of Point-a-Pitre, the balmy capital of Guadeloupe. He filled a plastic bag with ripe fruit, and we set off on our journey across the small Caribbean island in search of musicians he hadn’t seen in years. On the way, we shared stories in broken French and English, stopping at truck stops to eat delicious fried fish. Robert took me to his hometown, and placed a mango and a flower on the grave of his…
Live / Shapeshifter
Live / Shapeshifter is the exemplary new double-album from one of master bassist - composer - improviser William Parker's eternal flagship groups, recorded live and presenting all-new compositions, including the extended suite Eternal Is the Voice of Love, along with a new iteration of the band's theme. Featuring pianist Cooper-Moore, alto saxophonist Rob Brown and (since 2012) drummer Hamid Drake, In Order To Survive is one of the great jazz groups of the past quarter century. Launched in 1993,…
The Tao Quartets - Peace Planet & Box of Light
A tremendous pair of brand new studio albums created by drummer-leader Whit Dickey together with two distinct yet interrelated Quartets. All involved here have long been deep seekers of truth through sound, and between them is a luminous web of deeply affecting work, which now spans decades. This Yin & Yang pair presents their very latest work together. Peace Planet features Matthew Shipp - piano, Rob Brown - alto sax, William Parker - bass. Box of Light features Rob Brown - alto sax, Steve Swel…
The Guitar Player
The Guitar Player was Davy Graham's first full-length LP, after releasing his EP 3/4 A.D. two years earlier. This unique album combines his interesting and virtuoso guitar play with some excellent arrangements. With his guitar style he contributed to the musical changes in the early 1960s, where blues, rock and folk started to play a more prominent role in the music scene. The man crosses into blues, jazz, folk, Arabic music and more, often in the same song. It's an essential album and one of th…
Peru's Master Percussionist
Julio "Chocolate" Algendones is one of the essential percussionists in the great tradition of Afro-Peruvian music. Peru's Master Percussionist collects recordings made in 1990 in Las Vegas, during a trip that the artist made as a member of Peruvian jazz group Perujazz. The album was produced by the Englishman J. Blue Sheppard and released in 1991 by the New York-based label Lyrichord. It also includes a track originally recorded and published in Lima, in 1984. This reissue on Buh Records present…
Geometría del vínculo
Based in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sales de Baño is a group that brings together musicians of different nationalities. Led by Colombian composer and bassist Carlos Quebrada, their sound explorations have led them to expand the languages of jazz, and incorporate elements of experimental rock, contemporary music, and free improvisation. Geometría del vínculo (Geometry of the Bond) is Sales de Baño's third album, can be understood as an avant-garde jazz album which is also connected with…
Deeply Discounted II / Sequences of Snow
**500 copies** This latest album is an exciting new statement from the duo, featuring long-form compositions for the first time, written specifically for the LP format and developed while touring in North America during 2017. Nate Wooley's piece, Deeply Discounted II, is inspired by John Cage's Cheap Imitation which, in turn, was inspired by Erik Satie's, Socrate. Ken Vandermark's composition, Sequences of Snow, is dedicated to the visual artist and musician, Michael Snow, and was influenced by …
Cosmik Sindika
**700 copies** Since childhood Serge Fabriano bathed in music, to-ing and fro-ing between his native Guadeloupe and Paris where he grew up. He attended the music conservatory, learnt how to play bass, played with many musicians and was ultimately angling for a career as a music teacher. During the mid-70's, he alternated between teaching classes and live gigs, and performed in Germany with a funk band comprised of ex-GIs from the US Army. He also met the members of Return to Forever, and especia…
Black Christ of the Andes
Pianist and composer Mary Lou Williams played with nearly every major jazz performer during her long, illustrious and varied career, in addition to recording many solo works. Born Mary Winn in Atlanta in 1910 and raised in a 'shotgun shack', where local musicians gathered to jam, she played by ear from a tender age and learned the boogie-woogie style upon moving to Pittsburgh with her older sister Mamie. While still in high school, Williams toured with the Theatre Owners’ Booking Association, br…
Live at Sendai Jazz Festival, Den-ryoku Hall, 20.10.1986
The gifted American pianist Keith Jarrett is one of the jazz world’s greatest musicians. Born in suburban Allentown, Pennsylvania in 1948 with a mixed European cultural heritage, Jarrett was a child prodigy that played piano at the age of two, appeared on television, aged five, and gave his first classical recital, aged seven. After studying at the prestigious Berklee College of Music, he moved to New York in 1964 to perform at the Village Vanguard and then joined Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. D…
Live at Koncertsal, Copenhagen, 17.10.1963
The short-lived quintet known as The New York Contemporary Five had a lasting impact on the free jazz movement. It was formed in 1962 with trumpeter Don Cherry, who had been working with free jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman; tenor saxophonist Archie Shepp, Danish alto saxophonist John Tchicai (whose father was Congolese), a former member of the quintet assembled by the poet and filmmaker Jorgen Leth, who moved to New York shortly before the Contemporary Five’s formation; acoustic bassist Don Moore,…
Lift Every Voice and Sing
**500 copies, strictly no repress** Smalltown Supersound are going hard on the free jazz this year - so much so that they've set up new sub-label Actions For Free Jazz to accommodate the load. This was the slogan for Smalltown Superjazzz and was borrowed at the time from Don Cherry and Krystzof Penderecki’s The New Eternal Rhythm Orchestra track Actions For Free Jazz Orchestra from the 1971 album Actions. The inspiration for the label is BYG Actuel, Incus, Freedom and ESP-Disk. AFJ's latest fora…