Jazz & Improvisation / All styles

Archie Shepp's world has always been filled with fire music, and eventually Fire Music. Before that landmark LP, Shepp made Four for Trane -- his August 1964 beachhead with Impulse. And even before that, as it turns out, came this one blip -- the earliest Shepp leader project yet on record. Under supervision of the artist, this previously unissued demo recording is now available from Triple Point Records. As the cover of Derailleur suggests, Shepp tries out some surprising combinations for the s…

2026 Stock, last copies. 5LP deluxe box and a 156-page clothbound book packaged in a custom white-birch wood box, limited to 665 hand-numbered copies The book features music manuscripts and notebook pages from the musicians' archives, an extensive itinerary, the complete history of the NYAQ, artists' bios, and musical analysis.  2013 release. Five LPs of entirely uncirculated music by the New York Art Quartet, featuring Roswell Rudd, John Tchicai, and Milford Graves; the bass chair is alternativ…

Collective interplay is essentially about listening and giving space. If ever there was a credo for this ensemble recording, this would be it. Sometimes the soloist or a small group steps forward, other times they play as a large unit. This collective of musicians are connected through old and new friendships, a set of relations that has been formed through two decades of co-creation on stage and in the studio, and their new recording is a reaffirmation of that with an A-side of free improvisati…

Longtime collaborators Mark Turner and Jakob Bro play central roles in the feature-length documentary film “Music for Black Pigeons”, which premiered at the 79th Venice Biennale, played across film festivals worldwide and portrays the unique artistic processes of Paul Motian, Lee Konitz, Bill Frisell, Craig Taborn, Andrew Cyrille, Manfred Eicher and many others. Mark Turner is heard on three albums with Jakob Bro, all from Avatar Studios in New York, and enters the film in a session from Copenha…

2022 REPRINT. This is the first issue of the new We Jazz Magazine, 128 pages, 174 x 250 mm in size and printed on 140g Edixion paper with laminated 300g Invercote covers. Inside, you'll find great new stories about music including the cover piece on Alice Coltrane by Ashley Kahn, Sun Ra by Daniel Spicer, Berlin report by Debra Richards, Corbett by Stewart Smith, Andreas Müller on Lockdown Listening, Alan Braufman talking to Nabil Ayers, plus more. This is a magazine but together by a quality cas…

Thirteenth issue of We Jazz Magazine, "Zoning". 128 pages, 170 x 240 mm in size and printed on 140g Edition paper with laminated 300g Invercote covers.All articles presented in English. Includes Mary Lou Williams by Anton Spice, Tomeka Reid by Michael Mikesell, Horace Silver by Seymour Wright, Wind Up & Julius Eastman by Marc Medwin, Esmond Edwars at Prestige by Francis Gooding, Contemporary Ethio-Jazz by Nathan Hamelberg, Ivo Perelman & Matthew Shipp by Phil Freeman, Arooj Aftab by Rob Garratt,…

*100 copies limited edition* Confront Recordings, the vanguard of adventurous music since 1996, proudly unveils Be S-Mart, a riveting new album capturing the spontaneous brilliance of improvising masters Steve Beresford, Pierpaolo Martino, and Mark Sanders. Be S-Mart emerges from the heart of live improvisation, where Beresford's eclectic electronics and prepared piano wizardry collide with Martino's bass textures and Sanders' propulsive, ever-shifting drums. This trio forges a sonic landscape t…

On Jupiter by Sun Ra blends deep funk, avant-garde jazz, and cosmic soundscapes, capturing the Arkestra’s 1979 creative peak. Remastered by Technology Works, this reissue features original sleeve art and new liner notes.

Released in 1978- now re-issued for the first time, the 2nd album from South African jazz/fusion power house, Spirits Rejoice.

