Jazz /
Concert for the Comet Kohoutek
Recorded on December 22, 1973 in New York City at the famous Town Hall, this eclectic ESPDisk-sponsored celebration of the Comet Kohoutek featured a fire eater, talking drums, and dancers in platform shoes, in addition to Sun Ra's Arkestra. After taking the stage ninety minutes late, the band expertly navigates its way through cosmic free playing, big-band romps, and didactic vocal numbers. Compared to the original pressing, this re-issue is digitally remastered by Joe Phillips and includes brie…
Clarity
Before his career defining records on Arista/Novus in the 80s and 90s, jazz and fusion guitaristMichael Gregory Jackson recorded his debut for ESP-Disk'. The sessions, recorded in New York, Connecticut and Los Angeles in the summer of 1976 are wildly meditative and personify the seventies laid-back vibe. A trio of soft, lilting melodies set the mood; David Murray on tenor sax, Oliver Lake on flute, and the album's leader, Michael Gregory Jackson on acoustic guitar. The unfolding stream of ideas …
Black Beings
This version of Black Beings contains of 15 minutes of additional material thought to have been lost. When he started out on ESP-Disk', Frank Lowe was one of those hard-blowing tenor saxophonists we think of when we heard the phrase "free jazz." Born in Memphis, he moved to San Francisco and, while visiting New York, began playing with Alice Coltrane (on whose album World Galaxy he made his recording debut in 1971), Sun Ra, Rashied Ali, and Noah Howard, and eventually moved to the Big Apple. On …
College Tour
50th Anniversary Edition on "Esperanto-Green" colored vinyl. In the Spring of 1966, ESP was given a grant by the New York State Council on the Arts, to tour the five colleges in the state with music departments. Artists for this tour included the Sun Ra Arkestra, Burton Greene, Patty Waters, Giuseppi Logan and Ran Blake. Accompanied by an all star backup group from among the participants, Patty's performances resulted in the album, College Tour, her second recording for ESP-Disk'. The album expa…
Straying On The Watch
The noted west coast composer makes his ESP debut accompanied by his then wife, Barbara Donald, on trumpet, Teddy Smith on bass, John Hicks on piano and Marvin Pattillo on percussion. Recorded August 1966, Staying on the Watch is an important infusion of straight-ahead and avant jazz. Barbara Donald is a superb trumpeter who has made a stern contribution to the legacy of women performers and has been widely written about. Also, pianist John Hicks, who makes his New York debut on the record, went…
Charles Tyler Ensemble
Charles Tyler, from Albert Ayler's band, makes a startling statement on his debut solo record. His group, featuring an unusual instrumentation of cello, bass, drums, orchestra vibes, and saxophone, plays through his original compositions and showcases some heated solos. Although primarily known as a baritone sax player, Charles Tyler is featured on alto sax yet his sound and concept are fully evident on this record. Performers: Charles Tyler: alto sax; Charles Moffett: orchestra vibes;Joel Freed…
Closer
When Oscar Peterson moved from Montreal to New York in 1949, the 17-year-old Paul Bley took over his residency at the Alberta Lounge on Oscar's recommendation; in his twenties, he played withCharlie Parker. Bley started incorporating maverick pianist Lennie Tristano's approach to improvisation and collaborating with Charles Mingus, and in 1958 in Los Angeles Bley famously put together a band with Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, Charlie Haden, and Billy Higgins. His move into free improvisation in t…
Schwarzwaldfahrt
(excerpted from Peter's liner notes): "There was a time Han Bennink and I, sometimes with Fred Van Hove, would drive through the Black Forest to get to places like the jazz club in Villingen and Loerrach, to play. At the same time during the end of sixties, beginning of seventies Joachim-Ernst Berendt, chief of the SWF Radio was setting up a yearly meeting and driving through the forest Bennink and I had the idea of just going and playing in nature. We talked to Berendt about the idea an…
Spirits Rejoice
Live recording of Albert Ayler's large septet configuration, featuring brother Donald, Charles Tyler, Sunny Murray and both Henry Grimesand Gary Peacock on bass. Compared to the bare trio of Spiritual Unity, this nearly big band of two bass players and a strong horn section allows Ayler's expressive vision depth from the joyous to the aggressive in Ayler's five original compositions. The digitally remastered recording was originally made at 30 ips instead of the usual 15 giving it excellent fide…
New York Eye And Ear Control
Originally released in 1966. Featured artists: Albert Ayler (tenor sax), Ed Blackwell(trumpet), Don Cherry (trumpet, cornet), Sunny Murray (drums), Gary Peacock (bass), Roswell Rudd (trombone), John Tchicai (saxophone, alto sax). Michael Snow is a Canadian national treasure, a true Renaissance man. He assembled a stellar group to improvise a sound track for his art film, titled Walking Woman, featuring a silhouette that is rumored to have been inspired by Carla Bley. Digitally remastered. Manufa…
