Jazz /
Causa y Efecto Vol. 1
The world is more elusive than simple cause and effect imply, more typically, life circumvents causation in favor of an unknowable correlation. It seems like the more we know, the less we know. On this first volume from Zoh Amba and Francisco Mela, the duo brings their regional traditions, from Tennessee and Cuba respectively, and musical inclinations to the cause and effect behind their own life stories. Causa y Efecto, Vol. 1 is an ode to the unknown, transporting audiences between the New Yor…
Cloud 10
Saxophonist, flautist Chip Wickham takes us to Cloud 10 with his most soulful and lyrical album to date Chip Wickham is a jazz musician and producer who divides his time between Spain, UK and the Middle-East and who has made a name for himself with a series of beautifully crafted solo albums that draw equally on the hard swinging spiritual jazz of Roland Kirk, Yusef Lateef and Sahih Shihab, alongside the music of British jazz legends such as Tubby Hayes and Harold McNair and the more contemporar…
Invisibility is an Unnatural Disaster
SSWAN presents their first outing "Invisibility is an unnatural disaster" a raucous jaunt of free jazz on the premiere fire music label 577 Records. The music is rooted in the Black American art form of jazz, stemming into the branches of free improvisation, noise and experimentalism while pushing to the edges of each idiom. The idiosyncratic playing of guitarist Jessica Ackerley starts off the album's title track and jumps headfirst into a Hendrix-tinged duo with drummer Jason Nazary. Patrick S…
Dilijans
Comet Records present the new reissue out of the Comet new reissue series, Dilijans by Ayizan. A mind-blowing session of spiritual jazz recorded in NYC in 1984 led by Haitian genius Alix Pascal blending traditional Ra Ra elements with modal/spiritual melodies. The result was like nothing else coming out of Haiti or the Haitian exile community in the US at the time. Dark, mystical, lyrical and abstract, with its otherworldly shifting rhythms, Dilijans came off like a Haitian version of Bitches Br…
Crowded With Loneliness
Comet Records present the first release out of the Comet new reissue series with this cult French Free Jazz LP from 1974, Crowded with Loneliness by Full Moon Ensemble was produced by Claude Delcloo, check the classic ‘Samba `Miaou’, like a lost Pharoah Sanders tune mixed with politically-engaged French poetry! The whole LP is varied, avant-garde and spiritual and now available as Vinyl LP with Gatefold cover, set to become collectible as the original is impossible to find.
Noel Mc Ghie & Space Spies
Comet Records present the new release out of the Comet new reissue series, Noel McGhie’s only full-length LP, released in France in 1975 at cult private label Disques Esperance! A true rare groove classic, a one-of-a-kind spiritual jazz funk record with a fusion touch. Includes ‘Trapeze’, ‘Dancer’ and ‘Mademoiselle Tuloch’.
To Live And Breathe...
*In process of stocking* An international trio (USA/FR/IT) recorded live in Italy during their 2017 European tour.
Legacies For Our Grandchildren - Live In Hollywood, 1995
Previously unpublished live recording, under exclusive license from the Horace Tapscott Family. The first opportunity to listen to Horace’s working quintet from the '90s! Includes a 16-page booklet with liner notes by the original producers of those recordings: Don Snowden and David Keller, photos by Warren Berman and some rare documents.
Volumes II - Fiction Musicale Et Chorégraphique - Création Pour Grand Orchestre Et Corps Actants
*In process of stocking* 'Volumes II—Fiction Musicale et Chorégraphique is an ambitious, large-scale composition by the French double bassist/composer Benjamin Duboc for orchestra, voice, and physical movement. The composition unfolds in a long sequence of highly disparate parts, beginning with ambient noises and a spoken prelude before moving into more overtly musical passages. The orchestra commences with a sustained, droning chord marked by a slowly developing, internally unstable drift of pi…
French Story
* 180 gram yellow audiophile vinyl* This is a much better album than the title might suggest. Wilen still has the blend of tasteful restraint and inventiveness which marked his memorable duet with Miles Davis for the soundtrack of L’Ascenseur Pour L’Echafaud and the second track here reprises some of that music. The sixth track seems to offer more but the Generique credited to Davis is actually the Benny Golson composition which opened the Jazz Messengers’ soundtrack for Des Femmes Disparaisse…
At The Blackhawk
*In process of stocking* The well-known 1962 performance by the celebrated Ahmad Jamal Trio with Israel Crosby and Vernel Fournier at the Blackhawk Club in San Francisco. This formation of the group wouldn't last long, as Israel Crosby died in mid-1962.
