Jazz & Improvisation / All styles

Temporary Super Offer! Thelonious Monk devised a new theoretical basis for his compositional aesthetic, an unorthodox, deconstructed and reinvented pianistic approach that defined his music’s unique rhythmic and melodic parameters. The piano was the vehicle of expression for his compositional mindset. - Art Lange

Here is a chance to hear Miles Davis in something close to real time. Small matter that most collectors of hard bop will have these sides already and will be familiar with a particular running order. Perhaps those who have invested in the complete sessions will have a clearer sense of the continuity of these remarkable sessions, but that now familiar obsession with the burrs and snarf of the studio process may win out over musical appreciation. What happened at Van Gelder’s on October 26 1956 is…

Point of Departure was an inflection point in Hill’s output for Blue Note, his penchant for formal complexity and compacted materials – which he revisited beginning in 1969 with a nonet date, tracks with a string quartet-augmented ensemble, and an album with voices – giving way to what proved to be a short-lived foray into the minimally scored pieces that distinguished Compulsion!!!!!. The two recording sessions were separated by only eighteen months, but they were among the most convulsive in j…

Recorded live 1958 in Stuttgaert. First time on CD. Performed by: Eddie Williams, Art Hoyle, Eddie Mullens, Dave Gonzales, Macky Kasper trumpets; Louis Blackburn, Wade Marcus, Larry Wilson, trombones; Leon Zachary, Bobby Plater, alto saxophones; Andy McGhee, Gerald Weinkopf, tenor saxophones; Lonnie Shaw, Werner Baumgart, baritone saxophones; Lionel Hampton, vibraphone & piano; Oscar Dennard, piano; Billy Mackel, guitar; Julius Browne, fender bass; Wilbert Hogan drums; Cornelius "Pinocchio" Jame…

Temporary Super Offer! Recorded 1964, 1965 & 1966 live New York. 7 Tracks, 2 tracks never on CD available. "This fabulous album, recorded during three New York club engagements in 1964, 1965 and 1966, ranks among the finest in the pianist/composer's illustrious catalogue. There are several things going for it: the quality and shared intentionality of the two, slightly different, lineups; the choice of material and its careful sequencing; the vibrancy of the performances, which is enough to pract…

Temporary Super Offer! 'The Miles Davis Quintet of early 1960 was an endangered, embattled entity. Davis and his frontline foil John Coltrane had been drifting apart stylistically and temperamentally for months. United in the embrace and exploration of modal devices on the trumpeter’s seminal Kind of Blue album released the previous summer, bandleader and sideman were increasingly at odds as to where to go next with the celebrated innovations.' - Derek Taylor

Temporary Super Offer! 'The studio side of Coltrane’s catalog has greater consistency in terms of caliber of aural presentation, but fewer occasions for extended improvisation and creation. This is particularly evident in an analysis of the recordings made of his Classic Quartet comprising pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones. An ensemble that was a work in progress well before it was a finished cohort, Coltrane’s most fertile band was also best suited to the hot h…

Temporary Super Offer! 'Cecil Taylor’s whole career was a wave-front of exploration. The analogy with light is apposite enough. He evolved so fast most of us never quite caught up and relied instead on a few safe generalisations that momentarily applied around 1962 and only occasionally thereafter. Taylor rarely referenced the space programme, and admitted towards the end of his life that he had found the moon landings “banal”. Like Sun Ra, he was a cosmonaut of sound, breaking free of gravity a…

Temporary Super Offer! On Ezz-thetics: Eric Dolphy alto saxophone, bass clarinet, Don Ellis trumpet, David Baker trombone, George Russell piano, Steve Swallow double bass & Joe Hunt drums. On The Stratus Seekers: Paul Plummer tenor saxophone , John Peirce alto saxophone, Don Ellis trumpet, David Baker trombone, George Russell piano,  Steve Swallow double bass & Joe Hunt drums. The six albums that George Russell recorded in just two years – starting with Sextet at the Five Spot in September 1960 …

