Reissues
Jodo
*2023 stock* Takehiro Honda joins forces with Reggie Workman on bass and Motohiko Hino on drums in this outstanding trio session. The album showcases a freer side of Honda, exploring open and lyrical modes that were gaining prominence in Japan during that period. Despite the freedom, a strong rhythmic sense prevails. While one track features Honda on electric piano, the acoustic numbers stand out with a proud and righteous energy.
Legend Of The Sea-Myself
*Limited Edition* Pianist Takashi Kako brings a uniquely subtle and poetic approach to his instrument in this improvised music setting. Supported by a talented quartet featuring Keiki Midorikawa, Masahiko Togashi, and Masami Nakagawa, Kako paints in space and color with a wonderfully abstract style.
Paris Days
*Limited Edition* In the early 1970s, while studying contemporary music composition in Paris, Takashi Kako discovered and fell in love with free jazz, and soon became active as a pianist there. He performed with Bob Reed, Noah Howard, Motoki Takagi, and Yoshisaburo Toyozumi, and his name quickly spread around the world. This work was recorded in Paris together with his allies. The unparalleled sound of reason and passion depicts his days in Paris. Originally released in 1977. Supervision and com…
Straight Ahead
*Limited Edition* Immerse yourself in a delightful offering of Japanese jazz from the 70s, featuring a straight-ahead approach complemented by captivating fusion elements, courtesy of keyboardist Mikio Masuda, whose electrifying presence enhances most tracks. Tenor saxophonist Takao Uematsu leads the ensemble, with the added brilliance of trumpeter Hitoshi Okano, whose bold lines infuse the record with a touch reminiscent of Freddie Hubbard's CTI-era sensibility. While certain tracks exude a fun…
Shudan Seikatsu
*Limited Edition* Shoyuki Akedagawa is not only a pianist, but also an ocarina player, guitarist, and eventually a vocalist. Comical yet emotional. Melancholy in his humor. This is a masterpiece that explodes with Akutagawa's talent. Nakamura Masco gradually reveals his true nature, Umezu Kazutoki bursts out with his unique phrases without pause, and Miyasaka Takashi and Saito Makoto create dynamism like a big wave. All blend together to form a vortex that opens the door to the incomparable worl…
Aketa's Erotical Piano Solo & Grotesque Piano Trio
*Limited Edition* Pianist Shoji Aketagawa, the creative force behind the consistently unconventional Aketa's Disc label, presents an album with an unusual title that aligns with the label's distinctiveness. The material, while not explicitly erotic or grotesque, showcases Shoji's beautiful and robust notes on several solo tracks. The album takes a unique turn as Shoji collaborates with the trio on the final tune, offering a quality unlike any other artist we can think of. The piano, possessing t…
Japanese Cassette
** Much-Needed Repress, Red Vinyl ** Tom Recchion is a legendary character. He is a world-famous art director, a founding member of the L.A.F.M.S., and was even the drummer for Sonic Youth for a brief period. Since the '70s, Tom has been creating screwed-up music in a dizzying array of formats, from large fully-clothed ensembles to buck naked solo explorations. The Japanese Cassette album falls into the latter category, and it is a head spinning doozy. The music here was originally created in 19…
Drama Suite Part II
Alan Tew's Drama Suite Part II. What can we really say? Honestly? We guess the first thing that strikes you is how clean the drums are. Almost impossibly slick but dripping so, so heavy with the neck-snapping funk you'd expect from perhaps the most sought-after library funk set of them all! The cheapest on Discogs is, currently, £1300+. Now's your chance to remedy that. If you know, you know. And we think you know...
"The Rub" is a cool, low-slung heavy-funk roller with relaxed brass and alto fl…
Drama Suite Part I
Alan Tew's driving jazz-rock, sleuth-funk masterpiece, Drama Suite Part I is finally reissued to sate your appetites for arguably the very best library two-parter in existence. If you don’t know, get to know. Originally released in 1976 but wonderfully timeless, Drama Suite Part I is at the top of every library funk collectors' list. It's easy to see why...
