Jazz & Improvisation / Free Improvisation

*150 copies* Giotis Damianidis’s Punk Kong is coming back after a golden silence of six years withundoubtedly their most complete work in terms of composition, arrangement and execution. The bass-less ensemble offers a perfect blend of Free Jazz, Psychedelic Rock, dreamy Drone Blues music that flows over as a clean transparent river into the mountains! Their Third album, “Same but Different” is coming out in October 2024 on the Belgian almighty Label, WERF records! Worth to mention that part of …

Billy Harper is one of the great tenor saxophonists in the post-Coltrane mold. Originally from Houston, TX and with a degree from the venerable University of North Texas College of Music, Harper emerged on the New York City jazz scene in the late 1960s performing with Art Blakey, Max Roach, Lee Morgan and others. Known for his soulful and propulsive tone, Harper was already a highly regarded and prolific session man before the release of his debut album as a leader on the cult favorite Strata-Ea…

Cecil Taylor’s life was a string of mysteries that made a beautiful necklace of precious sounds, dances, and poetry he called music. Philip Freeman’s book In the Brewing Luminous gives us a wonderful glimpse of Cecil’s life and music. Hopefully this book will inspire us all in ways we can’t imagine.” (William Parker) For 60 years, Cecil Taylor’s music marked the farthest boundary of avant-garde jazz. His volcanic piano improvisations, delivered with astonishing technical command and unrelenting …

In this quartet Amado gathers three of his strongest longtime influences: German pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, Norwegian double bass player Ingebrigt Håker Flaten and American drummer Gerry Hemingway. For Amado this band represents a deep dive into his own formative roots, something he hasm been dealing with more and more in these last few years. With Schlippenbach, Håker Flaten and Hemingway by his side, Amado has the perfect context to explore the classic materials he considers to be th…

*2024 stock* "This 1969 avant-garde collaboration between trumpeter Don Cherry and electronics pioneer Jon Appleton was originally released on legendary jazz producer Bob Thiele's Flying Dutchman label. Consisting of four compositions with the titles 'Boa,' 'Oba,' 'Abo,' and 'Bao,' Human Music finds Cherry stretching out on various flutes and African percussion instruments in addition to pocket trumpet. Original artwork. Detailed liner notes." Includes two bonus tracks, "Don" and "Jon". At the d…

Comes in a heavy gatedold sleeve and with printed innersleeves. Peter Brotzmann reflected: "The idea of expressing my love of and admiration for Albert Ayler - both man and music - in a musical statement is not new. We both tried to do similar or almost identical things at the same point in time, each independently and without knowing anything about each other - each of us within his own culture." This album was recorded in August 1993 during the Free Concerts series at Townhall Charlottenburg i…

Andreas Trobollowitsch, an Austrian sound artist, explores various rotating mechanical systems to create sound-emitting objects. His work focuses primarily on conceptual compositions, self-developed musical instruments, sound and drawing installations. Thomas Rohrer, a Swiss musician, plays the rabeca, (a Brazilian fiddle), and soprano saxophone. His work is largely based on free improvisation, but also engages in a dialogue with traditional Brazilian music. The collaboration between Trobollowit…

Deluxe CD edition with Obi. The title of Horace Tapscott's debut release is apt, if not self-referential, for indeed a giant of West Coast jazz had awakened with this, the pianist / composer / bandleader's 1969 album for the Flying Dutchman label. Tapscott went on to form two groups crucial to the flowering of modern jazz in the Los Angeles area, the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra (or P.A.P.A.; the name is an homage to Tapscott's predecessor and peer, Sun Ra), which eventually became part of a lar…

2024 stock. Legendary downtown music master Daniel Carter meets Tobias Wilner from world-renowned electronic band Blue Foundation. Featuring Wu-Tang Clan bass player Djibril Toure & drum wiz Federico Ughi. As a band, they have played a number of concerts in NYC, including the Forward Festival 2016 and 2018, and are currently promoting their debut album. This group is the ultimate mix between the classic New York sound of the avant-garde (i.e., John Coltrane & Albert Ayler) combined with electron…