Jazz In The Space Age
George Russell was one of the most advanced composers and arrangers in the history of Jazz. A theorist and innovator who worked extensively between the 40's and the early 2000's. Originally released by Decca in 1960, "Jazz in the Space Age" was Russell's third effort under his name. A visionary work including music composed and arranged by Russell for various lineups featuring the likes of pianists Bill Evans and Paul Bley, trombonist Bob Brookmeyer, drummer Charlie Persip and others. This is ad…
Lampen
Lampen is Kalle Kalima and Tatu Rönkkö. Kalle plays guitar, Tatu plays percussions and sampler. Together they're Lampen, a duo making highly addictive "post jazz" with a musical heart far beyond genre. Call it what you will, but the main point is listening, and there's a high season for that coming as Lampen is set to release their debut album on We Jazz Records on "Kintsugi Gold" vinyl and digitally. Kintsugi (金継ぎ, "golden joinery"), also known as kintsukuroi (金繕い, "golden repair"), is the Japa…
Atonal Drums
Available for distribution for the first time! The new album by drummer producer Teppo "Teddy Rok" Mäkynen continues where his trio 3TM was last spotted: "Atonal Drums", out on Helsinki's We Jazz Records, lives someplace in & around the new spots where acoustic jazz and electronic music spill into each other in ways previosuly unheard. Each vinyl copy is unique and comes "edited" by Teddy Rok with personalized signatures and extra bespoke stickers glued in.
Ode To O
Ode To O is the second release by the OGJB Quartet that features four leaders in their own right, saxophonist Oliver Lake, cornetist Graham Haynes, bassist Joe Fonda and drummer Barry Altschul. As with their first release, Bamako, each member has contributed compositions to the new recording which also features two collective improvisations.
The album combines tracks based on gutbucket rhythms with others full of exploratory abstractions. The album title, Ode To O, refers to Ornette Coleman and …
Rosa Parks: Pure Love.
Acclaimed trumpeter, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and educator Wadada Leo Smith has released an oratorio of seven songs inspired by the iconic civil rights leader Rosa Parks. In his own words, Rosa Parks: Pure Love. An Oratorio of Seven Songs is "concerned with ideas of freedom, liberty and justice, a meditation centered around the civil rights movement." Looking at Smith's more than 50 years of creative and artistic vision, this release is yet another inspired organic musical direction that…
A Love Sonnet For Billie Holiday
A Love Sonnet For Billie Holiday brings Wadada Leo Smith, Jack DeJohnette and Vijay Iyer together for the first time in this meeting of creative giants. Smith first met and played with DeJohnette in the late 1960s and the two have collaborated with increasing frequency since DeJohnette participated in the first recording of Smith´s Golden Quartet more than two decades ago. Smith´s and Iyer´s first collaboration also goes back almost two decades. This recording marks the first time these three un…
Solo: Reflections And Meditations On Monk
Wadada Leo Smith comes to the music of Thelonious Monk from a childhood admiration of the artist. As a pre-teen he was already playing trumpet and composing and instinctively knew that Monk's understanding of music and sound would influence his own creativity. Smith believes that the quintessence of Monk can best be found in his solo work. The same can be said for Smith who has produced two previous solo collections including Creative Music—1 (1972) and Solo Music: Ahkreanvention (1979), both on…
Bamako
OGJB — Oliver Lake, Graham Haynes, Joe Fonda, and Barry Altschul — characterize themselves as a “leaderless” quartet. In that spirit, the compositions featured here serve as sketches to be built and elaborated on (and often entirely reconfigured), not as templates or structural frameworks. Unison passages are tightly executed, yet with just enough raggedness to their edge that the individualism of each man’s expression remains paramount, reflecting the overarching theme of this project: the kind…
Najwa
Wadada Leo Smith´s new album Najwa features four compositions in tribute to past masters of creative music, Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Ronald Shannon Jackson and Billie Holiday, as well as the title composition "Najwa" in remembrance of a love lost. Compared to Smith´s prior recordings, the presence of four guitarists and Bill Laswell´s electric bass create a unique sound world and fluidity for the music. Although Wadada Leo Smith has worked with electric guitars in the past, including in h…