Jazz & Improvisation / All styles

Return of the great American jazz trio that delivered the poll-topping "Nothing Ever Was, Anyway" in 1997. Material heard on "Amaryllis" is by turns thoughtful, touching, joyous and viscerally exciting. Some of the songs are well known – almost classics of new jazz – including Crispell’s "Rounds", Peacock’s "Requiem" and "December Wings, Motian’s "Conception Vessel". There are also a number of startlingly effective free improvised ballads. As leader Marilyn Crispell says, "There’s a great depth …

From the very first note, Norway’s Jon Balke proposes a new sonic dimension with Skrifum, continuing a line of inquiry begun with Warp (2016) and Discourses (2020), solo piano albums which also processed the acoustic environment in which the music was heard. Skrifum (the Icelandic word for “write”) takes things a step further.  With the aid of electronic audio tool the Spektrafon, which he helped develop, Balke is now able to directly manipulate ambient audio sound from the piano while playing –…

Pianist François Couturier and violinist Dominique Pifarély, major figures in French improvisation, have played together in many projects over the last 30 years, including their duo, which made its recording debut for ECM with the remarkable Poros in 1997. Preludes and Songs, carries the story forward, with its programme including music by both players as well as pieces by Jacques Brel, Duke Ellington, George Gershwin and J.J. Johnson. With sensibilities informed by jazz and contemporary composi…

Musical messages from Oslo, New York, Basel and Lugano – recorded between 2018 and 2022 – are juxtaposed and recombined on an absorbing recording that features Norwegian drummer Thomas Strønen solo and in a series of duets . With such partners as Craig Taborn, Chris Potter, Sinikka Langeland and Jorge Rossy,  the musical frame of reference is very broad.  Elements from Langeland’s’s archaic-sounding folk to Potter’s post-Coltrane saxophone and Taborn’s whirlwind modernist piano each find their p…

Released in 1981, the debut of the legendary keyboardist from Eberhard Weber’s Colours band and later the Jan Garbarek Group, Freigeweht presented Rainer Brüninghaus as a highly original and idiosyncratic sound sculptor in his own right, accompanied by ECM stalwarts Kenny Wheeler on flugelhorn and drummer Jon Christensen as well as oboist Brynjar Hoff. In a review of the album from the year of its release, the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung traced Rainer’s influences and minimalist …

1992 release ** "In 1984, Joe Gallivan settled in London and organized the avant-garde big band Soldiers of the Road, featuring Elton Dean, Evan Parker, Marcio Mattos, and, later, Ashley Slater, Paul Rutherford, Jim Dvorak, Claude Deppa, and Guy Barker. This ensemble recorded eight pieces for the BBC, performed often in London including at the London Jazz Festival, and, in 1992, made a critically acclaimed CD, Innocence."

The Last Temple is a live recording of this extraordinary trio at the Alchemia in Krakow. Since the concert was quite long, we divided it into 3 formats: 1) The Last Temple vol. 1 - vinyl 9" EP 2) (this one) The Last Temple vol. 2 CD 3)The Last Temple vol. 3 vinyl 12" LP (180g black vinyl) The Trzaska, Haker Flaten, Nilsen Love trio played a concert tour in Poland in March 2024. A combination of one of the most famous sections of the world's intuitive jazz (e.g. The Thing) and one of the most fa…

Sun Ra's Angels & Demons at Play is a diptych created by merging two recording sessions. The first is a laid-back introspective affair ("angels?") recorded in 1960. Even frolicsome, these bouncy melodies follow the percolating rhythms with a gently leading reed, as Marshall Allen exemplifies on flute in "Tiny Pyramids." Also dating from before the truly experimental Sun Ra period, the last three tracks were recorded at RCA Studios in Chicago in 1956. Still very accessible, here several horns, am…

Psychicemotus was released in 1965 and features Yusef Lateef on various flutes and tenor saxophone, Georges Arvanitas on piano, bassist Reggie Workman, and drummer James Black. And while the Coltrane era of modal and free jazz was in full swing, Lateef always followed his own muse, and continued looking forward while looking back to ancient musics. His use of bamboo and Chinese wood flutes on the title track and "Bamboo Flute Blues" added not only dimension and texture, but rhythmic invention to…