More
2013 reissue; originally released in 1966. More,Giuseppi Logan's second album, has two tracks from the same legendary May 1st, 1965, Town Hall concert, produced by ESP-Disk' owner Bernard Stollman, that gave us Albert Ayler's Bells. This ESP-Disk' 50th Anniversary Remaster edition of Moreincludes previously unissued music from Logan's set that reissue producer Michael D. Andersondiscovered at the end of the Albert Ayler Bellsmaster tape. The astonishing thing about this ten-minute segment of aud…
Trio
Lowell Davidson recorded this singular session on July 27th, 1965 with Gary Peacock and the ever amazing Milford Graves. Sadly, the only recording ever released by Davidson, it remains fresh and exciting 40 plus years later. On Ornette Coleman’s recommendation, ESP-Disk’ owner Bernard Stollman signed up pianist Lowell Davidson (then majoring in biochemistry at Harvard) for this album without having heard him play. Davidson came to New York and got to work with the elite rhythm section of drummer…
The Giuseppi Logan Quartet
On November 11th, 1964, Giuseppi Logan went to Bell Sound Studios to record his first album for the newly-formed ESP-Disk label. Bernard Stollmandiscovered Giuseppi and others who would form the nucleus of his label at the October Revolution Concert of 1964. For the recording, Giuseppi chose friends and fellow music companions Don Pullenand Milford Graves, and added bassist extraordinaire Eddie Gomez. The session is rich with imagination, and added to the dimension of musicians who would become …
The Byron Allen Trio
Originally released in 1965. The Byron Allen Trio was among the first batch of ESP-Disk' jazz LPs. Recorded on the afternoon of September 25, 1964, at Mirasound Studio in midtown Manhattan, it was Allen's debut. He had been recommended to ESP-Disk' by Ornette Coleman, and one of the tracks, "Decision for the Cole-Man," reflects this connection. Allen and his trio also play in a style somewhat similar to that of Coleman's trio of that era with bassist David Izenzon and drummer Charles Moffett, th…
The New York Art Quartet
“Roswell Rudd assembled the newly formed New York Quartet for an afternoon recording session at Bell Sound Studios in midtown Manhattan. They were joined by a small, youthful appearing individual, the poet Amiri Baraka. Their engineer was the late Art Crist, an accomplished pianist. I was introduced to Lewis Worrell, Amiri Baraka andJohn Tchicai. The group was short lived. I heard them again 40 years later, when they reassembled for a concert at the South Street Seaport in New York City, opening…
Spiritual Unity
2014 expanded reissue. Mono. Spiritual Unity, recorded on July 10, 1964, is the album that made Albert Ayler and ESP-Disk' famous (or, in some people's eyes/ears, infamous). Mr. Ayler had already recorded in Europe and, in February '64, in New York, but this was the first album on which neither he nor his collaborators held back. It was also ESP's first jazz recording. Spiritual Unity presented a new improvisation paradigm: looser structure, less regard for standard pitch, and no obligation to p…
Red Cloud On Silver
Double LP. Brotzmann has worked quite often with Swedish drummer Peeter Uuskyla (e.g. on Dead and Useless) since 1997 and in general the reeds/drums line-up is something he feels very comfortable with. His duos with Han Bennink, Hamid Drake, Paal Nilssen-Love and Steve Noble belong to best releases in free jazz. Uusklya cannot quite keep up with these drummers because they are able to challenge him. Uuskyla is more the supporting kind of a drummer on this album.My favorite passage is on side …
Kaishi: Live at Kargart
A new chapter of the ongoing series of live recordings of the Turkish quartet Konstrukt, this time teaming up with saxophonist Akira Sakata, already a key character of the Japanese free jazz movement since the 1970s. Recorded at Kargart in Istanbul on January 17th 2015, this seventy-minute long jam is one of the most psychedelic act of the band so far, with Sakata's growling shomyo-alike chant finding the perfect setting - like a snake charmer - in a jungle of constantly reinvented sound. Killer…
Dead And Useless
CD edition. This album features Peter Brotzmann on tenor saxophone and Peeter Uuskyla on drums, they are longtime collaborators and this album was recorded back in 2006 in Uuskyla’s home base of Sweden. Parts of the music on this album was previously released as part of the Born Broke 2CD set, and is remixed here for LP and MP3 and some of Brotzmann’s provocative artwork graces the cover. The title track is a continuous 36 minute improvisation broke in two sections for the vinyl. They open …
Mollie's in the Mood
BRÖ presents Mollie's in the Mood by Peter Brötzmann & Jason Adasiewicz, the label's third LP since its revival in 2003 and the sequel to the Brötzmann/Adasiewicz 2012 tour-only CD. Recorded in "you-are-there" fidelity, the LP captures a performance at Chicago's Hideout on the duo's 2012 U.S.A. tour. Brötzmann played alto and tenor saxophones, b-flat clarinet, and tárogató; Adasiewicz played vibraphone. This is what happens when the most original vibraphonist of his generation slams into …