Jazz & Improvisation / Modal

With confident touch, a solid sense of swing, and emotion seeping through its dynamism, Ryo Fukui lands in New York and approaches the essence of bebop alongside the rhythm section of his mentor, Barry Harris. Ryo Fukui, who passed away in 2016 after releasing only five albums, recorded this fourth work in 1999. Featuring bassist Lyle Atkinson and drummer Leroy Williams—the longtime rhythm section of Barry Harris this New York‑recorded album captures the full appeal of Fukui as a bebop pianist. …

“Bloque 6” (1968), by Juan Carlos Calderón, is a landmark recording in the history of modern jazz in Spain, markedly different from the albums Calderón would record just a few years later under the influence of funk, disco music, and even flamenco. Juan Carlos Calderón enjoyed a long and successful career,  composing and arranging some of the most iconic songs by Spanish artists such as Joan Manuel Serrat, Mocedades, and Ana Belén, among many others. However, his musical beginnings were closely …

The 1972 masterpiece by Chicago singer-songwriter and guitarist Terry Callier, returning here in the Music On Vinyl 180g audiophile edition. Cut at the heart of Callier's tenure on Cadet, the jazz imprint of Chess Records, What Color Is Love stands as the artistic peak of his collaboration with arranger and producer Charles Stepney, captured across three Cadet albums, Occasional Rain (1972), What Color Is Love and I Just Can't Help Myself (1974), plus a fourth project that was cut short by Stepn…

Masabumi Kikuchi's quintet recorded live in the studio in March 1973, just before his move to New York: two saxophones over a piano trio, five original compositions. Japanese reissue by Universal Music on vinyl.

Nat Birchall, saxophonist and composer, one of the most authentic voices in contemporary spiritual jazz, presents Path of Enlightenment, a sonic journey through rarely explored scales and modes, from Ethiopia to Byzantium, from ancient Egypt to South Africa. For this new recording, Birchall deliberately chose the quartet format - tenor sax, piano, double bass and drums - seeking a cohesion and intimacy that allows the music to breathe and tell its story. Joining him are his trusted collaborators…

Nat Birchall, saxophonist and composer, one of the most authentic voices in contemporary spiritual jazz, presents Path of Enlightenment, a sonic journey through rarely explored scales and modes, from Ethiopia to Byzantium, from ancient Egypt to South Africa. For this new recording, Birchall deliberately chose the quartet format - tenor sax, piano, double bass and drums - seeking a cohesion and intimacy that allows the music to breathe and tell its story. Joining him are his trusted collaborators…

Wewantsounds continues its reissue program of Bob Shad's cult jazz label, Mainstream Records, with Hadley Caliman's superb 1972 album, Iapetus. Recorded in LA and featuring a heavyweight lineup of West Coast players including Todd Cochran, Woody “Sonship” Theus, Luis Gasca, and Victor Pantoja, the majority of the album was composed by Todd Cochran (aka Bayeté) soon after he had composed Bobby Hutcherson's Blue Note classic, Head On. A true hidden treasure, it is reissued here on vinyl for the fi…

Studio album by Miles Davis with Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams, with Chick Corea and Dave Holland on the September session, recorded in New York in 1968 and produced by Teo Macero.

Studio album by the Miles Davis quintet with Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams, recorded at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York in June and July 1967 and first issued in 1968.

Freddie Hubbard's first album as a leader, recorded at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, on 19 June 1960 with Tina Brooks, McCoy Tyner, Sam Jones and Clifford Jarvis, produced by Alfred Lion for Blue Note.

McCoy Tyner septet with Andrew White, Ted Dunbar, Buster Williams, Billy Hart, Mtume and vocalist Songai Sandra Smith, recorded on 10 September 1970 for Blue Note and first released in 1974. Tone Poet 180g LP.

Wayne Shorter quartet with Herbie Hancock, Cecil McBee and Joe Chambers, recorded on 14 June 1965 for Blue Note and first released in 1980. Japanese UHQCD, UCCQ-9742 (2024).

Wayne Shorter quartet with Herbie Hancock, Reggie Workman and Joe Chambers, recorded on 3 and 24 February 1966 for Blue Note and first released in 1967. Japanese UHQCD, UCCQ-9645 (2024).

Bobby Hutcherson's Medina, recorded on August 11, 1969 at Van Gelder Studio with Harold Land, Stanley Cowell, Reggie Johnson and Joe Chambers, unissued until Blue Note released it in 1980 in the LT series (LT-1086).

Larry Young's first Blue Note album as leader, recorded at Van Gelder Studio on 12 November 1964 with Sam Rivers, Grant Green and Elvin Jones, first released in 1965. Blue Note Classic Vinyl reissue, 2020.

Japanese UHQCD reissue (UCCQ-9640, 2024) of McCoy Tyner's 1969 Blue Note album, a hornless quartet with Bobby Hutcherson, Herbie Lewis and Freddie Waits recorded at Van Gelder Studio on 17 May 1968.

