Jazz /
18 July 1971 Nice, France
This is tenor sax giant Pharoah Sanders caught live in France in summer 1971, when the man was still in full post-Coltrane mood. At the head of a strong quintet featuring: Lonnie Liston Smith - piano, Cecil McBee - bass, Jimmy Hopps - drums, and Lawrence Killian - congas, Pharoah delivers two very intense yet serene versions of his milestone piece "The Creator Has A Master Plan" and "Let Us Go In The House Of The Lord", a traditional gospel hymn arranged by Lonnie Liston Smith. This is deep spir…
Live At Schauburg Bremen 1986
Recorded live on tour in Germany in 1986, here we have "Mystery Mr. Ra" leading a quite rare tentet version of the Arkestra featuring the historical reed section of John Gilmore, Marshal Allen, Eloe Omoe, Danny Ray Thomson and James Jackson, plus trombonist Tyron Hill and an electric rhythms section featuring Marvin "Boogaloo" Smith on drums. This is a beautiful document from an era when Ra, in addition to his usual sound explorations and space hymns, began to introduce a good number of jazz sta…
A Railroad Spike Forms The Voice
*2023 stock* "Don’t follow.” That’s the admonition saxophonist and composer Roscoe Mitchell (b. 1940) was known to give his students at Oakland’s Mills College in one-on-one sessions. In musical communication and creation, not following or directly responding to others is central to Mitchell’s philosophy and approach. As he said to me in a recent conversation, “I just let things develop with my intent, with my work, and I’ve never been a person that went around looking for people to play with. I…
Soft Samba Live! Jazz From The Penthouse
From the great cache of tapes recorded at Seattle's storied Penthouse nightclub comes The Gary McFarland Quintet, recorded live in the summer of 1965. McFarland could usually be found in the recording studios of New York arranging for everyone from Stan Getz to Lena Horne, but his 1964 bossa-jazz classic LP Soft Samba was such an unexpected hit that it afforded McFarland the opportunity to hit the road with fellow Berklee School of Music alumni Gabor Szabo on guitar and Sadao Watanabe on flute a…
Dedication
Gordon Micky Mfandu was the original leader of “The Clan”, founded as a sixteen-piece band by trombonist Reuben Boy Radise in 1970. This 1973 recording was made following the untimely murder of Mfandu outside his home in Pimville, Soweto. The last track written by Peter Segona and Dimpi Tshabalala is dedicated to Mfandu. Mfandu was also the drummer for the Soul Giants’ “I Remember Nick”, recorded in 1968. According to the band, their music is no carbon copy of somebody’s. ‘We’re trying to be ou…
Lightning Dreamers
Lightning Dreamers is new work by composer, trumpeter, interdisciplinary abstractivist and modern music mogul Rob Mazurek, who wrote the music for a compacted version of his long-running Exploding Star Orchestra. A follow-up to the acclaimed 2020 Mazurek/ESO release Dimensional Stardust, the album features guitarist Jeff Parker, vocalist Damon Locks, drummer Gerald Cleaver, and pianists Angelica Sanchez and Craig Taborn, among others. It was recorded mostly at the remote Sonic Ranch studios in W…
Outward Bound
*In process of stocking* Avant-garde pioneer Eric Dolphy achieved incredible things with the bass clarinet, establishing it as a vehicle for solo improvisation, and was equally adept on alto and flute, gaining kudos from peers such as John Coltrane and Charles Mingus. Outward Bound holds a special place in jazz as Dolphy’s first LP fronting his dynamite quintet, leaving conventions behind from the get-go. With the entire group on tremendous form throughout and Dolphy reaching the heights of his …
I Dream I Was An Earopean
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
Introducing: Ville Lähteenmäki Trio
“Ville Lähteenmäki Trio is a fresh jazz band formed in Trondheim 2022, featuring young Finnish and Norwegian musicians. Influenced by American jazz legends of the 60s and 70s, they blend energetic playing, bold melodies, and intense improvisations in the Dolphy-Murray-Mahall lineage”
Aleksi Heinola Quartet
The Aleksi Heinola Quartet presents a new take on vintage hard-bop with their latest record, featuring original compositions and reinterpretations of works by iconic jazz greats. Impeccable musicianship, groovy swing, and a distinct sense of style are on display, with Gábor Bolla on tenor sax, Jukkis Uotila on piano, and Daniel Franck on double bass. This quartet date is not to be missed!
