Reissues
Daktari
**2019 stock, reduced price** Cut in the birth pangs of electric fusion and afro-funk, West Coast drummer Shelly Manne's brilliant score for the popular '60's TV series Daktari still stands as a global fusion landmark. The album, recorded in 1967, made heavy use of the marimba with various percussion instruments, and served the score well contributing to its huge success. On the album, Mike Wofford plays a tack piano to evoke an African sound, and Manne is joined by percussionists Emil Richards,…
Straight From the Gate
**2019 stock, reduced price** The Headhunters' Straight From the Gate was their second album and was released in 1977. Originally started as a jazz-fusion band fronted by Herbie Hancock, members Paul Jackson, Bennie Maupin, Michael Clark, Paul Potyen, Derrick Youman and Obsidion Blackbiyrd delved further into jazz-rock and fusion sounds and recorded the album at The Automatt studios in San Francisco. The Headhunters use a wide range of instruments. From the electric piano, to tenor and soprano s…
Silver Cycles
**2019 stock, reduced price** Still riding high from Listen Here, Eddie Harris really started experimenting here with a dazzlingly eclectic LP that must have left his new fans wondering just who the real Eddie Harris was. There is good old Latinized funk in the opening cuts, Free at Last and 1974 Blues, but what was one to make of the next one, Smoke Signals, with its interplanetary Echoplexed electric sax and ethereal wordless female voices? Then it's on to a long-limbed Coltrane tribute on pia…
Brilliant!
**2019 stock, reduced price** Why some artists achieve the recognition they deserve while other equally talented ones don't depends on many things. But one thing is clear, that obscurity does not always mean lack of talent. Regardless, it is always a pleasure to discover little known but immensely gifted musicians and it is really a great pleasure to hear the reissue of The Diamond Five's Brilliant!. The Diamond Five, a Dutch quintet led by pianist Cees Slinger, was founded in 1959 and lasted un…
Milestones
**2019 stock, reduced price** Milestones was Miles Davis' third Columbia release after 'Round About Midnight (1957) and Miles Ahead (1957). The recording was made during one of Davis' most creatively intense periods, preceding his recording of the soundtrack for Ascenseur Pour L'echafaud (Fontana, 1958) in late 1957 and the subsequent recordings of Cannonball Adderley's Somethin' Else (Blue Note, 1958) and the repertoire that would become Kind of Blue (Columbia, 1959). Milestones is significant …
The Frank Cunimondo Trio Introducing Lynn Marino
**2019 stock, reduced price** Frank Cunimondo has an extensive discography, having recorded with nearly every artist from Pittsburgh. In addition, he has shared the stage with a number of jazz stars including: Sonny Stitt, Lou Donaldson, Jimmy Witherspoon, Urbie Green, Lee Konitz, Louie Bellson, Joshua Redman, Phil Woods and Frank Rosolino. The Frank Cunimondo Trio is also a fixture of the Pittsburgh Jazz scene. In the 80s Frank owned a jazz club in Pittsburgh called 'Cunimondo's Keyboard Jazz S…
Sagittarius
**2019 stock, reduced price** Frank Cunimondo has an extensive discography, having recorded with nearly every artist from Pittsburgh. In addition, he has shared the stage with a number of jazz stars including: Sonny Stitt, Lou Donaldson, Jimmy Witherspoon, Urbie Green, Lee Konitz, Louie Bellson, Joshua Redman, Phil Woods and Frank Rosolino. The Frank Cunimondo Trio is also a fixture of the Pittsburgh Jazz scene. Frank's most popular recording Feelin' Good (from the album The Frank Cunimondo Trio…
Oh Really!?
The guitarist and singer-songwriter Mike Cooper was a key figure in the British blues boom of the late 1960s. Born in Reading in 1942, Cooper began playing guitar as a teen in local skiffle groups. After seeing Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee perform in 1961, Cooper caught the blues bug and began to play the harmonica and formed The Blues Committee, supporting John Lee Hooker, Sonny Boy Williamson, Alexis Korner and Long John Baldry, while Cooper was also performing solo. Acquiring a lap steel gu…
Recorded in Stockholm, October 25th, 1962
On this double album, the Albert Ayler Trio consisted of Ayler, bassist Torbjörn Hultcrantz and drummer Sune Spångberg. These four dissonant songs recorded during their live performance on 24 October 1962 were issued on the Bird Notes label in Sweden as Something Different!!!!!! and reissued overseas as the first edition of The First Recording. The tracklist includes a barely-recognisable rendition of the showtune I'll Remember April, an off-kilter take of Sonny Rollins' The Stopper - retitled R…
Flora É M.P.M.
