Jazz & Improvisation / Free Improvisation

Abstraction, with feeling. Saxophonist Paul Dunmall, a veteran experimental jazz musician, was feeling drawn to vitality. He wanted to organize a group of musicians that were driven by an underlying pulse and a central energy, beyond the abstract improvisations he had been familiar with for years. He had always appreciated jazz that had a driving, uplifting energy, and organized this quartet, inspired by these musicians’ previous improvisational performances. Alongside guitarist Steven Saunders,…

*2023 stock* 'The chief attraction of this album is an almost 50 minute, previously unreleased solo performance by Taylor given at New York University in November 1976 as part of the Bösendorfer Festival, a benefit series for the Kitchen performance centre. His previous solo recital that year had been in August at Moosham Castle in the Lungau region of Salzburg during an open-air festival, subsequently released as Air Above Mountains (Buildings Within) (Enja, 1977). Taylor had come across a Böse…

*2023 stock* In 1973, Indent marked a new direction for one of the founders and masters of what was to be called »free jazz«; yet it turned out to have defined styles and highly sophisticated rules of its own. It was radically new and initially difficult to tune into for some. Cecil Taylor was composing in fractions of seconds. He was free to decide what to compose but in the end intelligent structures can be perceived with a multitude of »cells« being introduced, developed and layered one upon …

*2023 stock* 'If you had to pick three architects of modern jazz piano, you could just about cover everything with Bill Evans, McCoy Tyner and Cecil Taylor. Despite his phenomenal talent, Taylor may have seemed like the lesser influence at first, as most of his followers were relegated to the avant-garde end of things, but over the years his influence has grown and these days you are liable to hear Taylor type assaults on the piano from guys like Craig Taborn, Jason Moran or others, while they p…

*2023 stock* In the life of every artist comes the time when toward the end of his existence, he will create a monument to his ever-lasting artistic efforts. It is the Swan-Song for which he wishes to remain being known; for centuries, this has crossed the borderlines between cultures and arts. Poschiavo was recorded when Cecil Taylor was sixty-nine years old, very much at the height of his musical and poetic powers. Recorded in Europe on a fine Bösendorfer grand piano in perfect digital clarity…

Big Tip! LP version. Includes 20-page booklet. France, early sixties: the Mouvement de l'École moderne is in full bloom. Relying on the experiments and writings of its founder, the educationist Célestin Freinet, this consortium of teachers is about to give empirical evidence proving that another approach to music in school can be fruitful. With its pragmatic, anti-authoritarian tack, the method that Freinet was already developing in the 1920s held children in respect, giving them confidence and …

Back in 2021, we bore witness to the reissue, by Dialogo, of the Rome based ensemble Spirale’s lone 1974 self-titled LP, a towering obscurity of 1970s Italian jazz. Made of up Gaetano Delfini (wind instruments, vocals, percussion), Giancarlo Maurino (saxophone, flute, percussion), Corrado Nofri (piano, marimba, mbira, siren, Jew’s harp), Giuseppe Caporello (contrabass, guitar, percussion) and Giampaolo Ascolese (drums), the band ranks among the most sinfully neglected outfits of its moment, 1970…

Celebrating the 10th anniversary of Studio Songs! Popular titles that have been out of stock for a long time are being reissued at mid-price. The first title is the miraculous duo of Togashi and Takayanagi. Although the album is only 35 minutes and 50 seconds long, the tense improvisation on this masterpiece has captivated many free jazz fans. Masahiko Togashi/percussion, Masayuki Takayanagi/guitar Recorded: September 29, 1984 at Nagoya Far Out

As part of the conclusion of its celebration of the 80th Anniversary of Wadada Leo Smith, TUM Records brings out the most extensive release of Smith´s recorded output to date, String Quartets Nos. 1-12. It is a seven-CD boxed set recorded by RedKoral Quartet and special guests comprising the first 12 of Smith´s string quartets. String Quartets Nos. 1-12focuses on Wadada Leo Smith as a composer for strings. Smith began work on his first string quartet in 1965 and has composed additional string qu…

