Jazz & Improvisation / 80s

A seamless blend of the avant jazz of David Murray (sax) and Steve McCall (drums) with the powerful prose and cadence of Amiri Baraka! This first ever reissue of poet and social/political activist Amiri Baraka’s electric live 1982 beat poetry reading…

Primitive Art Group 1981-1986 is being released October 25, 2024. This gatefold 2xLP is a combination of the group’s only two albums, consisting of one LP of Five Tread cuts plus “Cecil Likes to Dance” a never-before-released live recording from This…

Limited edition CD & download album produced from a previously vinyl-only release, so available digitally here for the first time, with added live recordings from the same band. The album marks the first collaboration between Jazz In Britain and ReSt…

*Contains printed inner sleeve with archival photos and extensive liner notes by two Italian soprano saxophone specialists Roberto Ottaviano and Eugenio Colombo, and pianist Martin Joseph himself* Recorded Live in Italy in October 1985 and mastered d…

Back in the mid 80's, Paul Motian, one of the greatest jazz drummers of all times, assembled one of the most inventive groups of the decade. Motian invited four highly individual players such as Joe Lovano and Jim Pepper on tenor sax, Bill Frisell on…

Carla Bley's ten-piece band live at NDR's Studio 10 in Hamburg on March 14, 1984, with Michael Mantler and Steve Swallow: a joyful, humorous concert rescued from the NDR archives. Double CD on Moosicus.

Vanguard Studios, New York, 15 November 1981. Mal Waldron with Clifford Jordan on tenor, Cecil McBee on bass and Dannie Richmond on drums, two weeks after the same quartet had played a Columbia University concert. Produced by Horst Weber for Enja, re…

Munich, Vielharmonie, 11 June 1981. Akira Sakata, two years out of the Yosuke Yamashita Trio, with his own trio, Hiroshi Yoshino on bass and Nobuo Fujii on drums, recorded digitally for Enja. Alto sax, alto clarinet and voice; four long pieces, inclu…

Nuremberg, East-West Jazz Festival, 6 July 1984. Takeo Moriyama, the drummer of the first Yosuke Yamashita Trio, with his own quartet: Toshihiko Inoue on tenor and soprano, Shuichi Enomoto on flute and saxophones, Hideaki Mochizuki on bass. Recorded …

Donaueschingen, October 1979. Karl Berger brought the orchestra of his Creative Music Studio from Woodstock to the German contemporary music festival, and Südwestfunk and MPS recorded it. The roster reads like the CMS guest book: Don Cherry on trumpe…

MPS studio, Villingen, 14 September 1980. Cecil Taylor alone at the Bösendorfer Imperial the studio had bought for Gulda, after two days of practising. Eight pieces, one of them fifty-three seconds long, the first side running as a suite. Berendt hea…

Studio 44, Monster, Holland, 11 March 1987. One day. Pharoah Sanders with John Hicks on piano, Curtis Lundy on bass and Idris Muhammad on drums, a band he kept for years. Produced by Wim Wigt for Timeless. The record is built around Coltrane. Loewy a…

Neil S. Kvern’s Doctor Dancing Mask: Pianoisms is a near mythical marker on the map of late 20th century experimentalism transpiring in America’s Pacific Northwest. A sublime, spacious effort of left field DIY minimalism constructed from recurring pi…

Claire Rousay completes her trilogy with A Little Death, where field recordings intertwine with strings and piano like voices in a chamber ensemble. A return to her core practice after sentiment's pop forms, the album transforms tactile samples into …

Available for the first time since its original release in 1980, this is compelling, funky, exploratory jazz from Melbourne, Australia. The album opens with the floating Song For Bobby, a downtempo gem with the heartbeat aura of Herbie Hancock’s Butt…

*2025 stock* Elemental Music proudly announces the release of "Woody Shaw – Tokyo '81," a remarkable newly discovered live recording from one of jazz’s most visionary trumpet players. Captured on December 7, 1981, in Tokyo, this previously unreleased…

Solar Wind, the singular album from OM led by guitarist Seiji Hano, is widely regarded as a milestone in Japanese ethnic jazz. Recently reissued, this masterwork summons a refined blend of acoustic purity, melancholic resonance, and wabi-sabi beauty,…

Skilled guitar dances over the ultimate groove by Marcus Miller and Omar Hakim. This important Japanese fusion album was recorded by guitarist Kiyoshi Sugimoto, who was extremely busy at the time as a first-call musician, together with Marcus Miller,…

Never-before-released early 1980s sessions by a band of top British players and composers which never released an album, led by drummer Trevor Tomkins. This is, in effect, the late Trevor Tomkins debut album release as leader, as well as his memorial…