*2024 stock* Moondog is one of those artists who it is almost impossible to define. His look was unique and his music even more so, and whilst many of the people who encountered him on the streets of New York thought of him as one of the sights of the city, to the police he was little more than a beggar. Yet Moondog was ultimately to become a worldwide celebrity, feted by the great and the good of New York City, including the likes of Benny Goodman and Charlie Parker. This album gathers together…

Double CD box, perfect replica of the LP edition, with extensive booklet. The venerable Holidays, having already had an incredible 2023, returns with their final offering of the year and what might just be their most ambitions release to date, Sun Ra’s “Live in Rome 1980”, an astounding 3xLP vinyl box set that captures the Arkestra immersed in one of their greatest live gigs laid to tape. A perfect snapshot of why this band was so incredible, moving from furious free jazz fire into joyous June T…

We Release Jazz is very happy to announce the limited vinyl edition of Ill Considered's transcendent new live album Live in Jura, an expansive document of the trio's 2023 performance at Spiegelberg Festival - now available as a double LP with a bonus D-side, housed in a heavyweight sleeve with obi and an original artwork by Vincent de Boer. Captured in the heights of Saignelégier, Switzerland, in the middle of a pasture overlooking the Jura mountains, Live in Jura bottles the singular Ill Consid…

Hugest tip! "Originally released across two edited volumes by Shandar in 1971, the concerts are now being reissued by Strut in a stunning expanded 6 LP vinyl box set for Record Store Day 2025. The set is housed in a hardboard box and features a reprint of the original festival programme, a 12-page over-sized booklet featuring liner notes by Daniel Caux, Jacqueline Caux and Paul Griffiths and stunning restored photos of the festival by Philippe Gras. Sun Ra’s Nuits de la Fondation Maeght recordin…

*Limited edition of 600 copies* Nomadic spiritual jazz duo The Sea Ensemble embodied the ethos of their era and art to a uniquely poetic degree. Founded in the early 1970’s by ethnomusicologist Zusaan Kali Fasteau and versatile instrumentalist Donald Rafael Garrett (sideman to John Coltrane, Archie Shepp, and Roland Kirk, among others), the couple’s lifestyle mirrored their music: restless, questing, collaborative, and improvised. Their itinerant journeying spanned Senegal, Congo, Morocco, Haiti…

Fit for Consequences: Original Recordings, 1984–1987 is the first ever archival release from Repetition Repetition, the “two-man electric minimalist band” consisting of Ruben Garcia and Steve Caton hailing from Los Angeles in the mid 1980’s. Repetition Repetition’s unique blend of cosmic art-rock minimalism / maximalism was self-released across a series of cassettes produced in micro editions, and while garnering the attention and participation of luminaries such as Harold Budd, remained under t…

*250 copies limited edition* Mozaik began its journey under the oppressive aura of the 1980 coup in Turkey, singing songs of freedom from all around the world, eventually stepping into the more controversial areas of jazz, progressive rock and fusion with their own compositions. Whilst the post-coup music scene was dominated by apolitical pop music, Mozaik produced sophisticated lyrics and composed songs in unusual structures. With a dynamic crew and a rotating list of songwriters in the band, M…

Superb and underrated early '80s jazz fusion album showcasing authentic Brazilian grooves by one of the country's most famous flutists and saxophonists. Originally released by Som Da Gente, 1981 is a grooving fusion of baião rhythms, jazz funk, and Brazilian soul. Featuring his Gallery club band, Costita soars on sax, flute, and clarone, backed by Roberto Bomilcar and Dirceu. Recorded with full creative freedom, this rare LP captures the free spirit of Brazil's '70s & '80s jazz scene. Hector Cos…

2023 stock** "Such is the strength and conviction with which the Sudo Quartet performs that thoughts immediately turn to how they developed such a cohesive group sound. But when uniting four virtuoso stylists from the European free improvisation scene, it's a near certainty that their paths have crossed many times during their careers. Whatever the history, it becomes straight away apparent from the first few notes that there are powerful forces at work as Léandre's richly resonant bowing meshes…

Violinist Billy Bang made his recording debut as a leader with the Survival Ensemble, the first working band he ever led, on New York Collage in 1979. Bang, saxophonists Bilal Abdur Rahman and Henry Warner, bassist William Parker, and percussionists Rashid Bakr and Khuwana John Fuller played incendiary free jazz more clearly indebted to the New York avant-garde of the preceding decade than any album Bang would record again. The music’s urgency and passion arose from the exhilaration of artistic …

A compelling collaboration between guitarist Fred Frith and innovative harpist Shelley Burgon — known for her work with Anthony Braxton, Trevor Dunn, and Okkyung Lee — in a series of concise and precise improvisations recorded in Oakland, CA, in 2002 and 2005, as Burgon blends seamlessly with Frith's acoustic guitar to create seemingly telepathic synchronicity and an expansive sonic palette.