Tyrone Washington's only Blue Note album as leader, six originals recorded at Van Gelder Studio on 29 December 1967 with Woody Shaw, James Spaulding, Kenny Barron, Reggie Workman and Joe Chambers. Tone Poet reissue, 2026.

* 180g vinyl housed in tip-on sleeve + download code * Swiss saxophonist Gilles Torrent, perhaps known from our recent Spiritual Jazz collection 'A Tribute to 'Trane', leads the way with his new album 'Buleria'; a mesmerizing set of modal jazz pieces that will speak directly to any listener who has felt the other-worldly depths of John Coltrane. The album comprises of Torrent originals and explorations of John Coltrane standards. It reaches for something beyond the mundane, and blends complex ha…

Karma is Pharoah Sanders' third recording as a leader, and is among a number of spiritually themed albums the Impulse! Record label released in the late 1960s/early 1970s. Although it is followed by the brief "Colors", the album's main piece is the 32-minute-long "The Creator Has a Master Plan", co-composed by Sanders with vocalist Leon Thomas. Some see this piece as a kind of sequel to Sanders' mentor John Coltrane's legendary 1964 recording A Love Supreme (whose opening it echoes in a muscular…

Tip! Before coming to Europe, in 1970, pianist Manuel Villarroel was a vet in his native Chili. A few years later, as leader of the Machi Oul Big Band, he returned to the animal kingdom. A very specific kind of animal, for sure, the Quetzalcoatl, also known as the Feathered Serpent. What is behind this title (also the name of one of the three original compositions on this album released on the Palm label in 1976), is first and foremost a sort of homecoming… After discovering the jazz of Herbie H…

Drawn from two September 1964 sessions at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio with producer Bob Thiele, The Voice That Is! features vocalist Johnny Hartman in his third and final album for Impulse! following a celebrated collaboration with John Coltrane. The album blends two sessions arranged by Bob Hammer: one pairing Hartman with pianist Hank Jones, bassist Richard Davis, and drummer Osie Johnson, and another for octet, with English horn, flute, marimba and Latin percussion flourishes throughout. The rep…

Best known for his association with Charles Mingus, the Texas-born tenor saxophonist Booker Ervin was a distinctive soloist with an assertive and immediately recognizable sound. One of Ervin’s pinnacle statements as a leader was the first of his two Pacific Jazz albums, Structurally Sound, which he cut in 1966 shortly after returning to the U.S. from a two-year period of living in Barcelona and working across Europe. Featuring Ervin fronting a top-shelf quintet with Charles Tolliver on trumpet, …

Trumpeter Freddie Hubbard burst out of the gates taking the jazz world by storm with his Blue Note debut Open Sesame in 1960. Within 14 months he had recorded three more hard bop classics—Goin’ Up, Hub Cap, and Ready For Freddie—each one a showcase for his dynamic playing. Recorded in April 1961, Hub Cap was the first of his Blue Note dates that also highlighted Hubbard’s growing skill as a composer, with four of the album’s six pieces coming from his pen including the hard-charging title track,…

Cut on February 23 and 25, 1965, at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio and released later that year on Impulse!, Dear John C. marks drummer Elvin Jones’s first album for the label as a full-fledged leader, boldly looking forward while honoring his transformative contributions with the John Coltrane Quartet since the beginning of the decade. Produced by Bob Thiele, the sessions feature alto saxophonist Charlie Mariano, pianists Roland Hanna and Elvin’s brother Hank Jones, bassist Richard Davis, and Jones o…

*2025 repress* Made with the intention of exploring and experiencing the various musical and cultural perspectives of a territory as vast as that of Persia, "Near And Far East" is a significant historical document that transcends the restrictive concept of territory but rather inhabits a space of absolute time. The album's content is not just window into faraway places, but a leap into the times and cultures that have now been swallowed up by the incessant movement of globalization and capitalis…

Licensed from Futura Records. 180 gram vinyl. "I get something out of listening to Coltrane, Shepp, and Coleman; I'm really pleased that young players are trying to change things. If they go back the roots and come up with something new, that's fantastic." This comment was made by saxophonist Hal Singer to Gérard Terronès for the magazine Jazz Hot in 1968. Two years later, Terronès would issue Singer's album Blues and News, on his label Futura Records. Though born in 1919, Hal Singer claims, jus…

Tip! Misha Panfilov, the Estonian contemporary jazz mover whose many Janus faces amount to more than just two, resulting in many album avatars - here shares a live recorded rendition of a recent pair of shows, played back to back in Stockholm, then Tallinn. The first recorded at Fasching, Stockholm, on August 16, 2023, and the second recorded at Paavli Kultuurivabrik, Tallinn, August 19, 2023, this live record is composed of pieces otherwise heard on Panfilov's earlier albums, and they're choppe…

On Morgenmusiken, Green Cosmos expand their small‑town German jazz into a quietly epic, Coltrane‑lit cosmos, braiding modal vamps, Indian classical colour and spacious free improvisation into seven meditative journeys where silence and a single note carry as much weight as any crescendo.