2010 release **

2005 release ** Limited edition of 200 copies. "The Iberian trio of Fages, Barberan and Costa Monteiro have been working together in Barcelona for long enough now to have developed a distinct language of tension, scraped metallic dynamics and a rough, textural abrasiveness. A trio with a great, off-kilter and unexpected instrumentation (there can’t be many acoustic turntable/ engines, trumpet and accordion trios kicking about Barcelona – although it’s a while since I’ve been there) they build lo…

Across A Blade Because A Blade Is Whole, DePlume’s reflections on healing, dignity, and struggle are communicated through a stirring assemblage of disparate musics: ghostly and ancient folk melodies, groove-anchored maelstroms of swirling folk-jazz, elegant string arrangements that strike a midpoint between Ravel and Gainsbourg (courtesy of Macie Stewart), disembodied voices reconfiguring into the shape of a post-modern Greek chorus, noir atmosphere, and allegoric, troubadouric song. Throughout,…

"We’re bringing you the exciting sound of the Misha Panfilov Sound Combo today. Hailing from Tallinn, Estonia, Misha’s music is frequently reviewed on the pages of Flea market Funk simply because it’s that good. The latest release on the Detroit powerhouse Funk Night Records is “Gin and Tonic” FNR-169 is really a gem. Moving right into some fuzzy guitar, heavy break drums, and some spacey synths, Panfilov and company add the soundtrack to your night with a sound that is on some over there shizz.…

January 2nd, 2023. Aside from being the second of a new year, it was a pretty ordinary night at ETA in Los Angeles, where guitarist Jeff Parker - alongside his ETA IVtet with saxophonist Josh Johnson, bassist Anna Butterss, and drummer Jay Bellerose - had been holding down a regular Monday gig since 2016. At the time, nobody knew it was the first gig of the last year that ETA would be open for business. Over seven years of holding down that residency, Parker’s ETA ensemble evolved from a band th…

There is something intensely alluring, almost addictive, about Kansas City-based artist Jackie Myers. Known for her innovation and fluidity on the keys and her sultry, bluesy vocals that could spark warmth in even the iciest of souls, she has a way of leaving all your flabbers ghasted and with a voracious appetite for more. Now, 577 Records is ecstatic to present her latest work of art, What About the Butterfly, a technical masterpiece born from the depths of this vocalist/pianist/composer’s bea…

Ben LaMar Gay’s de facto debut album, 'Downtown Castles Can Never Block The Sun', was our attempt to introduce the legendary Chicago composer / improviser / renaissance man to the rest of the world with a compilation of tracks from 7 albums he made over 7 years (though he hadn’t yet made the effort to actually release). The material showcases Gay’s penchant for genre-hopping – from Steve Reich-ian soundscape voyages to Don Cherry-esque polyrhythm treks to Jorge Ben-style vocal-and-string earworm…

'Uhlmann Johnson Wilkes' is the debut album from Gregory Uhlmann (SML, Anna Butterss, Duffy x Uhlmann, Perfume Genius), Josh Johnson (SML, Jeff Parker ETA IVtet & New Breed, Meshell Ndegeocello, Anna Butterss, Leon Bridges), and Sam Wilkes (Sam Gendel, Louis Cole, Chaka Khan). The three improviser/arranger/producers’ impressive individual credits encompass such a wide stylistic pendulum swing that a collection of group music from the trio could mine any number of musical territories with masterf…

45 years after his debut album Valley of Search (1975/India Navigation), jazz saxophonist Alan Braufman returns. The Fire Still Burns has that gritty, forthright sensibility we hope to hear in sonic collaborations borne out of beauty and struggle, but there’s a populist ease that comes with age and reflection. Put simply it’s natural music – complementary, individual, and full of the sweet, hot taste of celebration.

The first ever reissue of the 1975 free jazz album originally released on India Navigation. What we know of Downtown New York comes from the countercultural and creative flowering that emerged in lower Manhattan in the 1960s, attributable to cheap live-work spaces called lofts. These were often abandoned and disused small manufacturing spaces and they became a nexus for artistic practice and life. From a jazz perspective, lofts were alternatives to the club scene, and they gained notoriety in th…

2010 release ** Folded and stapled cardboard sleeve.