Shapes And Colours
Funky synthesized jazz with mood and feeling from the Estonian composer and keyboard veteran Tõnu Naissoo. Backed up by Finnish players including Aleksi Heinola on drums, Temu Åkerblom on bass and Markus Holkko on reeds & flute. First album in our New Library Series, recorded and produced at Jazzaggression’s own Pelto studio!
One-Eyed Daruma
Swiss artist Lukas Traxel releases his powerful debut album One-Eyed Daruma on We Jazz Records, March 10. The trio features Traxel on double bass, Otis Sandsjö on sax and Moritz Baumgärtner on drums. Compact, deep, and organic to the bone, Traxel & co's sound echoes the innovations of rhythmically driven avantgarde jazz while keeping things moving at all times. There's both drive and freedom to this sound.
One-Eyed Daruma features eight new compositions by Traxel, who crafted the outline for the…
Indo Jazz Fusions
"This is one of those occasions when we 'labellers of music' get stuck in our own glue. Consider the complication: A group called Indo Jazz Fusions containing Indian and British musicians, an American-born guest, and the result, a uniquely beautiful music which is patently not quite Indian, not quite jazz, not quite contemporary-American. I think the most accurate thing you can say is that it can only be played the way it is by men in contact with the jazz tradition.
The group is led, and all th…
The African OmniDevelopment Space Complex (Book)
Bassist Ubadah McConner recounts the evolution and history of this home based cultural, educational, and music center in Pontiac, Michigan that embraced the revolutionary spirit of the 60s and 70s Black artistic renaissance through all night sessions of fire music, mutual support and conversation.
McConner’s weekend sessions lasted thirty years, until 2002, and were open to everyone so there is name-dropping galore, but the reader may not be familiar with many of the names. As patrick brennan n…
Ethiopian Urban Modern Music Vol. 4
The 2nd volume of Ethiopian hit-parade. The hottest tracks of 1972. Original LP Reissue. The follow up to the highly acclaimed reissue of the first volume, Ethiopian Hit Parade. The track layout is identical to the original record released in 1972. "After releasing around fifty 45 rpm singles and his first 33 rpm album (Ethiopian Modern Instrumental Hits AELP 10, re-released by Heavenly Sweetness HS092VL), Amha Esthèté set about compiling his best 45s on a series of now legendary albums (the or…
Compass Rises
Tip! When artsts self-releases their own recordings, they do so in the hopes that a hit might develop, or even better, a sphere of influence might form. In a lot of cases these records provide a stamp of existence and intent – a sonic business card showing what musicians were made of. Compass Rises (1973), the privately pressed sole LP by Oneonta, New York’s Compass, is both a sampling of versatility and a declaration of straight-ahead purpose.
Regularly active in upstate New York between 1969 …
Home Brewed
*In process of stocking* Recorded in Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire, UK, December 1976. Private session. Previously unheard. Available in digital format and limited edition CD. The amazing lost Dean, Miller, Pyle private tapes from 1976: featuring the very first recorded meeting of these three extraordinary pioneering talents of British Jazz/Rock, performing four magical co-composed pieces, none of which have ever been issued in any form. This album was originally intended to be released by Mike …
Miles Davis with Tadd Dameron Revisited
"In the spring of 1949, the music was ready to undergo a transformation. Both Miles Davis and Tadd Dameron were experimenting with their larger groups, but they were also presented with the opportunity to travel to Paris, to present a programme of new music at an international jazz festival there." - Brian Morton
Sketches
"If music really is a form of rapid transportation, then I have found my mode of transport. Suspense brings apprehension before something happens. It’s a fact. The next time you’re in a snappy nightclub, tap your foot to the memories of your day fading out under the blue lights. The fiercest way to walk anywhere is on your toes. “Here I am,” you blurt out, but everyone already knows you, because a bass is a foghorn that guides us out of exhaustion. The days are doing a little number on us all of…
Yasmina, A Black Woman
Iconic musician and political activist makes a typically thought-provoking statement on historic 1969 recording.