2024 stock. Shifa, from the Arabic word for healing, is a new trio born out of old musical partnerships from the ever-shifting sands of the UK improvised music scene. Pat Thomas, pianist extraordinaire whose eclectic motherboard pushes the music in unexpected twists and turns, suggested the name. The healing, in this case, is a raw, unfettered musical space where he, saxophonist Rachel Musson and drummer Mark Sanders meet and make music in the moment, of the moment. Each player values the others…

*250 copies limited edition* "Play" is a set of 100 cards with instructions for ensembles of any size and instrumentation. The individual instructions vary from precise (two contrasting sounds, a very long sound) to vague (something funny, thinking of something you smell), sometimes requiring a high degree of interpretation. The release combines two excellent recordings of the piece: one including the composer himself with a group of Israeli musicians, the other introducing an ensemble around th…

*180 Gram/ gatefold/ audiophile* Originally issued by Impulse in 1971, this masterpiece Alice's album is on of the most exciting record she have ever did! And, what's more, it's absolutely live! It is definitely one of the best  truly cosmic jazz orchestrations ever realized. Recorded at the Coltrane home studio, Dix Hills, New York on November 8, 1970. Alice Coltrane (harp, piano); Pharoah Sanders (soprano saxophone, perc); Charlie Haden (bass); Rashied Ali (drums); Cecil McBee (bass); Vishnu W…

2025 stock! Spirit is the debut album of Brede Sørum Quartet, with Sørum himself as the frontman. The young quartet offers acoustic music that blooms with pure youth, but with a maturity and musical excess that will make even the most experienced jazz listeners open their ears. The written music is based on the band's ability to create and maintain energy over time with strong musical passion and an energetic interaction. The music opens up, and in good jazz tradition this allows the musicians t…

"The Rendell/Carr Quintet was a groundbreaking jazz ensemble featuring saxophonist Don Rendell and trumpeter Ian Carr, among the most influential musicians in post-war British jazz. BBC Jazz Club Session April 1965 is a snapshot of the group in transition, with pianist Michael Garrick new to the ranks and taking them in a more radical direction." - normanrecords.com

Walter Fähndrich's album "Viola" is a beautiful and captivating collection of works for the viola. Fähndrich's skills as a violist are on full display as he expertly navigates through a variety of pieces, showcasing the instrument's rich and versatile sound. From hauntingly melancholic melodies to lively and energetic compositions, "Viola" takes listeners on a journey through a range of emotions. Fähndrich's impeccable technique and emotional depth make this album a must-listen for any classical…

Collaborators for two decades, Marcia Basssett (guitar) and Samara Lubelski (violin) play electric improvisation. This is their 8th duo release and first on CD and streaming.

This is the first collaboration between Australian improvisor Chloë Sobek who plays the Renaissance precursor to the double bass, the violone and New York saxophonist Time Berne.

A fresh and open music, delicate and space-conscious, is shaped as drummer Thomas Strønen and Ayumi Tanaka, previously heard in the ensemble Time Is A Blind Guide on Lucus, resurface in a new trio with clarinettist/singer/percussionist Marthe Lea. The group first came together at Oslo’s Royal Academy of Music, where for two years the players would meet each week for exploratory music making. Strønen: “We always played freely- drifting between elements of contemporary classical music, folk music,…

A striking album of new music from pianist/composer Carla Bley, whose trio with Andy Sheppard and Steve Swallow is now in its 25th year. Individual associations among the players go back much further: bassist Swallow first recorded music by Carla in 1961. So when Bley says “Life Goes On”, a lot of life is alluded to. The album, realized in the Auditorio Stelio Molo Studio in Lugano in May 2019, with Manfred Eicher producing, takes the form of three suites. The title piece begins as a stoical blu…

*Edition Of 100 Hand-Numbered Copies* Obras Portuenses da Década de 20 is a project developed by Sonoscopia for Cultura em Expansão, a Porto City Council programme that seeks to decentralise and diversify the city's cultural offer. Since 2021, four commissions have been made each year to composers from Porto, or with a strong connection to the city, who portray their vision and listening to the city in a unique way. Given the territorial specificities of Cultura em Expansão, each composer is ass…

"The outsized sounds emerging from the Excelsior Mill organ captured here constitute a unique chapter in the Sun Ra story, a dizzying phantasmagoria that offers a whole new view on what Ra could do - It might thrill you; it might unnerve you; it might strum your heartstrings; it might spook the living daylights out of you. Most likely you'll experience all of the above before the jolting musical jeremiad is done. Pressed on violet vinyl! When you're Sun Ra, you don't need synthesizers to evoke a…