Thereupon is the long-anticipated return of the all-star collaborative trio Fieldwork, which has been described by NPR as a “power trio for the new century.” This long-standing collective comprises three internationally revered innovators of contemporary music: alto saxophonist-composer Steve Lehman, pianist-composer Vijay Iyer, and drummer-composer Tyshawn Sorey. In the seventeen years since their last recording, Door (Pi), all three musicians have climbed to the pinnacle of the creative music …

Pianist Pat Thomas, saxophonist Seymour Wright (both of [ahmed]) and drummer Paul Abbott - the latter two working as XT - deliver a remarkable set of new music, each, re-imagining improvisation and synthetic ideas with acoustic and electronic tools. This monumental new suite Strata, Act (Joy Contemporary)* released by We Jazz Records on 30th January 2026 is spread across three release formats, the complete album includes more than 2 hours and 15 minutes of music recorded live in London and Zuric…

Ornette Coleman, who died in June 2015 from cardiac arrest, must be counted as one of the most influential musicians in the jazz genre. His importance does not only lie in his ground-breaking recordings in the late Fifties and early Sixties, but lies more significantly in the educational effect of his work – in the fact that he always went beyond himself to the very end. Just a little more than a month after his ground-breaking release "Free Jazz", Coleman recorded the present album, in which he…

Listen Ship is the latest masterpiece in the ever-expanding sound world of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Henry Threadgill, whom The New York Review of Books recently described as “one of American music’s great Romantics and a lifelong seeker of the sublime.” The new work is a suite for six acoustic guitars – including individual stylists such as Bill Frisell, Miles Okazaki and Brandon Ross – and two pianos that utilize Threadgill’s unique intervallic syntax to illuminate his idiosyncratic visi…

The boundary-pushing trio known as Last Dream Of The Morning – featuring soprano saxophone titan John Butcher, double bass maestro John Edwards, and percussion innovator Mark Sanders – proudly announces the release of their electrifying new album, Sharp Illusion. This recording captures the group's unparalleled chemistry in a whirlwind of spontaneous sonic invention. Emerging from a legacy of fearless improvisation, Sharp Illusion distills the trio's decades of collaborative fire into six tracks…

Trombone titan Ray Anderson and tenor sax visionary Ivo Perelman invite listeners into the mystical forge of creation with their electrifying new album, 12 Stages of Spiritual Alchemy. Released today via Fundacja Słuchaj, this duo recording captures two masters of free improvisation transmuting raw sound into pure gold across twelve transformative tracks. Anderson's growling, buoyant trombone weaves serpentine lines and thunderous bursts, while Perelman's tenor sax erupts in fiery spirals and ha…

Fundacja Słuchaj announces the release of Comprehensive, a riveting new album from the powerhouse trio of Joe Morris (guitar), Tyshawn Sorey (drums), and Peter Evans (trumpet). This recording captures the essence of fearless improvisation, where structural precision meets boundless creativity. In Comprehensive, three of contemporary music's most visionary artists converge for a telepathic exploration of rhythm, timbre, and form. Joe Morris wields his guitar as a sonic architect, crafting intrica…

Fundacja Słuchaj proudly announces the release of Choreography of Fractures, a searing new album from the powerhouse trio of bassist John Edwards, trumpeter Luis Vicente, and drummer Vasco Trilla. This recording captures the unbridled intensity of live improvisation, where fractures in sound become portals to profound musical discovery. In Choreography of Fractures, Edwards, Vicente, and Trilla forge a sonic landscape that dances on the edge of chaos and control. Edwards' thunderous double bass …

At first glance, the idea that McCoy Tyner and the Grateful Dead might share musical DNA seems like a stretch. One built frameworks to support Coltrane’s spiritual flights—rewriting the jazz harmony playbook while turning chords into flexible architecture. The others were a San Francisco circus of psychedelic chaos and Americana grooves, an improvising rock band whose mythology often overshadowed their musicianship. On the surface, Tyner and the Dead appear to come from different galaxies. But l…