On Oceanic Suite, Atlantis Jazz Ensemble ride a warm, late‑night current of modal grooves and spiritual inflections, with trumpet, alto, Rhodes, bass and drums flowing together in live‑off‑the‑floor conversations that feel both loose and meticulously steered.

On Daguri, Kosuke Mine Quintet channel early‑70s Coltrane fire into a distinctly Japanese voice, fusing spiritual intensity, modal lyricism and subtle exotic color into a taut, forward‑rushing statement that stands among Mine’s finest recordings.

On Celestial Suite, Atlantis Jazz Ensemble stretch their spiritual soul-jazz into a full skyward arc, an unbroken studio suite where modal grooves, Afro-Latin currents and meditative codas move like one long, rising breath.

“Some albums announce themselves slowly, like clouds taking shape before your eyes. Skyways is one of them, a record that drifts in gently, unfolds at its own pace, and leaves behind the quiet wonder of hearing something beautiful form and fade in real time.Recorded over two late-summer days in Tallinn, this third outing from the Misha Panfilov Septet feels both spontaneous and deeply harmonized. Its two long pieces - “The Sky for You and I” and “Fine and Dandy” - trace parallel paths across the…

Gatefold sleeve. Includes download code. Many artists achieve greatness but very few produce work that is so moving it's considered sacred. Whether you choose to call them hymns, psalms or spirituals, their songs are a healing force for troubled times. Jazzman's Spiritual Jazz series would not exist without the inspiration and leadership of the spiritual messiah that is John Coltrane. It can therefore only be right and proper that a whole album is dedicated to his legacy and lasting influence. S…

Big Tip! Born in Donauwörth, a small town in Bavaria in 1951, Götz Tangerding studied piano to concert level at the Leopold Mozart Conservatory in Augsburg. In the 1970s, he started to make a name for himself on the local Munich jazz scene and traveled through East Europe with drummer Rudi Roth. In 1976, he came to New England Conservatory of Music in Boston to study compositions with George Russell and Jaki Byard with whom he played in the New York Big Band in 1978. In 1980, he returned to Muni…

On Breakthrough, Muriel Grossmann envelops her quartet in a vibrant exploration of spiritual jazz, interlacing tradition with fresh, forward momentum. The record distills Grossmann’s lyrical saxophone voice and trademark rhythmic interplay into a rich, organic sound, balancing meditative introspection and eruptive, soulful drive. Each composition furthers her pursuit of transcendence, unfolding as both a deeply personal statement and a communal celebration.​

Yet another triumph from the legendary multi-instrumentalist, Joe McPhee, Corbett Vs. Dempsey drops "The Mystery J", their first ever full-length vinyl release, issued in a limited edition of 500 copies. Recorded in 2014 with violist Jen Clare Paulson and Brian Labycz on electronics, it writhes with bristling tension, while retaining a remarkably minimal form. Visionary experimentalism and freejazz reimagined on entirely singular terms, 'The Mystery J' encounters McPhee producing some of his bes…

New Platform takes a deep dive into the forgotten world of 1970s Italian jazz, and comes up with gold with two astounding, first-time vinyl reissues from the percussionist Tullio De Piscopo, 1976's Sotto e 'Ncoppa, from his Revolt Group, and 1978's Future Percussion, recorded by the Tullio De Piscopo Quintet accompanied by the legendary Argentinian percussionist Luis Agudo. Occupying radically different ends of the spectrum, the former is a genre defiant excursion at the borders of prog and fusi…

Huge Tip! Double LP, Gatefold edition. Born on November 23rd, 1944 in Paris, France, Frédéric Rabold already played with his father in American Army Clubs at age 16. In 1965, Rabold joined the Axel Lauser Quartet, three years later he finally founded his own band, the Frédéric Rabold Crew. In the following years he collaborated with guitarist Martin Ederer, singer Lauren Newton, as well as avant-garde jazz musicians such as Gunter Hampel, Leszek Zadlo, Lester Bowie, Manfred Schoof, Albert Mangel…

Two new archival LPs from Formalibera, Alga Marghen's free jazz imprint, both drawn from the same circle of Copenhagen musicians around 1970, gathered here as a pair. On one LP, More Peace: Tordenskjolds Soldater (Jesper Nehammer on tenor saxophone, Ole Matthiessen on piano, Henrik Hove on bass, Jon Finsen on drums) live at Jazzhus Montmartre in late April 1970, shortly before they recorded Peace for Spectator Records. The four Matthiessen compositions of that album stretch out here at far great…

Live at Copenhagen's Café Montmartre in April 1970, Tordenskjolds Soldater (Jesper Nehammer, Ole Matthiessen, Henrik Hove, Jon Finsen) stretch out the four Matthiessen pieces from their Spectator album Peace, restored from the original tapes.