2007 release (RARE)  ** "A Black Op'era (dedicated to Chairman Fred Hampton), written, directed and performed by Ernest Khabeer Dawkins (one of Chicago's most famous improvisers and president of the well-deserving and celebrated AACM), leader of the Chicago 12, which includes some of the best and most famous soloists on the Chicago scene. Ernest Dawkins, one of Chicago's leading artists (he has collaborated with musicians and groups such as Ramsey Lewis, Muhal Richard Abrams, Richie Cole, Jack M…

2012 release (RARE - light storage wear)  ** "E.M.T. started focusing on ecstatically free improvisation in an explosive and expressive manner. Over the years E.M.T. gradually extended their musical language by incorporating dada like spoken words and improvised recitations inspired by Schönberg (Pierrot Lunaire), noise, improvised structures and composition fragments from European composers like Grieg, Schumann (the song Ich grolle nicht) a.o. Alfred Harth extended his instruments to electric z…

2025 stock In 2020, a live recording was made at Moldejazz by the piano trio Kongle Trio. A live recording where the listener gets the feeling of sitting in the hall as an audience and witnessing three people who really ooze music. "Live at Moldejazz" is proof of why this band, in a very short time, captured the hearts of large parts of the Nordic jazz scene, and we at Øra love it! Kongle Trio is the result of three people who were in the right place at the right time. Their meeting at Norway's …

2025 stock Recorded during a show at the Storyville jazz club in Molde in May 2012, this could very well be their finest recorded effort during their ten years of Bushman's Revenge as a band. Bringing new meaning to the concept of loose but tight, they blend the freedom of jazz with the energy of rock in the most convincing ways as they race through numbers from all their previous four Rune Grammofon albums, taking no prisoners along the ride. On top of everything it´s also really well recorded …

2025 stock It's no secret that we have a soft spot for this fabulous group and would wish nothing less than world domination for them. With one leg in heavy rock and one in jazz, what they do seems to be almost a lost art when it comes to making records. Basically meaning great musicians playing together in a proper recording studio, interacting and playing off each other. The tracks are mostly first or second takes, there is no editing and just a couple of overdubs on the whole album. And while…

2025 stock Formed in 2003, the Oslo based trio are upfront about their love for the progressive rock of Cream and Jimi Hendrix, the galactic jazz of Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Sharrock and Alice Coltrane, plus the raw power of Black Sabbath and The Pixies. «Thou Shalt Boogie!» is their sixth album on Rune Grammofon and has a velvety, warm sound that was captured at Athletic Sound in Halden, Norway, a legendary old school studio with a 30-year history. Superbly paced, and poised in the indefi…

Limited to 500 copies, hand-numbered. Gatefold cover, textured sleeve + printed inner. Red Vinyl. 1973 Aktuala debut, a stunning overall work where you can hear a lot of different musical influences : avant-garde folk, mediterranean blues ,jazz improvisation, minimalism, african percussions, indian ragas all played with a true psychedelic feeling. The album was recorded in a few days in a totally acoustic dimension and the line-up seems to be a quintet of contemporary music more than a progrock …

2025 stock With “Your Bliss My Joy” - Sex Magick Wizard’s debut for Rune Grammofon - this young quartet take a big step forward from their promising first album, “Eroto Comatose Lucidity”, released in 2019 on the small Finito Bakalao label. Since then Ingvald André Vassbø (Kanaan) has taken over the drum duties from Axel Skalstad (Krokofant) and forms an explosive and fine-drawn rhythm section with bass player Henrik Sandstad Dalen. Saxophonist Sigrid Aftret has been making waves on Oslo’s ferti…

2025 stock Welcome to your next jazz favourite, Skurkar. This is the young, fearless and exploratory all-Scandinavian quartet consisting of baritone saxophonist Jenny (no), alto saxophonist Amalie (dk), double bassist Oda (no) and drummer Emma (se). In addition to being an interesting line-up, they also put the somewhat unexplored genre of “detective jazz” on the map. The band was formed in the autumn of 2018 at the prestigious Jazzlinja in Trondheim, and has since made its mark at the Copenhage…

LP + CD version. Here are two of the planet's most uncompromising and inventive young hornithologists and saxophonists, Colin Stetson and Mats Gustafsson. Mats Gustafsson is the uncompromising Swedish saxophonist famous for his no-holds barred style. Colin Stetson is a member of Arcade Fire's touring group, and his prodigious bass saxophone tones have been called on by a host of American alternative acts including Bon Iver, Tom Waits, Laurie Anderson, TV on the Radio, David Byrne, Feist, My Brig…