Part of his 80th Anniversary celebration and subtitled "The Art Of The Trumpeter And Drummers", this 5-CD box set brings legendary improviser Wadada Leo Smith together with four long-time collaborators and masterful drummers--Andrew Cyrille, Jack DeJohnette, Pheeroan akLaff and Han Bennink--with Smith performing on both piano and trumpet.  5-CD BOX SET. Includes 60 pages booklet. The Emerald Duets is a crowning achievement among Wadada Leo Smith's many recorded duo collaborations with drummers/p…

Andrew Cyrille’s longtime companion Oliver Lake praises the master of African-American rhythms in his poem The Real Cyrille – “making the real magic … the real rhythms … the real sounds … expanding his African/Haitian roots … surfing the drums for masterful lyrical snippets … a master of color … painting coloring riffing always stretchin’ searchin’lookin’ for that next sound color sound!” Lake’s words astutely describe the artistry of Andrew Cyrille and the music that he makes on this record. Un…

Aki Takase and Han Bennink love the art of dialogue. Bennink is paired for life in a duo with the pianist Misha Mengelberg. Intakt Record also offers a duo recording of Han Bennink with the Zurich pianist Irène Schweizer. After having released five duo CDs at Intakt Records with Silke Eberhard, Lauren Newton, Rudi Mahall, Alexander von Schlippenbach and Louis Sclavis, Aki Takase is now presenting a breathtaking and very entertaining recording with Han Bennink. Every tone reveals enjoyment and de…

Jazz as the art of dialogue: two of the great musicians of today's jazz from different continents and generations make music sparkle. Born in Osaka in 1948, Aki Takase moved to Berlin where her musical partners included Han Bennink, Evan Parker, Rudi Mahall, David Murray, Louis Sclavis and Fred Frith as well as her husband and pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach. Ingrid Laubrock, born in 1970 in Stadlohn in North Rhine-Westphalia, moved to London at the age of 19 where she studied with the saxop…

Aki Takase, the Berlin-based pianist, is one of the great personalities of modern jazz. Moments of freedom, form and humour characterize this stylistically versatile avant-gardist, the stubborn virtuoso who toys with jazz traditions. In the year of her 70th birthday, Aki Takase was honoured with The Berlin Jazz Prize. Recorded over two days at the Sendesaal Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg, the album includes some pieces captured live during the award ceremony, and some recorded in a studio setting i…

A dream-like aura surrounds these recordings by Evan Parker and Mathew Wright - Trance Map+ from the Jazz Festival Nickelsdorf: Crepuscule in Nickelsdorf. “Filtered through the silicon of the hard drive, birds and insects often sound electronically generated and some of the synthesized sounds, designed in software, sound like birds and insects with wings of their own,” writes American journalist Bill Shoemaker. The real seems virtual; the virtual seems real – it is the ambiguity essential to the…

“You prayed every night to sweet baby black Jesus that this would happen and it finally has. Pianist Elliot Galvin and I have made an album” (Binker Golding)... Binker Golding (the sax in Binker and Moses) is “Coltranesque” according to John Fordham’s review of jazz in 2018 for The Guardian, and this record sees him forging a new partnership with Elliot Galvin, whose “technical brilliance is matched with a very British sense of eccentricity” (The Jazz Mann). “The combination of saxophonist Binke…

First ever commercial releases of New Orleans' legend Alvin Batiste's Spiritual Jazz albums created with the college band he instructed and led in Baton Rouge - Goes To Africa With Love and Live at The 1971 American College Jazz Festival. Originally given away as souvenirs at Southern University, these albums contain deep Batiste originals and, on Live, are paired with excellent John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Freddie Hubbard covers. They are some of the most sought-after albums of Americas '70s …

2LP Quality reissue, Includes 12-page full size booklet. First ever commercial releases of New Orleans' legend Alvin Batiste's Spiritual Jazz albums created with the college band he instructed and led in Baton Rouge -- Goes To Africa With Love and Live at The 1971 American College Jazz Festival. Originally given away as souvenirs at Southern University, these albums contains deep Batiste originals and are some of the most sought after albums of Americas 70s jazz underground. Each album contains …

2023 Stock. The second live recording of the duo by Keiji Haino and Masataka Fujikake released just five years after the previous work "Tomorrow, the alphabet will disappear." While retaining the steel-like strength of the previous album, this is a rock album that pursues his core expression only with guitar, vocals and drums . Keiji Haino – guitar, vocals Masataka Fujikake – drums. If HARD is raised to the power of several tens, will the grains of light pour down? Recorded at Stormy Monday Yoko…

