Jazz /
Plie
The problem that besets British jazz - from Ray Noble and Ronnie Scott to Barbara Thompson and Andy Sheppard - is light-music, 'Radio 2' gentility; in Germany it is what Michael Kator (describing the results of the Nazi ban on "hot Jewish music") called "the bane of German jazz, the dreaded 'um-papa' sound". Here, four free music veterans from East Berlin (Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky, alto; Ulrich Gumpert, piano; Connie Bauer, trombone; Günter Sommer, percussion) have decided to ease up, let some 'da…
Presents In The Midst Of Chaos
Recorded in 1978, In The Midst Of Chaos is this western CT free-jazz group's only release. It would become improv jazz sax player Paul Flaherty's 1st record, who, as a youth, was smitten by the world, it's creator and Pharoah Sanders. Chaos is also the only release of legendary guitarist Barry Greika, who, along with bassist Bob Laramie and drummer Glen 'Hobbit' Peterson, remain the most under - recorded trio in history. A screamin', howlin', blisterin', slap of a record that defies categorizati…
Duets 1987
Braxton concentrated heavily on duo performance during this period, and this was one of the happiest of his associations. ...warmly recommended.
Live Ghosts
With this album , the return of the Third Ear Band became reality mostly though the realization of an italian producer and label owner of Materiali Sonori and longtime fan. Two of the four original members regrouped and added Mick Carter on guitar which was to remain for many years to come and Alan Samuel on Violin but the fourth member will often change for future albums . But the music has not change after a 15 year stop, and we are right away plunged through the usual and quasi dronal music T…
Heavy Days Are Here Again
Leo Cuypers, pianist and composer from southern Holland, is one of the great unsung heroes of Dutch creative music -- as a bandleader, solo pianist and member of the first incarnation of the Willem Breuker Kollektief. Heavy Days Are Here Again was a project that brought Bennink and Breuker (who made the first ICP record, New Acoustic Swing Duo together as a twosome back in the 60s) back together after a somewhat fractious split, and reunited Buypers with Breuker as well. Cuypers named the group …
Accordance
Now here's an oddity, an album of compositions for and by a pair of accordionists; and, with the exception of a forte-piano here and a bayan or melodica there, accordions are all you hear. Guy Klucevsek is the man who single-handedly brought the accordion into the jazz underground. He is also a composer of note having his works performed by many ensembles around the world, including the Kronos Quartet and the Arditti String Quartet. Alan Bern is well-known as the musical director of Brave Old Wo…
Composition No. 174
A new side of ever surprising master composer/musician Anthony Braxton. A world premier performance by the Arizona State University Percussion Ensemble directed by Dr. J. B. Smith. Recorded Feb 6, 1994 in the Music Theatre at the Arizona State University School of Music, Temple, Arizona. The CD is accompanied by an 8-page booklet to lead you throught the labyrinth of Braxton's thinking.
Knitting Factory (Piano/Quartet) 1994, Vol.1
Anthony Braxton plays piano. Two discs, 10 jazz standards, over 75 minutes each disc. (Incidentally this is the first piece by Lennie Tristano on Disc 1). Marty Ehrlich on reeds, Joe Fonda on bass, Pheeroan AkLaff on drums.
Composition N.96
Recorded in 1981 by a 37-piece orchestra & dedicated to the master composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, this album is a key work in Braxton's music's evolution both on the structural & spiritual levels; features extensive notes by Graham Lock.
Duo (Wesleyan) 1994
A double CD documenting a complete concert at Wesleyan University in front of an appreciative audience. A 100-minute dialoge between a master percussionist And an amazing saxophonist who plays hos whole arsenal of saxophones And clarinet. Sit And watch how ideas are being born developed And brought to a close just to be started all over again.
