Jazz /
Cirrus
The first vinyl reissue of Bertil Strandberg Kvintett’s Cirrus album is now available on Frederiksberg Records, following on earlier Scandinavian Jazz reissues by Christian Schwindt Quintet and Carsten Meinert Kvartet. In 1973, a snowstorm almost prevented the band from making it to the studio to record this album. Cirrus, released in 1974 in tiny numbers, has since become a heralded object among jazz aficionados. Now 45 years later, Cirrus is finally available on vinyl again and comes with an i…
New York City Live November 11, 1979
Original cosmonaut Sun Ra was one of the jazz world’s most individual and eccentric talents. Born Herman “Sonny” Blount in Alabama in 1914, he became Sun Ra during the 1950s, proclaiming that he was born on Saturn and focusing on outer space due to what he saw as the perpetual faults and failures of mankind on earth. Pursuing an unorthodox musical method which meant that no two recordings nor performances were ever alike, he persued various incarnations of his Arkestra throughout the decades. Th…
Magic Cat
Guitarist Harry Case is an unsung hero of the Atlanta funk scene of the 1970s and 80s. He was part of the band that issued the legendary material credited to drummer Steveland Milne’s Alias, Stevo, put together under the aegis of Calvin Arnold, with trumpeter Tommy Stewart in charge of musical arrangements. A full decade after the baffling and highly sought-after Musica Negra release, Case’s debut solo album, Magic Cat, was issued by Ichiban Records, the label established by the british blues an…
Koolin Out
Jazz drummer Greg Adams was active on the Los Angeles experimental jazz scene of the early 1980s. Based in the working class coastal town of Long Beach, California, and with longstanding ties to the industrial east coast city of Wilmington, Delaware, Adams sought to hearken back to the naturalistic form of be-bop, which is why he recorded the material on Koolin Out in a live session with no overdubs in April 1983. Privately pressed in minute quantities as the sole entity on his own hip city impr…
The Rise and Fall of the Third Stream
Pioneering keyboardist Joe Zawinul will always be remembered for spearheading the fusion project Weather Report and for his input on important Miles Davis LPs. After classical training in Vienna during his youth, Zawinul began working with leading Austrian jazz musicians in the early 1950s, including the pianist and composer Friedrich Gulda, and after moving to the US in 1959 he joined Maynard Ferguson’s big band, accompanied Dinah Washington and Sweets Edison and rose to prominence in Cannonbal…
Restoration Ruin
Gifted american pianist Keith Jarrett is one of the jazz world’s greatest musicians. Born in suburban Allentown, Pennsylvania in 1948 with a mixed european cultural heritage, Jarrett was a child prodigy that played piano at the age of two, appeared on television, aged five, and gave his first classical recital, aged seven. After studying at the prestigious Berklee college of music, he moved to New York in 1964 to perform at the Village Vanguard and then joined Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. Drumm…
Invitation to a Dream
**500 copies** First release from the first time trio of legends Susan Alcorn, Joe McPhee and Ken Vandermark. Invitation to a Dream is not only the first recorded statement, it is also a document of the very first meeting of the trio. Back in 2016 we asked Alcorn and McPhee to play a duo set at our favorite festival Cropped Out in Louisville, KY, and after getting our minds blown we knew we had to get the duo into a studio to record an album. After a few failed attempts due to schedules and bad …
A Night In Alchemia
A Night In Alchemia was recorded by Joe McPhee (trumpet and saxophones), John Edwards (double bass) and Klaus Kugel (drums). The improvisations of this trio always have exceptional sound and are filled with inventive, interesting, innovative and bright decisions. Eclectic ideas, organic stylistic allusions, sound experiments, moody and sudden changes, contrasting pieces, an influenze of various jazz styles and musicians unique sound – all these elements are gently combined together. The music is…
Re-Collect
Jeb Bishop - trombone, Russ Johnson - trumpet, Jason Roebke - bass, Frank Rosaly - drums. Re-Collect has a bright and innovative sound, all compositions are played in especially expressive and dynamic mood. Suggestion, driving playing manner, passionate and unique style, creativity, luminous and dramatic culminations which calm down to silent and relaxing pieces – these are the main elements of this quartet’s music. Four great jazz improvisers are playing together and each musician has his own a…
I Am Waiting (Big Tent Digs Ferlinghetti)
Jerome Kitzke - Piano, Readings and Vocal, Steve Rust - Electric and Acoustic Basses, Harvey Sorgen - Drums and Percussion - They are not a political party, but given all the different musical points of view brought to bear by these three veteran improvisers, a delicious Big Tent in sound is created when drummer / percussionist Harvey Sorgen, bassist Steve Rust and pianist / vocalist Jerome Kitzke come together. The resulting music is possessed of raw energy or delicate filigree and everything i…
