Jazz /
Tangle
A live recording of the trio comprised of John Butcher (saxophones, feedback) Thomas Lehn (analogue synthesizer) Matthew Shipp (piano) performing at Cafe Oto, London on 19 February 2014. "the standout album of 2016. There’s a raw vitality to the performance, and the music is unabashed and direct in channeling relatively conventional lyricism: Tangle is supremely listenable, and should grab listeners who usually find improvised free music elusive, as well as devotees . . . This is thrilling…
European Jazz Sounds
Digipack incl. 16-page booklet. Dusko Goykovich - tp, Derek Humble - as, Karl Drevo - ts, Francis Coppieters - p, Jonny Fischer - b, Stuff Combe - dr, Kenny Clarke - dr. Previously unreleased radio sessions 1958-1961 in Cologne, West Germany. During his career Dusko Goykovich built his own style recognizable for the preciseness and brilliance of his technique. His warm sound is like a mirror of half a century of jazz history. Goykovich set technical standards and played with all the greats of th…
Die Deutschen All Stars
CD digipack incl.20-page booklet.
Unreleased recordings from 1963 sessions! The 22 musicians presented on this album can be referred to as the leading names of jazz in Germany. In the “'German Jazz Poll 1963' Albert Mangelsdorff was elected 'musician of the year', the prize winners on individual instruments from trumpet to bass are included, as are the two leading ensembles – the Michael Naura Quintett as the best modern jazz combo, the Feet warmers as the best traditional band. Rarely ha…
JAZZ antibes 1963
CD digipack incl.12-page booklet. Unreleased live recordings from the 4th Antibes Jazz Festival. Since 1960 a jazz festival is held in Juan-Les-Pins at the Côte d'Azur, which is regarded as one of the best summer festivals worldwide. Apart from the big names - from Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald to Miles Davis or Keith Jarrett - it also featured legends such as Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Chuck Berry and Ray Charles. The 4th Festival in 1963 saw a meeting of representatives of traditional and mo…
from the German Jazz Festival 1964
CD digipack incl.24-page booklet.
Unreleased live recordings from the 9th German Jazz Festival 1964 in Frankfurt am Main! Apart from well-known bands such as the Jazzensemble des Hessischen Rundfunks and the Klaus Doldinger Quartet, the German Jazz Festival 1964 focussed on jazz from our Eastern neighbouring countries, here represented by the Zagreb Jazz Quartet from Jugoslavia. Saxophonists Karl Drevo, Emil Mangelsdorff and Joki Freund also played an important part and are featured in thi…
Free At The German Jazz Festival 1966
Unreleased live recordings - featuring the pioneers from the Euro-pean New Jazz scene! This is the third in our series of exciting jazz albums with beautiful unreleased live recordings from the German Jazz Festival 1966! Please check the whos's who of the European jazz scene in the tracklisting.This 2-CD set comes in a SABA-style packaging.
We had the impression that those recordings could easily have been part of the SABA/MPS catalogue back in 1966 - that's why we decided to design the co…
Jazzmessage From Poland
Tomasz Stanko was considered the first free-jazz trumpeter in Europe. He debuted at the end of the 1950s in Krakow and in the1960s joined Krzysztof Komeda’s quintet, later recording a masterpieceof European jazz, the album “Astigmatic”. In the early 1970s he was part of the international free jazz sceneand performed at major European festivals with his Tomasz Stanko Quintet. In the 1980s Stanko played with Cecil Taylor, and led his own bands that incorporated reggae, latino, electronic, and rap …
Cynosure
When 20-something saxophonist Trevor Watts was demobbed from the RAF in the early 60s, he moved to London and co-founded the Spontaneous Music Ensemble. Although clearly aware of Ornette Coleman’s new conception of Jazz in America, he soon developed his own, more fluently inclusive style, filtering and synthesising the history of jazz saxophony like few others—David Murray is one obvious counterpart in that respect—and giving it a personal twist. He also developed a unique conception of musical …
Mining The Seam - The Rest Of The Spotlite Sessions
Alto Saxophone – Trevor Watts
Bass – Barry Guy
Drums – John Stevens
Recorded at Riverside Studios, London, May 1977. Previously unissued.
Dialogues In Two Places
Free improvisation. Some may think of it as the art of 'making it up as you go along'. But it is much more than that. English vocalist Maggie Nicols has spoken of the necessity for a sort of 'social virtuosity' amongst improvisers: chops and instincts and reflexes simply aren't enough to make great music in a free improv situation. One must listen attentively, and approach music-making with true openness. German clarinetist Theo Jorgensmann captured another aspect of that 'something more' quite …
Application Interaction And...