Temporary Super Offer! 'Was there more than one Miles Davis? Could he be both the Prince of Darkness and the purveyor of cool? A drug addict and an athletic boxer? A hip bebopper and a protohippie? A flamboyant dresser and a shy vulnerable soul? A brutal misogynist and an insecure romantic? The answer is yes, and yes. Miles Davis was both a creator and a destroyer. His chameleon-like nature can be explained by the times in which he lived and created his art. These live recordings in Stockholm, S…

Temporary Super Offer! These sessions were recorded exactly two years apart, in early November 1966 and 1968 (both were released in 1969). While they can’t be called “bookends” by any means, they do bracket a remarkable period in Don Cherry’s musical evolution, on his journey from the more strictly jazz environments, as adventurous as they were, of Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler and others, to a philosophy that embraced many non-Western traditions. While these included various African forms, espe…

Temporary Super Offer! "These Half Note recordings from March 26 and May 7, 1965, two dates from an extended stay at the club, were captured as a radio broadcast. ezz-thetics has re-sequenced the music here to demonstrate Coltrane’s approach to incorporating all his inventions into a performance, while also mapping a future to his music." – Mark Corroto Producers note: "We have re-sequenced these tracks to allow the listener to become part of the development of the music and to follow J…

Temporary Super Offer! "Attempts to dismiss Sun Ra as an “outsider” artist, an eccentric who made strange claims, are always own goals. Of course he was an outsider. That was precisely his point. And not just an outsider. He came from so far away we could not imagine it. But he also came from right inside American culture and was deeply shaped by it. There is perhaps no more representative an American artist of the modern period. If the Saturn V rocket was the symbol one kind of hegemony, govern…

Temporary Super Offer! "Life Time posited a radicalism quite different from the other watershed recordings of 1964. Anthony Williams had an overt, unconventional approach to form, accentuated by the time constraints of a LP side and the various configurations he employed... By the time the 19-year-old Williams returned to Van Gelder Studio to record Spring with Hancock, Peacock, Rivers, and Shorter, the avant-garde was ascending... He retained some of the parameters  of Life Time ..." - Bill Sho…

Temporary Super Offer! Despite persisting labeling of its music as avant-garde, The New York Contemporary Five played unthreatening contemporary jazz almost as often as it explored more daring materials. Two of Thelonious Monk’s loveliest melodies – “Monk’s Mood” and “Crepuscule with Nellie” – were embedded into their sets, aswell as three of Ornette Coleman’s more accessible, swinging vehicles, “O.C.,”“When Will the Blues Leave,” and “Emotions.” These pieces provided a perspectiveof contemporar…

Temporary Super Offer! Unheard music from this key reedman on the British avant scene in the 60s – This double album features Joe Harriott working with a quintet that includes Shake Keane on trumpet, Pat Smythe on piano, Phil Seaman on drums, and Coleridge Goode on bass – playing in territory that's somewhat in the neighborhood of his Abstract and Free Form albums. 'Abstract is split over two dates some months apart, with some change of focus over the set. Free Form has more of the drama of a si…

John Coltrane played the long game. Longevity in life wasn’t his lot; his fortieth year being his final bow. That circumscribed career, particularly in its final decade, evinced a trajectory of creative ascendancy that was as indelible to improvised music as it was omnipresent in impact. Charlie Parker arguably wears the posthumous mantle of most influential saxophonist, but Coltrane suggests a close contender in terms of ineluctable clout on those who play the instrument. Practice and the pursu…

The incomparable life and extraordinary, trailblazing career of jazz titan and influential composer Charlie Parker will be honored throughout 2020 with a worldwide celebration commemorating the 100th anniversary of his birth (August 29, 1920). Lovingly dubbed Bird 100 after the nickname of the preeminent alto saxophonist who was one of the fathers of bebop and progenitors of modern jazz, the centennial will include a host of major initiatives including exciting new music releases, a tribute tour…

With the essential sidemen to express his unique voice and approach to free jazz, saxophonist Albert Ayler, double bassist Gary Peacock, and drummer Sunny Murray, recorded these sessions in 1964 for the ESP label as "Prophecy", this excellent reissue & remaster also adding the live "Albert Smiles with Sunny" (inRespect) from the same concert; essential.

