Jazz /
Moving Along
Matsuli Music continues its reissue program of rare indigenous afro-jazz sounds from South Africa with the release of Sowetan group Batsumi's self-titled debut from 1974. The reissue has been lovingly re-mastered from the original tapes and features material compiled on the recent Next Stop Soweto series from Strut. The album arrived amidst a period of intense political, intellectual and artistic ferment stimulated in large part by the teachings of Steve Biko and the Black Consciousness Movement…
Ndikho Xaba And The Natives
Ndikho Xaba was born in 1934 in Pietermaritzburg, KZN, South Africa. For thirty-four years — 1964 –1998 — he lived in exile in the US, Canada and Tanzania. Originally issued by Trilyte Records out of Oakland, California, this 1970 recording is bracing, freewheeling Now Thing, suffused with SA idioms, and focussed by a political urgency wiring together US Black Power, Black Aesthetics and the anti-apartheid front-line like nothing else. You can hear Trane from the off — ‘a spiritual offering to …
Lorrach, Paris 1966
"The enthusiasm of the Paris audience, the strong following the Aylershad in France does not come as a total surprise, For, as the musician and his brother explained in the Down Beat story: if you really understoodthe message of Sidney Bechet, you should have no difficulty to this newkind of free spiritual."-Peter Niklas Wilson
"The two concerts presented on this disc represent two of the finest dates of Albert Ayler's European tour of 1966. The band -- with brother, Don, on trumpet, violinist M…
Morning Joy ...Paris Live
"Reissue as part of the 40th anniversary of Hat Hut Records. What we have here is a one-nighter by the Steve Lacy Quartet at Paris' Sunset Club...The four members of the quartet get a chance to stretch out and you can feel the club energy clearly in the recording - it's a good night at the Sunset...in this era of homogenization - of jazz players who are filled with technique but have gotten their sound from textbooks - there is not enough attention that can be focused on an uncompromising jazz i…
As Serious As Your Life
In 1996, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Joe McPhee's first solo release, McPhee recorded this remarkable album of solo reeds, pocket cornet, and electronics, using overdubbing to create gripping music including an homage to Miles Davis and unique versions of standards. "For me, 1996 was an important transitional year in which I decided to pursue what I called Project Dream Keeper. The goal, to begin realizing projects which had been shelved for years. One such project was to produce a s…
Lap dance / Table solos
On December 14th, 2011 - Mats Gustafsson played an amazing solo concert at our table at Bar Brooklyn in Stockholm. He was supposed to play a "real" concert but bastards didn't care much for that so he ended up playing at the head of our table. Someone spilled a full beer over his merch that was on that table, and we were all overly excited, of course. Jean-Louis Huhta recorded it on his Zoom, and this is an excellent document of today's leading free jazz magus. Limited to 200 copies. Tran…
First recordings
Found in the archives of FMP! The very first - never released - recordings of the Schlippenbach Trio! Alexander von Schlippenbach, piano, Evan Parker, tenor and soprano saxophone, Paul Lovens, drums. Recorded by an unknown engineer april 2nd 1972 during the Workshop Freie Musik at the Acadamy of the Arts, Berlin. All music by Parker, Von Schlippenbach, Lovens. Mastering by Olaf Rupp & Martin Siewert. Produced by Jost Gebers."Pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach along with Evan Parker on tenor and…
Swallow Chase
First solo recording by Mark Sanders, one of the world's great improvisors. Recorded from the drummer's perspective, a beautiful virtuoso performance in 9 parts.