Racing out the gate, the gritty crime funk of "The Detectives" makes for a thrilling, wild ride. A dramatic action theme, it's packed with s…
Afro-Rock
Vecchio's Afro-Rock is one big horn-heavy, bass-blasting, Latin groove funk-rock party. Only now, you're all invited because this, ladies and gentleman, is officially...a grail no more. With copies currently starting at 400 Euros for an original, this beautifully presented reissue, part of Be With's fresh campaign with Music De Wolfe, is well overdue. A magnificent and somewhat obscure library set that's just a total, cohesive joy from start to finish, this here is the soundtrack to all your smo…
Matrix
Esteemed pianist Masabumi Kikuchi enjoyed a long and illustrious career in jazz that encompassed many forms. After playing in Lionel Hampton’s Japanese touring band, he played on five Sadao Watanabe albums in mid-1960s and backed Sonny Rollins before studying at the Berklee College of Music. Matrix was the first of five albums recorded with his Sextet and is rightly rated one of the greatest of his entire career, the album mixing well-executed covers of songs by Chick Corea, Miles Davis, Watanab…
Spare Ass Annie and Other Tales
Tip! "Originally released in 1993, on CD only except very few promo vinyls, Spare Ass Annie and Other Tales is a collaboration between famous -- and infamous! -- beat writer William S. Burroughs and politico-rappers Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, whose Television, Drug of the Nation picked up the baton from the Last Poets and Gil Scot Heron. With Hal Willner in the producer's chair, the album sits at the unusual intersection of literature, spoken word and music, as Burroughs is reading excerpt…
Thelonious Monk With John Coltrane 1957 (Revisited)
Temporary Super Offer! “Working with Monk brought me close to a musical architect of the highest order. I felt I learned from him in every way – through the senses, theoretically, technically. I would talk to Monk about musical problems and he would sit at the piano and show me the answers just by playing them.“ – John Coltrane
Eric Dolphy At The Five Spot To Iron Man (Revisited)
Temporary Super Offer! "Eric Dolphy’s legacy is well represented by these performances from The Five Spot and the sessions supervised by Alan Douglas. They confirm him to be an artist who straddled the divide then so deep in jazz, drawing sustenance from the music’s past as he cleared a path to its future. Dolphy’s was a sensibility that could celebrate Fats Waller and honor Jomo Kenyatta, its inclusiveness rare in the polarized early 1960s. Fortunately, his example has not simply endured, bu…
What's Going On
*2023 stock* The impossibly cool 1973 album What's Going On from Late, Great Japanese Funk & Jazz Don Takehiro Honda which swings through jazz orchestral renditions of American R&B and Funk Classics like Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On, "Otis Redding's "Sitting On The Dock of the Bay," and James Brown's "Ain't It Funky Now" turning them into the most Down Home, Grits 'N' Gravy Grooviest Versions and sounding like they were recorded at the studio of the band that taught the Memphis Rhythm Sections…
Flying To The Sky
*2023 stock* Collaboration between Japanese pianist Takehiro Honda and German saxophonist Gerd Dudek. Recorded March 1, 1971
The Impossible Dream
Delve into the groovy sounds of a Japanese harp jazz trio led by Tadao Hayashi. Similar to Dorothy Ashby's small combo records, the trio, with Takao Kusagaya on bass and Koichi Suzaki on drums, maintains a lean approach. Hayashi's harp work, given ample space, weaves mesmerizing note combinations with a gentle groove, especially enhanced by skillful bass. Familiar tunes take on a fresh perspective, resonating strongly in this recording.
Inner Space
*2023 stock* "Japanese pianist Yosuke Yamashita built his name as one of the country's avant-garde jazz leader with his bass-less trio founded still in 1969 (with drummer Takeo Moriyama and tenorist Seiichi Nakamura, in 1973 Nakamura has been changed by alto sax player Akira Sakata). Early-mid 70s were all years of trio's fame documented by representative collection of studio and live albums, all containing high energy fast and tight strongly improvisation music.Year 1977 was a transitional for …
Farewell My Johnny
*2023 stock* The first album by the Teru Sakamoto Trio, whose beautifully lyrical piano music has enjoyed exceptionally long sales. This is a new standard work of Japanese jazz that is highly acclaimed even overseas.
Sabu - Message To Chicago
*2023 stock* A wonderful recording by Japanese first generation free improvisers Sabu Toyozumi, Syoji Ukaji and Ryoh Hara.