*2024 stock* "This Is Our Music" features Ornette Coleman’s (1930-2015) wonderful piano-less quartet with Don Cherry, Charlie Haden and Ed Blackwell. The group consisted of modern players working with the same concept: a freer way of playing jazz, which transcended the strict confines of melody, harmony and rhythm. They would create a whole new idiom by constructing music via the interplay of simultaneous collective improvisation. Coleman had made his debut on records in February/March 1958 with…

Seven years of effervescent activity: few free jazz groups can be proud of such longevity, especially with a line-up as stable as that of Perception. Yes, there would be several guest musicians, including Kent Carter and Jean-Charles Capon, on the second album... Yes the "existential problems" of Siegfried Kessler would necessitate him being temporarily replaced by Manuel Villaroel... But for the most part, it was the core quartet of the first album which would tour Europe, through concerts from…

** First ever standalone vinyl reissue. Carefully remastered. 4 page booklet with rare and unpublished photos. Heavyweight 180 gr. LP ** While he was working on the repertoire for the new version of his group Malagasy, with young Malagasy musicians he had met in Paris in 1972 (and who can be heard on the album "Malagasy At Newport-Paris"), Jef Gilson realised that two of his new discoveries, in addition to being established polyinstrumentalists (who both had sharpened their skills in the legenda…

Souffle Continu Records present the first ever vinyl reissue of Perception's self-titled album, originally released in 1971. The story of Perception takes root in a series of chance meetings, which seem at first glance unlikely, between musicians from differing horizons, be they geographic or esthetic. Jazz Magazine was spot on with an article from the period entitled, "Perception, four conceptions", before detailing the origins of the musicians (Hungarian for saxophonist Yochk'O Seffer, German …

Souffle Continu Records present the first ever vinyl reissue of Perception & Friends, originally released in 1973. After their first album which came out in 1971 on Futura Records (FFL 051LP), Perception wanted to rapidly record a second, but Gérard Terronès did not want to produce another, especially so soon after the first. Therefore, the only solution was to produce it themselves. It is thus completely logical that it came out on the label of the Association for the Development of Improvised …

** First ever LP reissue. Carefully remastered from the master tapes. 4-page booklet with rare and unpublished photos ** Heavyweight 180 gr.In October 1974, the first number of “L'Indépendant du Jazz”, a small self-produced magazine DIY -before punk supposedly invented the concept- was launched by Jef Gilson, Gérard Terronès, Jean-Jacques Pussiauand a few other specialists of a different kind of jazz in France, it looked at the already long career of Jef Gilson and in detail at the album with sa…

** First ever standalone vinyl reissue. Carefully remastered. 4 page booklet with rare and unpublished photos. Heavyweight 180 gr. LP ** In May 1972, the wave of anger and the thirst for freedom that had swept the world in 1968 arrived in Madagascar. The Malagasy youth took the opportunity to exile in search of a brighter future. Several of them, all jazz musicians and often polyintrumentalists, came to Paris with their afro hair and bellbottoms. Their names were Sylvin Marc, his cousin Ange "Zi…

* Deluxe reissue, with obi strip + 8 page booklet, 180g vinyl *To write these few lines, we spoke to saxophonist François Jeanneau, an old friend of Jacques Thollot who also played on several of his albums, including the “Watch Devil Go” which interests us here. He told us a story which, according to him, sums up the personality of Thollot. A noted studio had reserved three days for a Thollot recording session. The first morning was devoted to sound checks and putting some order in the score sh…

Deluxe edition. Comes with obi strip with 12 pages booklet. 700 copies. Souffle Continu Records present the first ever reissue of Dharma's Archipel, originally released in 1973. "Do your own music!" was Albert Ayler's advice, received loud and clear in France. Cohelmec Ensemble, Workshop de Lyon, and the Dharma Quintet, three groups close in spirit, which would each illustrate, in their own way, a local principle: to get some distance from American free jazz. As far as Dharma is concerned, the c…