This is a "passing soundscape" that will be the same as nothing if you don't pay attention to it - Akira Sakata

“A large tree thousands of years old, like Akira Sakata, seems to sway a variety of creatures as if they were being drawn to it. Is it a festival with Ming as a Shinto priest? Takeharu Hayakawa, who has a strong thud, changes his behavior like a ninja, and Masataka Fujikake wraps everything up and makes a deep rumbling of the earth. As for me, I'm on the same level as the piano and electronic sounds. Let's just say that it organically connects the past and the present. A rare improvised world th…

A live recording by Akira Sakata (alto sax, clarinet, voice), Masayasu Tsuboguchi (piano, synthesizer), Takeharu Hayakawa (bass), and Masataka Fujikake (drums). An improvisational giant, Akira Sakata, is a direct hit to the brain.

Huge Tip! First LP reissue in 50 years! A cutting-edge collage of the Muhammad Ali vs. Mac Foster documentary held at the Budokan in April 1972, with performances by the Yosuke Yamashita Trio (w/ Takeo Moriyama and Seiichi Nakamura). An incredible album, and an incredible cultural moment as well – as Japanese avant piano legend Yosuke Yamashita pays tribute to the great Muhammad Ali – on the occasion of his visit to Japan for the World Heavyweight match in 1972! Half the record features instrume…

The tape recorded in a studio by Yuji Takahashi (synthesizer, sampler) and Masahiko Togashi (percussion) on November 23, 1988 was found for the first time in 34 years, and is now available for download. This album is the culmination of the Takahashi-Togashi duo that began in the spring of 1988 at the Shinjuku Pit Inn, and is an improvisational performance in which Togashi responds to Takahashi's lead. Each member's different musicality is inspired by the other's, and the music is built up in dia…

All compositions by Scott Fields. Artists: Scott Fields, guitar; Stephan Rath, theorbo. "On this recording Scott Fields plays a 1999 Robert Ruck guitar and Stephan Rath plays a 1988 Hendrik Hasenfuss 14-string theorbo, after an instrument of Tieffenbrucker/Edlinger. Our duo was formed for the 2007 Cologne Music Triennial (MusikTriennale Köln) series 'Solos for duos, improvisation from yesterday and today' (Solo für Zwei, Improvisation gestern und heute). Festival yentas matched six early music s…

"Our emphasis on composition, and specifically composition for the relatively narrow dynamic range and timbral pallet of paired steel-string, acoustic guitars, directs us away from dependence on muscle memory and set phrases. These structures focus us on interactions that grow out of our immediate reactions to how each of us is, in the moment, interpreting the material." -- Scott Fields. "With Afiadacampos, I feel that Scott and I have deepened our ability to improvise together and to orchestrat…

Featured works: "Ripples From The Bang" (2007) composed by Elliott Sharp. "Paranoia" (2007) composed by Bernhard Lang. Performed by: LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, text & vocals; mixmastertodd, electronics & vocals; Philip Jeck, turntables; Hans Koch, reeds; Bernhard Lang, keyboard/electronics; Elliott Sharp, 8-string guitarbass/electronics; Fredy Studer, drums/percussion. Bernhard Lang on "Paranoia": "'Paranoia' is a sequence of eight semi-improvised blocks that were extracted from the sketches to Ac…

"The title Composer in Dialogue stands for a biennial cooperation between the ICI Ensemble and a contemporary figure, the aim of which is to create a kind of 'work in progress' through composition itself but also by involving improvisational forms. Performances of pieces thus created remain the intention. The present recording documents an ICI concert with the composer Olga Neuwirth. Olga Neuwirth began her musical career on the trumpet, before she embraced composition as her favoured means of e…

This is the first collaboration by the two Nurse With Wound collaborators - Paris-based Quentin Rollet and Melbourne-based James Worse. Quentin has played with many musicians including the Red Krayola, the Legendary Pink Dots, and Nurse With Wound. He plays the alto sax and the sopranino, the smallest saxophone in the original saxophone family. James Worse has also worked with Nurse With Wound, Andrew Liles, Expose Your Eyes, and more. He plays percussion and spoken word on some of the tracks he…