2 Compositions (Jarvenpaa) 1988
How will Anthony Braxton be regarded 50 years from now, after the polemicists of today are dead and/or no longer interested, when something like an objective and knowledgeable evaluation of his work becomes possible? For all his undeniable brilliance as a composer, Braxton's seeming indifference toward the craft of composition will undermine his reputation to a significant degree. Which might not be fair, actually. Perhaps Braxton's problem is that he suffers from a condition virtually unprecede…
9 Standards (Quartet) 1993
Anthony Braxton opens this one with a blues on alto. And does he play the blues. Not the neat, buttoned-down, arrogantly self-possessed kind of blues that epitomized jazz in the '90s, but the dirty, lowdown, heavily expressionistic blues that hearkens back to the music's beginning -- a blues that communicates something more than just an attitude. It's not slick, it's not pretty, but it's eminently real. This double-disc set, recorded live at Wesleyan University with the quite capable straightahe…
11 Compositions (Duo) 1995
Here is another example of the remarkable versatility of Anthony Braxton. For this series of nearly eighty minutes of carefully arranged duets, Braxton performs on flute; contra-alto, contrabass, Bb, and soprano clarinets; and sopranino, alto, and F saxophones. Brett Larner joins him on traditional 13-string koto and 17-string bass koto. The combinations of sounds are utterly fascinating; the duo allures with deceptive simplicity. While some of the compositions lean toward familiar abstraction, …
10 Compositions (Duet) 1995
This is Anthony Braxton doing what he does best — playing and improvising on his own idiosyncratic small-group compositions, this time in duet with bassist Joe Fonda. The two also have a go at a pair of standards, which come off as well as one might expect — you either love or hate the way Braxton interprets traditional material — but they are heard to best advantage on the several originals written by each. Fonda's tunes are very much in a similar vein as Braxton's — unstable or nonexistent ton…
Light Upon Light
*2022 stock.* Trumpeter, multi-instrumentalist, improviser and theoretician, Wadada Leo Smith is one of the most important composers of our time. An original member of Chicago's AACM, his exciting pieces blending composition and mprovisation have been performed by many of the world's most important ensembles and soloists. Featuring an exotic composition for chamber ensemble and gamelan quartet, a beautiful solo piece for viola, a bass concerto written for virtuoso Bert Turetzky and two electroni…
Masada First Live 1993
*In process of stocking. 2022 stock.* As a unit, Masada was well-documented in live settings. Despite the ten studio recordings, there have been numerous double live concert outings from the quartet -- John Zorn, Dave Douglas, Greg Cohen, Joey Baron -- from all over the world, but until now, there has been scant opportunity to hear how Masada's sound (which came across as completely mature on their first studio date) was born and developed. This set, the band's first ever live meeting at the old…
Boomerang
A masterwork! Cadmo where a jazz-prog trio that had their debut on the legendary Vedette label (Metamorfosi) in 1977. While their members [Antonello Salis (keyboards) Riccardo Lay (bass) Mario Paliano (drums)] are nowadays considered among the best jazz musicians in Italy, in the seventies they still enjoyed mixing up several musical influences, so please expect a musical range that starts with Soft Machine-alike freeform crescendos, wild jazz rock in the best Italian tradition and tribal/ethnic…
the Tony Oxley quartet
Tony Oxley, percussion; Matt Wand, drum machines & tape switchboard; Pat Thomas, electronics & keyboard; Derek Bailey, electric guitar. Quartet 1 (16.00), Duo MP (05.03), Duo TD (13.06), Quartet 2 (04.49), Duo TM (08.41), Duo TP (04.49), Trio PMD (10.14), Quartet 3 (05.40). Recording by WDR Cologne, 8 April 1992. Cover painting (reproduced above) The singer by Tony Oxley, photographed by Max Lautenschlager.
Bridge Out!
Don't call it a comeback. Bridge Out!, the first release in almost a decade by the duo of saxophonist Paul Flaherty and percussionist Randall Colbourne, is better thought of as a renewal, a reawakening of a collaboration which has lain dormant for too long. Joining forces in the late 1980s, these two New Englanders released over a dozen uncompromising and outlaw styled albums of avant garde jazz on their own and other labels that have since vanished into legend. Since then, Flaherty has expanded…
Coelacanth
1991 collaboration between Shaking Ray Levis and Borbetomagus in an exquisite mix of over-amplified and otherwise bewilderingly fierce free improv - three pieces of reed-drone/squawk, percussion & electronics.