Le jardin bizarre
CD comes in a silkscreened gatefold cover. Le Jardin Bizarre (the odd garden) is the follow up to the album 'Outside Darkness', released in 2011 by PSF. It is a hollow album, stretching out long rests in which a sticky melancholy, an infinite sadness amplifies itself. 6 tracks dark as so many gardens - gardens seen through night, 6 shades of black, 6 colours of silence. While 'Outside Darkness' appeared like a shadow cast over Fukushima, 'Le Jardin Bizarre' is it's elegy. Disquieting calligrams …
Quatorze Pieces De Menace
Dale Cooper Quartet and The Dictaphones are back with their third album called "Quatorze Pièces de Menace". This new full-length of the cult French Dark Jazz collective is the follow up of the highly acclaimed 2011 output "Métamanoir" - the second release for the German experimental music label Denovali. Halfway from their debut "Parole de Navarre"'s ambient and drone driven soundscapes and the more orchestrated "Métamanoir", this new collection of tracks is following their quest for dreamy but …
Raft Of The Meadows
Established in 2007, Roil play their own original style of jazz-inspired improvised music, and have released 3 albums thus far: Meaning (2009) on Australian label, Rufus, Frost Frost (2011) on uk label, Bo'weavil Recordings & Raft Of The Meadows (2014) on Lithuanian label NoBusiness records.Their music draws upon a varied pallet; at times it comes close to free jazz, at other times to experimental improvisation, while also referencing other styles such as minimalism, reductionism and ambient …
Nino/Brujo
Percussionist Juan Pablo Carletti leads a trio with Tony Malaby on sax and Christopher Hoffman on cello, beautifully unfolding jazz that balances light and dark, melodic and free approaches with textural percussive work. For his debut album, NYC-based Argentinian drummer Juan Pablo Carletti has made some wise choices, even before one considers the music. Foremost among those is the selection of saxophonist Tony Malaby to front his trio. Malaby has a compelling track record of energising such thr…
Five Fizzles For Samuel Beckett
"Is there a better all-around bassist with a bow than Barry Guy? That query may scream sycophantic hyperbole, but in taking stock of the British improviser's discography it's an interrogative that can't help but manifest repeatedly.
On Guy's end the distinction of best isn't even a peripheral consideration or goal. He's placed his instrument in near-countless contexts, bringing to it a perfect sense of pitch and dynamics. Five Fizzles for Samuel Beckett is right in line with that sterling…
Innerconnection
Unreleased session from 1975. "Trumpeter Ted Daniel's Energy Module was a short-lived band. They played exactly two gigs in the course of one week in the fall of 1975-and never played again. They gelled quickly as a quintet, however, in large part because everyone knew each other from working in Daniel's big band, Energy. However, the Energy Module was a less formal affair than the large ensemble, in which they played Daniel's original compositions and arrangements. "We had a couple of re…
Interconnection
Big Tip! Unreleased session from 1975."Trumpeter Ted Daniel's Energy Module was a short-lived band. They played exactly two gigs in the course of one week in the fall of 1975-and never played again. They gelled quickly as a quintet, however, in large part because everyone knew each other from working in Daniel's big band, Energy. However, the Energy Module was a less formal affair than the large ensemble, in which they played Daniel's original compositions and arrangements. "We had a couple of r…
Medicine Buddha
\\\"Billy Bang was a brilliant human being, always much more than himself, especially when he surrendered to his true calling-that of musician, one who transforms music into magic, dancing instead of walking, jumping instead standing still. Billy Bang was an American original, an original musician, an organic person who had tapped into the river of sound and was riding on a boat drenched in blues-soul-funk and space.Billy is gone and unfortunately for the world there will never ever be another p…
Turning Point
Distinguished jazz and improvisation artists, pianist Dave Burrell and trombonist Steve Swell have crafted one of the most exciting and unique duo presentations I've heard in quite some time. The album moniker Turning Point is the third in a series of five suites honoring the individuals and events of the American Civil War. Here, Burrell ruminates upon Civil War era Americana, integrated with a progressive jazz flair amid lofty improvisational sequences and humbly stated melodic choruses v…
North And The Red Stream
On their fifth album, Swedish vibraphonist Mattias Stahl joins the Portuguese RED Trio as a guest. He's the latest in a sequence which includes alliances with saxophonist John Butcher and trumpeter Nate Wooley on disc, and reedman Ken Vandermark in performance. The product, North And The Red Stream, comprises three collective improvisations recorded at the VDU Jazz Festival in the Lithuanian city of Kaunas in 2013. Each arises from an impromptu give and take, negotiated on the fly, as the pri…
Bold Conceptions
This is the original Bob James; his very first album, in fact, recorded at age 22 (and produced by Quincy Jones) as a prize for winning the 1962 Collegiate Jazz Festival.
Two City Blues 2
One of two different sets, along with "Two City Blues 1", recorded on one intense night at Tokyo's Shinjuku Pit Inn. A trio of three towering figures, German free jazz legend Peter Brötzmann, Japanese avant-garde wizard Keiji Haino, and wildly versatile American composer and musician Jim O'Rourke, recorded by Yasuo Fujimura on November 23, 2010. Brötzmann: alto and tenor saxophones, tarogato, and clarinet; Haino: guitar, voice, shamisen; O'Rourke: guitar.