*2023 repress* "The trio takes you on an intense, meditative and spiritual musical journey that embodies the spirit of freedom. Based around hypnotic grooves laid down by Brichard’s unswervingly solid bass lines, drummer Skinner plays around artfully with the beats, grooving hard in constantly shifting, unexpected turns of rhythmic play. Rahman’s contributions range from subtle conversational interplay to loudly expressed angry passion to the most delicate of whispers, conveying a depth of emoti…

Temporary nice price Eargong Records present a reissue of Mike Osborne's Outback, originally released in 1970. Alto saxophonist Mike Osborne has been one of British jazz's most intense players. A unique alto sax voice that enhanced the music of great bands such as Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath, Mike Westbrook, Harry Miller's Isipingo, Mike Gibbs, and many others. Originally released in 1970, Outback is Mike Osborne's debut album. This is open, passionate, and adventurous music performe…

Temporary nice price Eargong Records present the first vinyl reissue of Howard Riley's Flight, originally released in 1971. This landmark recording sees pianist Howard Riley with two of the greatest European improvisers Barry Guy on bass and Tony Oxley on drums literally reinventing the piano trio format. This is deeply explorative music beyond time and space. Comes in gorgeous original gatefold cover. Licensed from Turtle Records/Cherry Red.

This new album was recorded in March of this year, as The Rempis Percussion Quartet made their debut in France after 15 years of touring almost everywhere else across Europe.  At the generous invitation of programmer Antoine de la Ronciere at Le Petit Faucheux in Tours, the band was the test pilot for a collaborative project amongst five venerable venues for improvised music in France. In a tightly packed week-long schedule, the band performed in Tours, Poitiers, Brest, Nantes, and Lyon, while a…

Black Truffle is pleased to welcome free jazz legend Joe McPhee back to the fold with Oblique Strategies, a wild trio recorded in Antwerp in 2018 in the company of Mette Rasmussen’s fire-breathing alto saxophone and Dennis Tyfus’s post-Fluxus antics on tape, voice, and percussion. Rasmussen and Tyfus have previously recorded together as Bazuinschal, and some similar strategies are on display here: mysterious metallic scrapes, extended tones in which voice and sax become indistinguishable, comic …

Black Truffle is pleased to announce The Leisure Principle, a new solo LP from London-based bassist and sound artist Otto Willberg. A key player in the London underground, Willberg is often heard on acoustic and electric bass in free improv settings and bands with Laurie Tompkins (Yes Indeed) and Charles Hayward (Abstract Concrete), as well as the fractured No Wave unit Historically Fucked. His previous solo releases have ranged from extended technique double bass to explorations of the acoustic…

Reissue, originally released in 1971. The core membership of free jazz act The Trio ensured its output was captivating, comprised as it was of double-bassist Barre Phillips, who had played with Archie Shepp, Chris McGregor, and Gong; saxophonist John Surman, who had played with John McLaughlin, Lester Bowie, and Alexis Korner; and drummer Stu Martin, who had played with Count Basie, Donald Byrd, and Herbie Hancock. On the gripping sophomore set Conflagration, guest players include Chick Corea an…

Critical Mass is the second album from the unique duo of Chicago reedist Mars Williams and percussionist Vasco Trilla, following his album SPIRACLE which received excellent reviews in the international press. In his second album the duo use their technical skills to pivot reflective and meditative playing around exuberant free jazz spirit, maintaining a sense of journey and sonic introspection through unusual and extended techniques; a beautifully balanced music experience.

Critical Mass is the second album from the unique duo of Chicago reedist Mars Williams and percussionist Vasco Trilla, following his album SPIRACLE which received excellent reviews in the international press. In his second album the duo use their technical skills to pivot reflective and meditative playing around exuberant free jazz spirit, maintaining a sense of journey and sonic introspection through unusual and extended techniques; a beautifully balanced music experience.

The working trio of New York trumpeter & saxophonist Joe McPhee, London double bassist John Edwards, and German drummer Klaus Kugel, actively touring through Europe since 2017, are heard live at Alchemia in Krakow, Poland in 2018, for four monumental examples of free improvisation in superlative playing with intense rhythmic interaction and deeply expressive soloing.