Deluxe edition. Comes with obi strip with 12 pages booklet. Limited edition of 700 copies. Souffle Continu Records present the first ever reissue of Dharma Quintet's End Starting, originally released in 1971. For Gérard Marais, guitarist with Dharma (the quintet), from this third album -- in fact he replaced Gérard Coppéré, one of the two saxophonists present on the first album (FFL 038LP, 1970) -- Albert Ayler's instruction to play your own music was the detonator. This did not fall on deaf ear…

Deluxe edition, Comes with obi strip with 12 pages booklet. Limited edition of 700 copies. Souffle Continu Records present the first ever reissue of Dharma Quintet's Mr Robinson, originally released in 1970. In an interview with Jazz Magazine in the early 1970s, Dharma, as a collective voice, outlined their method: "we try to reach, within free jazz, the same sort of rhythmic cohesion as in bop, a cohesion based not exactly on tempo, but something which feels like tempo. A kind of underlying pul…

Souffle Continu Records present the first vinyl reissue of Cohelmec Ensemble's Next. The Cohelmec Ensemble celebrate, above all, the pleasure of collective music-making. A group without a designated leader, they base their approach on reciprocal listening and equal responsibilities. This is reflected in their name, created from the first syllables of the founding member's names, which would remain unchanged in spite of the subsequent personnel changes: COH as in Jean Cohen (saxophones), EL as in…

* Deluxe reissue, with obi strip + 4 page booklet, 180g vinyl* In November 1976, Jef Gilson’s phone rang. What a surprise! It was Serge Rahoerson, one of the musicians he had met in Madagascar at the end of the 60s and who had played on his first album “Malagasy”. Rahoerson announced that he was in Paris for a few days.  Immediately, Jef wanted to organise a recording session, starting the next day. He thought of a trio including Serge, Eddy Louiss on organ and cellist Jean-Charles Capon, who ha…

A new ECM studio album and a programme of new music from Terje Rypdal is cause for celebration. On Conspiracy the great Norwegian guitarist seems to reconnect with the wild inspiration that fuelled such early masterpieces as Whenever I Seem To Be Far Away, Odyssey and Waves, exploring the sonic potential of the electric guitar with both a rock improviser’s love of raw energy and a composer’s feeling for space and texture. Keyboardist Ståle Storløkken, who contributed to Terje’s Vossabrygg and Cr…

One of the Norwegian saxophonists most outgoing dates, the best-selling “Runes” also marked the first appearance of Manu Katché with the Jan Garbarek group. Centerpiece of the album is the five-part “Molde Canticle”.

Mark Turner’s writing for his quartet on Return from the Stars (titled after Stanislav Lem’s science fiction novel) gives the players plenty of space in which to move, on an album both exhilarating and thoughtful in its arc of expression.  Solos flow organically out of the arrangements and, beneath the often-dazzling interplay of Turner’s tenor and Jason Palmer’s trumpet, the rhythm section of Joe Martin and Jonathan Pinson roams freely.   Although Turner has been a frequent presence on ECM in c…

After critically-acclaimed ECM recordings with the Maciej Obara Quartet (Unloved, Three Crowns), Polish pianist Dominik Wania delivers a solo album recorded in November 2019 in Lugano. Wania’s sensitivity to touch, tone and texture is informed by his classical background. But he also has the in-the-moment instincts of a great improviser, acutely focused on the unfolding details of the music in the responsive interior of the Auditorio Stelio Molo studio. The balancing of influences from both disc…

In its review of pianist Shai Maestro’s ECM leader debut The Dream Thief, All About Jazz  spoke of  “a searching lyrical atmosphere, emotional eloquence and communal virtuosity that serves the music.” All of which also applies to Human, where Maestro’s outgoing, highly-communicative band with fellow Israeli Ofri Nemya on drums and Peruvian bassist Jorge Roeder becomes a quartet with the inspired addition of US trumpeter Philip Dizack.  Shai’s expansive pianism is well-matched by Dizack’s alert, …

Vijay Iyer presents a powerful new trio, in which he is joined by two key figures in creative music, Tyshawn Sorey and Linda May Han Oh.  “We have an energy together that is very distinct. It has a different kind of propulsion, a different impulse and a different spectrum of colours”. Repertoire on UnEasy, recorded at Oktaven Audio Studio in Mount Vernon, New York in December 2019, includes Iyer originals written over a span of 20 years, plus Geri Allen’s “Drummer’s Song” and a radical recasting…