"The emerging credo of western society’s post-Beat counterculture was egalitarian and  anti-hierarchical, be the hierarchy social, political or on the bandstand. Evans and Ayler shared  the belief; only their lexicons were different. If hearing Spiritual Unity was akin, as Ted Joans  wrote, to someone shouting “Fuck!” in St. Patrick’s"   – Chris May

"Christian Weber said in an interview for “Jazz’N’More": No matter how I move along the timeline, my attention is focused on what is to come. At the same time, I always keep in mind what happened before, without analyzing. This way, I avoid the improvisation becoming arbitrary. Both arbitrary openness and narrow restriction, neither suits me." And therein lies the whole secret of this record and ultimately the definition of great art: it is the ability of a musician to have control over space an…

"This, it seems to me, is the great strength of Sophie Lüssi’s music here on Atlantic Puffin. It is clearly skilled and doesn't deal in casual approximations. It is built on solid technique, a brilliant appropriation of classical violin methods in the interests of improvisation. But her music, which draws on folk as well as canonical forms, is one that emanates from and addresses the whole person. It's generous music, kindly and open, and in its gentle humour it engages a part of the spirit that…

"It is not easy to find a description of what constitutes “the art of the duo” in jazz or improvised music. Suffice to say that any credible description would have to encompass the duo of Gallio and Turner, their approaches to playing together and the contents of You Can Blackmail Me Later." - John Eyles

"It is a message, and you will hear it sounding firmly through the various pieces that make up The Human Factor, that tells us much about how we might live together: sharing, giving way, simple giving, lifting up, helping ... above all, listening ..."  - Brian Morton

"Given their distinct backgrounds and individualistic sense of creative process, it’s not surprising to discover that the sounds Levin, Mariam and Miguel generate do not fall into common improv tactics, stylistic clichés, or the isolation of chance. There are individual characteristics that affect our perception of the flow, cessation, and singularity of events heard here, and serve to identify and intensify the moment." – Art Lange

"I've been listening to Christoph Gallio and the various incarnations of Day & Taxi for over three decades – almost since its inception. On this album, however, the Swiss saxophonist makes a debut with a different trio, featuring British improvisers Dominic Lash and Mark Sanders. The result is pungent, powerful music on the cusp of free jazz and free improv – a dichotomy that helps define Gallio's work, though he also composes. Listening to this wonderful album invites re-consideration of the rh…

"Dialog: Two Rooms One Vibraphone 1 to 6 & Five Interludes differs, however, from the classical Greek idea of dialectics, that of thesis-antithesis-synthesis, in one respect. There is thesis, from Armaroli, and antithesis, from Parker, but it is a third party, the listener, who provides the synthesis. And there will be as many syntheses, and as much diversity among them, as there are those of us tuning in." -Chris May

Temporary Super Offer! "Only ghosts don’t make footfalls (another Beckett title!) that we can hear, don’t need to open and close doors to effect passage. These men together are enacting over a longer duration a strong sense of life- as-lived. They are conspiring, not in the political or legal sense, but simply breathing-together. It isn’t forbiddingly abstract music. It simply enacts our various ways of living together. Take a deep breath and enjoy." - Brian Morton

Temporary Super Offer! 'The music on this CD is an impressive document of such a search for meaning and artistic legitimacy. It doesn’t want to add something even louder to the supposedly spectacular. On the contrary: Here, it is about the subtle intimacy and emotionality of human relationships, about breathing as one. It is about being interested in each other beyond ever new superlatives. This is where the unobtrusive authenticity of this music comes from, what makes it special and thoughtful.…