Finland's Augustus Pablo strikes again! The fourth album by this Nordic melodica wizard delivers deep authentic roots reggae the way it should be done - heavy instrumental vibes, skillful melodica playing and compelling organ work wrapped in a classic rockers manner. Lightman does it ALL himself - writing, arranging, playing, producing, recording, mixing and mastering. One-man roots army! Cover art by Arsi Keva, silkscreened on recycled old LP sleeves - each copy unique. Ultraääni Records contin…

Tip! *Japan import with Obi Strip* In 1967, drummer Takeo Moriyama joined pianist Yosuke Yamashita’s group, later forming a legendary trio together with saxophonist Seiichi Nakamura in 1969. This group consisting of Moriyama, Yamashita, and Nakamura became known worldwide as one of Japan's leading free jazz combos. Moriyama left the group in 1975 and later returned to the scene in 1977 with the Flush Up live album, where he evolved and deepened his musicality in a more melodic and rhythmic direc…

Edition of 100 Nomade Orquestra releases its long-awaited fifth studio album, Terceiro Mundo, a work that transcends music to represent a journey of resistance, resilience, and inventiveness. The creation process began in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic and social isolation, resulting in eight tracks that form a patchwork quilt of sounds where dormant ideas have awakened alongside compositions created exclusively for this project. "We're closing a very important conceptual cycle in our work," …

Tip! *Japan import with Obi Strip* Hiromasa Suzuki is a legendary composer and arranger, and a key player who has been active in the Japanese music world, including jazz as well as movies, television and commercials. In the late ‘60s and mid-’70s, he was deeply involved in the works of Terumasa Hino, Akira Ishikawa and Jiro Inagaki in their most radical times. The album “High-Flying,” recorded in 1976, showed his innovativeness, which was always one step ahead of the times. This is an essential …

"Ville Vannemaa Cassiopeia is an exciting quintet project led by reed player Ville Vannemaa, a key player in UMO Jazz Orchestra and known for his engagement in several other Finnish jazz constellations. With him on this date is vibraphonist Panu Savolainen, Kasperi Sarikoski on trombone, Heikko Remmel on bass and Jaska Lukkarinen on drums. Six sublime songs penned by Ville himself, plenty of detail and swinging from joy to melancholy in a melodic sense aimed for repeated listening. Future classi…

“Exceptional UK jazz” Gilles Peterson (BBC Worldwide) “A wonderfully expressive group who have a superbly fresh sense of tone and timing” – Dusty Groove Chicago   The second album by this critically acclaimed jazz quintet from Leeds continues to mature in their newest offering “ENOS” File under UK Modal/Melodic jazz.

A unique pianist and composer, Thelonious Monk (1917-1982) is one of the greatest jazz legends of all time. Thelonious is surrounded by his legendary quartet featuring Charlie Rouse (tenor saxophone), Larry Gales ( double bass) and Ben Riley (drums). First ever official release of this lost ORTF recording performed live in Paris at Studio 104, Maison de la Radio. Remastered from original tapes in high resolution.

Helsinki funk legends Kuja Orchestra is back with a new line-up and new set of tight grooves. Latin, soul, blues and disco-funk melt with african and oriental influences.

2025 stock 2013 repress, black vinyl. "1968 debut album from the king of the psychedelic bayou -- the hypnotic, mystical and powerful sound of the swamp coming to life. As he became Dr. John (real name Mac Rebennack), it was his LA session work with musicians like Sonny & Cher, Canned Heat, and Zappa that allowed him to start conjuring up his visions of guitar psych-pop to walk alongside his authentic New Orleans upbringing. While Gris Gris contains moments that make it a type stamped symbol of …

Killer youth jazz from Finland’s new tenor sensation Jimi Ahlroos - energetic rhythmical trio jazz recorded at studio Pelto

Misha Panfilov, the Estonian composer whose name has become synonymous with space-age exotica and cinematic soundscapes, withdraws once more into the solitude of his studio and emerges with To Blue From Grey In May – a profound meditation on sound, time, and seasonal transformation. Recorded amid the ever-changing light and shadows of Tallinn between March and May 2025, this new album stands as a testament to complete immersion in the creative process. Here, Panfilov threads himself into the ver…