We can safely say that some of the past Italian library music masterpieces will hardly reach the export levels of mainstream Italian pop music. However, there is no doubt that the recent rediscovery operation led by some record labels such as Schema, Sonor, Four Flies, Intervallo and many others, has helped to create a lively and passionate record collectors’ market where names such as Umiliani, Brugnolini, Torossi, Tommasi, Braen, Iacoucci, Alessandroni are the watchwords for entering a wonderf…

Masahiko Satoh’s fourth album is a duet with German pianist and composer Wolfgang Dauner. Dauner is one of very early European avant-garde jazz pianists, and he recorded the first free jazz album in Germany back in 1964. Dauner played with Eberhard Weber and Jean-Luc Ponty, and in the late 60s, he experimented with choral music. Being a passionate innovator and experimenter, in 1970 he discovered electronic devices and started using them in his music. He experimented with ring-modulated Hohner c…

Following the already classic Wamono A to Z trilogy, 180g presents an exceptional collection of jazz funk / rare groove tunes recorded in the mid-seventies at the Nippon Columbia studios by three giants of Japanese music: arranger Kiyoshi Yamaya, koto legend Toshiko Yonekawa and shakuhachi master Kifu Mitsuhashi.Born in 1932 in Tokyo, Kiyoshi Yamaya started his musical career in 1953 when he played in various jazz bands in town. In 1957, Yamaya joined Nobuo Hara’s famous jazz big band Sharps & F…

As listeners to the experimental, improvised, Jazz, Ethiopian and style-free music communities in Sydney will testify, Peter Farrar has been doing astonishing solos the last few years. He’s been honing techniques that use various extensions on his alto sax, (mainly plastic bags and bottles as mutes). Instead of an instrumental line, he produces startling layers of distorted tones and overtones with pervasive, insistent, generative rhythms. This is pioneering research — he has re-imagined the ins…

The Tribe Records co-founder’s lost album, recorded in 1975, rumored to exist no more. Mastered from the original tapes!

*2024 stock* Playing The Room bears testimony to the long musical friendship of Avishai Cohen and Yonathan Avishai. They began to explore jazz as teenagers in Tel Aviv, and have continued to play together over many years, with Yonathan making important contributions to Avishai’s group albums Into The Silence and Cross My Palm With Silver on ECM. Their first duo album begins with music composed by the trumpeter and by the pianist and concludes with a touching interpretation of Israeli composer Al…

Where The River Goes carries the story forward from Wolfgang Muthspiel’s highly-acclaimed Rising Grace recording of 2016, reuniting the Austrian guitarist with Brad Mehldau, Ambrose Akinmusire and Larry Grenadier, heavy talents all, and bringing in the great Eric Harland on drums. Much more than an “all-star” gathering, the group plays as an ensemble with its own distinct identity, evident both in the interpretation of Muthspiel’s pieces and in the collective playing.  The album, recorded at Stu…

2010 release  ** "Following the success of their 2010 collaborative CD with Nels Cline Singers, Rova returned to the classic acoustic quartet format for the first time on CD since 2007. “Planetary” brings the listener to several of Rova’s music worlds and shows that the band, as always, was still refining that “Rova sound,” still pushing the envelope, and still looking for new sound worlds to inhabit and make their own. This also marks Rova’s reconnection with the Russian music scene. The band m…

2004 release  ** "It is easier to say what it doesn’t mean: Intuitive means not controlled by reason, not planned, not calculating, not superficial, not egomaniacal. It may mean: Creative, organic, alive, spiritual. All this at least is the music of the duo and it even possesses this astonishing quality when it has been thus announced. It magically appears to draw directly on the inward, as well as on a system of sounds that seems to exist beyond our involvement. The trumpet player Markus Stockh…

1995 release ** "Taking Off was first released as an LP in 1982 and re-issued as a CD by Bleu Regard in France in 1995. Wallenstein increases the size of his jazz accompaniment/collaboration, featuring Bill Chelf on piano, Charles Tyler on saxophones, Jeremy Steig on flute, and Jeff Meyer on percussion. The opening poem "Careful Bump," begins with a jolting kick and cymbal crash leading into a bop-jazz drum beat. "The Short Life of the Five Minute Dancer," which describes action in the face of f…