Temporary Super Offer! 'The CD’s title is borrowed from computer language: STRG + X is the key combination for “cut to the clipboard” to be temporarily stored and pasted somewhere else at a later time. Perhaps the most important quality of this carefully thought-out yet anything but cerebral music: it is aware of its means and can twist and turn and rearrange them as it pleases, in which case improvised contexts create their own forms and play with original material in a fresh, new way. This is …

Temporary Super Offer! The Thing started as a recording project in 2000, for the newly formed label Crazy Wisdom, run by Christian Falk, Conny Charles Lindström and me. I wanted to put together a trio, to record some Don Cherry pieces and since I had recently played with Paal in Stockholm and heard Ingebrigt playing live, I knew they were tight. So, things went where they went. I invited the two young Norwegians to Stockholm for a recording date at Atlantic Studios. One day of recording for the …

Taking his quartet on a European tour in the fall of 1962, Coltrane's band with McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on double bass, and Elvin Jones on drums performed in Graz, Austria at Stefaniensaal, the concert beautifully recorded by ORF Steiermark and here released as the first of two volumes, showing both Coltrane's lyrical origins and expanding free inclinations.

Captured live at the 2016 Jazz at the Factory Festival in Sao Paulo, this addition to New York pianist Matthew Shipp's catalog finds the masterful player presenting his own compositions like "Symbol Systems", "Gamma Ray" or "Invisible" light alongside unique takes on "Angel Eyes", "On Green Dolphin Street", "Yesterdays" and "Summertime".

An essential part of the New York jazz scene since the mid-80s, pianist Russ Lossing's compositions employ concept and space in unique and personal ways, as heard in these 8 original works performed with his trio of long-time collaborators, double bassist Masa Kamaguchi and drummer Billy Mintz, for an album of highly evolved and lyrically sophisticated music.

With a superb septet of improvisers also versed in contemporary music, trumpeter Franz Koglmann presents sophisticated compositions that interject the concept of "solitude" in the three-part title track, alongside Koglmann compositions and Jimmy Giuffre's "Finger Snapper", using striking orchestration of trumpet, sax, clarinet, bassoon, oboe, french horn, cello and double bass.

The long-running duo since 1987 of spouses, pianist Hildegard Kleeb and trombonist Roland Dahinden, are joined by Swiss-born/ Berlin-based percussionist & vibraphonist Alexandre Babel for an album of interweaving and contrasting instrumental lines, blurring the boundaries between contemporary music and improvisation through exceptional mastery and dialog.

Drawing on material from Billy Strayhorn, Thelonious Monk, Michel Legrand, Harry Warren, and Victor Young, the lyrical duo of saxophonist Alex Hendriksen (Swiss Jazz Orchestra) and double bassist Fabian Gisler (Jurg Wickihalder European Quartet) cite the art form of storytelling as central to their music as they reflect thoughtfully on the American Songbook.

Trumpeter Marco von Orelli's piano-less quartet with Tommy Meier on tenor saxophone, bass clarinet, Luca Sisera on double bass, and Sheldon Suter on drums is caught live at Theater am Gleis, in Winterthur, Switzerland in 2018, and at Boudoir au Revoir, the same year, performing von Orelli's compellingly clever compositions, plus one each from Adam lane and Tommy Meier.

After introducing his new trio with pianist Paul Bley and double bassist Steve Swallow in two 1961 albums on Verve, clarinetist Jimmy Giuffre embarked on a tour of Europe, this recently discovered, well-recorded concert in Graf, Austria the perfect example of his unique concepts yielding intensely focused, harmonically challenging, rhythmically abstract, and exquisite chamber jazz.

Temporary Super Offer! 'Jost may have had Fire Music and Mama Too Tight in mind when he suggested that by 1965 Archie Shepp spoke “basically two musical languages whose grammar and syntax had hardly anything in common.” This reflected the commentaries’s insistence that a chasm existed between free jazz and mainstream jazz practices, and, implicitly, between the New Wave in Jazz and the New Breed led by James Brown. What was revolutionary about Shepp’s music is that it rejected the underlying bin…