Jazz /
Infant Eyes
Doug Carn created a personalized strain of jazz music that expressed a loving hopefulness. He found a home at the Black Jazz label, where African-Americans called the shots and, of course, racial tension was nonexistent. Who was this 22-year-old whose first album, Infant Eyes, sold very well away from the machinations of the music industry? Once a child prodigy on piano and alto saxophone, Carn had attended Jacksonville University on a full music scholarship and afterwards performed on the Flori…
Topographie Parisienne
**Back in Stock** A sequel to the legendary Topography of the Lungs that first brought together the three improvisers almost half a century ago for the seminal 1st album on Incus label. Recorded in 1981 by audio engineer and label owner Jean-Marc Foussat, the trio of guitarist Derek Bailey, saxophonist Evan Parker, and drummer/multi-instrumentalist Han Bennink are heard in an amazing evening of performance at 28 rue Dunois, in Paris, France, in duo and trio configurations, exploring material sim…
Straight From the Gate
**2019 stock, reduced price** The Headhunters' Straight From the Gate was their second album and was released in 1977. Originally started as a jazz-fusion band fronted by Herbie Hancock, members Paul Jackson, Bennie Maupin, Michael Clark, Paul Potyen, Derrick Youman and Obsidion Blackbiyrd delved further into jazz-rock and fusion sounds and recorded the album at The Automatt studios in San Francisco. The Headhunters use a wide range of instruments. From the electric piano, to tenor and soprano s…
Silver Cycles
**2019 stock, reduced price** Still riding high from Listen Here, Eddie Harris really started experimenting here with a dazzlingly eclectic LP that must have left his new fans wondering just who the real Eddie Harris was. There is good old Latinized funk in the opening cuts, Free at Last and 1974 Blues, but what was one to make of the next one, Smoke Signals, with its interplanetary Echoplexed electric sax and ethereal wordless female voices? Then it's on to a long-limbed Coltrane tribute on pia…
Brilliant!
**2019 stock, reduced price** Why some artists achieve the recognition they deserve while other equally talented ones don't depends on many things. But one thing is clear, that obscurity does not always mean lack of talent. Regardless, it is always a pleasure to discover little known but immensely gifted musicians and it is really a great pleasure to hear the reissue of The Diamond Five's Brilliant!. The Diamond Five, a Dutch quintet led by pianist Cees Slinger, was founded in 1959 and lasted un…
Milestones
**2019 stock, reduced price** Milestones was Miles Davis' third Columbia release after 'Round About Midnight (1957) and Miles Ahead (1957). The recording was made during one of Davis' most creatively intense periods, preceding his recording of the soundtrack for Ascenseur Pour L'echafaud (Fontana, 1958) in late 1957 and the subsequent recordings of Cannonball Adderley's Somethin' Else (Blue Note, 1958) and the repertoire that would become Kind of Blue (Columbia, 1959). Milestones is significant …
The Frank Cunimondo Trio Introducing Lynn Marino
**2019 stock, reduced price** Frank Cunimondo has an extensive discography, having recorded with nearly every artist from Pittsburgh. In addition, he has shared the stage with a number of jazz stars including: Sonny Stitt, Lou Donaldson, Jimmy Witherspoon, Urbie Green, Lee Konitz, Louie Bellson, Joshua Redman, Phil Woods and Frank Rosolino. The Frank Cunimondo Trio is also a fixture of the Pittsburgh Jazz scene. In the 80s Frank owned a jazz club in Pittsburgh called 'Cunimondo's Keyboard Jazz S…
Sagittarius
**2019 stock, reduced price** Frank Cunimondo has an extensive discography, having recorded with nearly every artist from Pittsburgh. In addition, he has shared the stage with a number of jazz stars including: Sonny Stitt, Lou Donaldson, Jimmy Witherspoon, Urbie Green, Lee Konitz, Louie Bellson, Joshua Redman, Phil Woods and Frank Rosolino. The Frank Cunimondo Trio is also a fixture of the Pittsburgh Jazz scene. Frank's most popular recording Feelin' Good (from the album The Frank Cunimondo Trio…
Recorded in Stockholm, October 25th, 1962
On this double album, the Albert Ayler Trio consisted of Ayler, bassist Torbjörn Hultcrantz and drummer Sune Spångberg. These four dissonant songs recorded during their live performance on 24 October 1962 were issued on the Bird Notes label in Sweden as Something Different!!!!!! and reissued overseas as the first edition of The First Recording. The tracklist includes a barely-recognisable rendition of the showtune I'll Remember April, an off-kilter take of Sonny Rollins' The Stopper - retitled R…
The Wildest Guitar
**2019 stock, reduced price** Mickey Baker, also known as Mickey "Guitar" Baker, was an American guitarist. He is widely held to be a critical force in the bridging of rhythm and blues and rock and roll, along with Bo Diddley, Ike Turner and Chuck Berry. His musical style was influenced by saxophonist Charlie Parker. In the 50s Baker did sessions with The Drifters, Ray Charles, Ruth Brown, Big Joe Turner, Louis Jordan and many more artists. During this time, Baker played on numerous hit records.…
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,…