*2026 stock* The title says it: a deliberate, joyful return to bebop fundamentals from the Kenji Mori quintet, recorded at a moment when the language could already feel like a stylistic choice rather than a default. By 1982 the Japanese jazz scene ha…

*2026 stock* This album is the second release by saxophonist Sachi Hayasaka, following her debut album Free Fight. Most of the music was recorded in Tokyo with members of Stir Up!, capturing the raw energy and spirit of the group. Two additional trac…

First visit archive offers previously unreleased recordings of historic and musical importance. "When, in this music, he succeeds in fusing the emotional (translated into its lyrical and dramatic qualities) pas- sage of ritual with the complex archit…

*2026 repress* Searching was self-recorded in Ronald’s living room on a 4-Track Tape Recorder in 1984. The recordings symbolise his engagement to cross-over everything that was known to him musically at that time. Most importantly, all recordings ref…

** original copy ** "...Of course, they are all just 'grains of sand' in the universe of world music - and yet, a grain of sand, a drop of water, can be a symbol of the entire universe.  In this way, the title given to his composition by German compo…

Super Tip ** original copies, last ones ** 'Trumpeter Baikida Carroll was once again in the company of alto saxophonist Julius Hemphill for a January 1982 recording with pianist Anthony Davis, bassist Dave Holland, and drummer Pheeroan Ak Laff for So…

Originally released in 1981, Mr. Circle’s Thi Nam should really have been recognised decades ago as a jazz dance classic. A beautiful example of European jazz fusion at its most sophisticated and optimistic, the album is immersed in the sonics and rh…

The final chapter of the legendary Brotherhood of Breath unfolds in this captivating live recording from the Banlieues Bleues festival in France, March 18th, 1989. This release is a historic testament to the dynamic fusion of South African jazz influ…

For the first time ever, the complete recording sessions for the Spotlite vinyl album ‘Fingers Remember Mingus’ expanded with bonus tracks. The original album sessions, and the extra tracks, were all recorded between 1979 and 1983. Co-produced by Jaz…

Fit for Consequences: Original Recordings, 1984–1987 is the first ever archival release from Repetition Repetition, the “two-man electric minimalist band” consisting of Ruben Garcia and Steve Caton hailing from Los Angeles in the mid 1980’s. Repetiti…

Superb and underrated early '80s jazz fusion album showcasing authentic Brazilian grooves by one of the country's most famous flutists and saxophonists. Originally released by Som Da Gente, 1981 is a grooving fusion of baião rhythms, jazz funk, and B…

Tip! *Japan import with Obi Strip* In 1967, drummer Takeo Moriyama joined pianist Yosuke Yamashita’s group, later forming a legendary trio together with saxophonist Seiichi Nakamura in 1969. This group consisting of Moriyama, Yamashita, and Nakamura …

Soul Media, led by Jiro Inagaki, played a part in the development of jazz rock in Japan. This work, "Memory Lane" recorded in 1980, was the final work under the same name. Inagaki said about this work, "We tried to create this work while predicting t…

The Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra was created in 1971 by an “old hand” of French free jazz, François Tusques. Free Jazz, was also the name of the recording made by the pianist and other like-minded Frenchmen (Michel Portal, François Jeanne…

Before Sesame Street or Yo Gabba Gabba made art for kids that their parents understood on a whole other level, there were Hip Fables. Pop prose originally put to pulp by the pen of Steve Allen circa the ‘50s, which inspired a popular album and even a…

Super rare Japanese original by bassist Isao Suzuki. Much in demeand by collectors and original issue copies sell for $$$! Dusty groove says: "A really inventive little record from Japanese bassist Isao Suzuki -- and a set that, like most of his best…

Black Truffle is pleased to announce the first vinyl reissue of Trancedance, a wild slice of Swedish Afro-fusion from Christer Bothén, originally released in 1984. A major figure in Swedish jazz and improvised music since the 1970s, often heard on ba…

Louis Xavier’s "Ladja" is a landmark album that elegantly fuses jazz with the vibrant soul of the West Indies, blending Afro-Caribbean traditions with bold, progressive jazz-fusion arrangements. Originally released in Paris in 1981, "Ladja" showcases…

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 …

"Beyond a Dream" is a live jazz album by saxophonist Pharoah Sanders and drummer Norman Connors, recorded on July 22, 1978, at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland and released in 1981 by Arista Novus. The album showcases a blend of spiritual an…

*300 copies limited edition* Tucked away in a corner of northwestern Europe and so small you could drive through it in minutes without noticing you were ever there, Luxembourg is often overlooked. This is also true for Luxembourg’s music scene, and e…