The singer Flora Purim, dubbed the “Brazilian Queen of Jazz”, is renowned for her membership of Chick Corea’s fusion project Return To Forever and for collaboration with Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, Gil Evans, Santana, Grateful Dead drummer Micky Hart and Jaco Pastorius, as well as longstanding pairings with her husband, Airto Moreira. Born in Rio to a pair of classical musicians in 1942, Purim discovered the work of Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson and Erroll Garner t…
Der Abend Der Schwarzen Folklore
Originally released in 1992, Der Abend Der Schwarzen Folklore is the third Massaker album, originally released by Rough Trade Germany. According to Caspar Brötzmann, the title track and Bass Totem are the band’s most accomplished songs. It’s certainly the most sonicly refined of their albums, recorded during a residency over several weeks at the pastoral site of Conny Plank’s studio near Cologne, and produced by Ingo Krauss and Bruno Gebhard, who had worked with the famed Krautrock producer unti…
Koksofen
Koksofen (which translates as blast furnace), originally released in 1993, has become one of Massaker’s most popular albums. Like it’s predecessor, Der Abend Der Schwarzen Folklore, the album took shape in Massaker’s rehearsal room below the Berlin subway station Schlesisches Tor, and was recorded at Conny Plank’s studio near Cologne, with Plank’s former associates Ingo Krauss and Bruno Gephard producing. There’s a different kind of intensity to Koksofen. The features of Massaker’s sound are in …
First Meeting
**2019 stock, reduced price** First Meeting is the only album from the short-lived British Jazz-Rock septet Trifle, founded by singer George Bean, which also included trumpeter Dick Cuthell, saxophonist Barrie Martin, keyboardist Alan Fealdman, guitarist John Hitchen, bassist Patrick King and drummer Chico Greenwood. The group folded shortly after this album was recorded as a result of the tragic death of its leader. The brass arrangements are excellent and the mostly original material is defini…
Walk Away Renée / Pretty Ballerina
**2019 stock, reduced price** The baroque pop band The Left Banke formed back in 1965 in New York City. With their debut album Walk Away Renée / Pretty Ballerina they hit the charts and both title songs became hit singles in the US. They're known for their vocal harmonies, which can be heard on most of the tracks of the album. With their pioneering use of strings, harpsichord and woodwinds they created a unique baroque sound. The beautiful and emotional vibe they laid down in their music can be …
The Road
**2019 stock, reduced price** Formed in Lancashire in 1969 around the nucleus of three brothers, John, Lea and Neil Heather - also known as The Heather Brothers - Quiet World was a studio recording project best known for being the first album to feature future Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett and with a guest appearance from Steve's brother, John. As was common practice in those early days The Road is a conceptual album, and in this case flavored with religious leanings (actually based on the cul…
Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters
**2019 stock, reduced price** Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters is the solo debut album by Robert Calvert, former singer of the space-rock band Hawkwind. It's a satirical concept album with both songs and spoken interludes based on the story of the poor quality of the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter planes. The sputtering and sprawling planes starts up the album, which portrays the West German minister of defense as a psychopath who's furious about the Luftwaffe. It's the effective combination of…
The Birthday Party
**2019 stock, reduced price** In 1967, The Idle Race were the first major signing by the new British arm of Liberty Records. The group were well received by the music press for their melodies, whimsical lyrics and inventive production. They often appeared on the same bill with such bands as The Spencer Davis Group, The Who, Small Faces, Pink Floyd, The Moody Blues, Status Quo, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Yes, Free, and The Move. Influential BBC disc jockeys such as John Peel and Kenny Everett were big bo…
Help Yourself
**2019 stock, reduced price** Help Yourself, known to their fans as "The Helps", were an English rock band of the early 70s. Formed in London, originally as a backing band for singer-songwriter Malcolm Morley, who had left Sam Apple Pie and had been signed as a solo act by Famepushers. The band was assembled by John Eichler who, as well as working for Famepushers, was a production manager at Strand Cosmetics. Their eponymous debut album Help Yourself was recorded from late 1970 to early 1971 wit…
Hard Rock From the Middle East
**2019 stock, reduced price** The Devil's Anvil was a 1960s band based in New York City, and Hard Rock From the Middle East, released in 1967, was their one and only album. Showcasing a mix of 1960s rock sound with Arab, Greek and Turkish melodies, the songs on the album are often sung in Arabic. The arrangements walk a tightrope between the modern psychedelia of the day and centuries-old traditional folk modalities and melodies. Hard Rock from the Middle East was released during escalating tens…
Flames / Salisbury Plain
**750 copies - 2019 stock, reduced price** Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera, at various times also known as Velvet Opera, was a British Rock band active in the late 1960s. The group emerged from a soul / blues band called The Five Proud Walkers, and after supporting Pink Floyd on tour, they were inspired to change their approach and become a more psychedelic outfit. Their first recording was the single Flames b/w Salisbury Plain - published in November 1967 - which was later covered on stage by Led Z…