Five Spontaneous Ones
Five Spontaneous Ones was recorded by Albert Cirera (tenor and soprano saxophones), Rafal Mazur (acoustic bass guitar) and Nicolas Field (drums). The three improvisers are featured stars of the avant-garde jazz scene. Albert Cirera has an organic and expressive playing technique, impressive virtuosity, wide musical knownledge and unique sound. Rafal Mazur fuses together the tendencies of contemporary academical and experimental music, basics of avant-garde jazz and the newest tendencies of exper…
Skin and Bones
Matthew Shipp – piano, Gordon Grdina – oboe, guitar, Mark Helias – bass. All three of these musicians are master craftsman of their instruments and have received critical accolades from far and wide. Matthew Shipp has been called to as “truly one of the leading lights of a new generation of jazz giants.” Mark Helias has been hailed as “one of the finest acoustic bass players in the contemporary jazz avant-garde” and Gord Grdina needs no introduction and has aptly been referred to as a “force of …
Solar Wind
Solar Wind was recorded by Robert Dick (glissando flute, bass flute, contrabass flute, piccolo, voice), Joëlle Léandre (contrabass, voice) and Miya Masaoka (koto, percussion). Three independent jazz masters base their music on different characters, styles and expressions. All three of them have original and expressive style, rich musical language, wide musical knownledge and unique sound. Musicians are the central figures of international free improvisational music and avant-garde jazz scene. T…
The Mystery Brothers
Jay Rosen - drums, Brian Willson - drums. Recorded by Alfredo MArtin at Whitman Hall, Brooklyn College, December 10, 2008. From The Mystery Brothers, here is a wonderful performance of drum concertos, written and performed by Brian Willson, the great drummer / percussionist / conductor, and fellow master drummer Jay Rosen. The production / recording is nothing short of amazing and pristine. Here's a prime example of how the drums are indeed a melodic instrument. Willson and Rosen explore the ins…
North Sea Night
Simon Rose - baritone saxophone, Steve Noble - drums. Recorded 4th February 2018 at Jazz North East, Bridge Hotel, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England. What an unbelievable night of free improvisation the audience were treated to at The Bridge on Sunday night. Two amazing instrumentalists combined to produce two sustained sets of riveting and uncompromising jazz. Individually, both musicians were absolutely superb - I have never heard a baritone sax played with such energy and range before. Steve Noble…
The Antique Blacks
The vitality you hear on Antique Blacks is a testament to the unique energy of the community around The Foxhole Cafe in Philadelphia, as Ra honed his unique brand of Afro-Futurism through the late 60s and 70s. Cosmic theatre, spiritual chants, and experimental electronics make this record an essential document that was ahead of its time. Ancient to future! The 1970s saw change in Sun Ra's recorded output, and as far as we can tell, the content of his live performances. By the middle of the decad…
Out Of The Box
2017 Release. The composer, bandleader and reedist Willem Breuker, who died in July 2010 at the age of 65, is often omitted from contemporary assessments of Dutch jazz, where the primacy of pianist Misha Mengelberg (1935–2017) and drummer Han Bennink feels indisputable. Those two musicians left a huge impact on the Amsterdam music scene through the work they created in the Instant Composers Pool Orchestra—work that carries on through Bennink and pianist Guus Janssen, who took over the piano chai…
Pech Onderweg
There is no doubt that Misha Mengelberg was an excellent, even a great, jazz pianist. He was already close to that when he recorded with Eric Dolphy at the end of the latter’s career and he certainly was there by the mid ‘60s, when he was leading a quartet with alto saxophonist Piet Noordijk and drummer Han Bennink. But Mengelberg, like Bennink, was a musical maverick rarely content as a performer to play ‘just’ jazz and this is reflected on the solo record Pech Onderweg, recorded 40 years ago …
Icarus
*Edition of 300. 2022 stock* French-born, Amsterdam-based clarinetist Joris Roelofs has built his career balancing intense discipline and deep commitment to post-bop tradition with a measured exploratory streak. He’s worked extensively in the Vienna Art Orchestra and he maintains a wonderfully buoyant trio with the American rhythm section of Ted Poor and Matt Penman. But this new recording suggests that his attraction to freedom is growing stronger. Icarus is a lovely duo project with the vetera…
Adelante
Dutch drummer Han Bennink, who turns 75 next month, has been an unrelenting creative force in jazz and improvised music since the early 60s. In 1964 he played on Eric Dolphy's legendary final record, Last Date, and in '67 he formed the Instant Composers Pool with pianist Misha Mengelberg (who died two weeks ago) and reedist Willem Breuker. He has an instantly recognizable sound—loud, chaotic, furiously swinging—and he's applied it to hundreds of records. He's all about improvisation, so leading …