The trio of drummer John Stevens, bassist Barry Guy and saxophonist Trevor Watts was one of Stevens ’ s hottest small groups and the two records they cut for Spotlite in the late 70s are Atlantic straddling classics that reconcile the emotive supernatural force of the late Albert Ayler with the exacting microdetail of the post SME set. Application Interaction And… was the second of these discs, the first, No Fear, having already been made available on CD by Hi 4 Head. At points the fidelity is p…
No Fear
Recorded in May of 1977 and released a year later on Spotlite, No Fear is one of drummer John Stevens' excellent jazzier sessions. Backed by his regular acolytes Trevor Watts and Barry Guy, the leader of the Spontaneous Music Ensemble revels in the hot free jazz licks he and the saxophonist came up with. His playing is superbly detailed by the recording, the interplay between his hi-hat cymbals and snare drum being particularly impressive in this jazz context. Watts pours a lot of soul into his …
Astro Black
Awesome re-edition for this legendary 1973 spacey album, killer sound quality. One of a handful of albums Sun Ra released on Impulse in the early '70s, Astro-Black provides a comprehensive picture of where the Arkestra was around the time, drawing to the end of their ultra-free period and beginning to investigate some traditional jazz forms. The opening title track explores some of Ra's spacier side, sounding a bit like a calmer alternative to his well-known "Space Is the Place" with June Tyson'…
We Be All Africans
Strut are proud to present the brand new studio album from West Coast jazz mavericks, The Pyramids, led by their inspirational bandleader, Idris Ackamoor. Alto saxophonist Ackamoor first met Margo Simmons (flute) and Kimathi Asante (electric bass) whilst students together at Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio where one of their teachers was renowned pianist, Cecil Taylor. After founding the band in Paris in 1972, performing in Holland and embarking on a “cultural odyssey” across Afric…
Singles (The Definitive 45's Collection 1952–1991)
The immense output of Sun Ra and his many backing bands, coupled with the limited production of many of his releases has long defied dedicated collectors. Parallel to a vast list of LP releases, Sun Ra released numerous 45 RPM singles; one-off meteorites from his prolific cosmic journey. Working closely with Sun Ra LLC and Art Yard Records, it is with great pride that Strut presents a definitive collection of the rare singles released by Sun Ra across his illustrious career, spanning 1952…
13
Currently a trio featuring Helge Sten, Arve Henriksen and Ståle Storløkken, Supersilent ’s album number 13 marks a turning point in the group’s two-decade career. After a dozen recordings under the umbrella of the diverse Rune Grammofon label, Supersilent have now signed to Oslo based Smalltown Supersound, where they join the likes of Lindstrøm, DJ Harvey, Prins Thomas and Andre Bratten as labelmates. After live and studio dalliances with Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones in the last few years, the…
Live in Frankfurt 82
Bitter Funeral Beer Band was a unique band with an early world music with an own identity that mixes african funeral music and improvisation with a nordic touch that has not existed before or after the few years in the 80’s that the band was active. Led by Bengt Berger who had studied a couple of years in Ghana, the band based a lot of the music on the funeral music concept of the Lo-Birifor people of northern Ghana.The band did its first cd, Bitter Funeral Beer, on ECM and then one more,…
I Roam The Cosmos
Art Yard continues their voyage into the omniverse of unreleased Sun Ratapes with I Roam The Cosmos, an unreleased, previously unheard 1972 live session recorded at Slug's Saloon in New York. Fronting a stellar 18-piece incarnation of the Arkestra, I Roam The Cosmos finds Sun Ra taking the listener on a poetic journey to the outer limits of planetary awareness. While the captain of the space-ship declaims his message with Arkestra vocalist June Tyson as co-pilot, the Arkestra voyage into the sol…
The Eldridge Session
The great bassist and band leader Charles Mingus cut some of his most exciting and rewarding recordings in 1960. Taped during the apex of Mingus's creativity, this incredible session showcases such stars as Roy Eldridge on trumpet, Jimmy Knepper on trombone, Eric Dolphy on alto saxophone, Tommy Flanagan on piano, and Jo Jones on drums. First edition of 500 (numbered).
Spellbound
Of Sudanese heritage, the bassist Ahmed Abdul-Malik (1927-1993) was born Jonathan Timms in Brooklyn. After working with Art Blakey and Thelonious Monk, among others, Abdul-Malik studied music of other cultures. He was among the first to incorporate Middle Eastern and Indian influences into Jazz.A mindblowing mix of jazz and Middle Eastern influences— and a rare ‘60s treasure from Thelonious Monk’s former bassist! Ahmed Abdul-Malik blends together percussion, bass, and oud with some soulfu…