Jazz /
Poder Del Alma
Psychedelic Latin-funk holy grail from Nicaragua, 1974!! First ever reissue!! Poder del Alma (“Soul Power”) was a supergroup formed by some of the best musicians from the Nica scene. This all-star band of nine members was assembled to play at the famous free concert of Santana in Managua in benefit for the 1972 earthquake. After that successful gig supporting the Latin-Rock superstar, what was to be a one-night stand became the seed of the most loved Nicaraguan act from the 70s. All the members …
Poder Del Alma II
Impossible to find second album by this band from Nicaragua, 1975. A cool mix of Latin funk, jazz, salsa and psychedelic grooves. Including some of their most sought after tracks like “Bacanal’ 76”, “Mimo” or the antiracist statement “La Conga de las Dos Razas”. After recording their first LP in Guatemala, Nica supergroup Poder del Alma travelled to Costa Rica to register their second album. This time the recording studio and equipment (including Mini-Moog) were better and the band featured a ne…
Jeito De Ferver
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…
Caravan
Orrin Keepnews produced Art Blakey's 1963 debut for Riverside Records, a hard-bop triumph featuring an all-aces band: Curtis Fuller, Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter, Cedar Walton and Reggie Workman. Blakey drives them with power and passion as they play Caravan: Sweet 'n' Sour: In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning: This Is for Albert: Skylark, and Thermo. Back on vinyl again!
The Giant Is Awakened
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…
New York United
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…
Prophecies Come To Pass
*2024 stock* "Prophecies Come to Pass is the debut recording of Sabir Mateen's compositions by his group The Shapes, Textures, and Sound Ensemble. Recorded live in Brooklyn in September 2005, the CD was edited by Mateen and Swell and mastered under Mateen's direction. It's dedicated to the late great Raphe Malik, who at one time played with the group. The ensemble is composed of an impressive roster of creative musicians: Mateen on saxophones, flute, and clarinets; Matt Lavelle on trumpet, fluge…
Survival Situation
2024 stock. Iconic downtown sax player Sabir Mateen, together with up-and-coming Texan clarinetist Patrick Holmes and drum wiz Federico Ughi, celebrate the cosmic dimensions of creative music via their new album Survival Situation.The three musicians have collaborated in the past, in New York, in different projects but never as a trio. This time they met in a recording studio in Tuscany, Italy, not far from where Sabir Mateen has been living for the last few years. They freely improvised, then t…
Shifa - Live At Cafe Oto
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…
BleySchool
2024 stock. The trio pays homage to legendary pianist Paul Bley, drawing on both his tunes and improvisational approach. Bley’s music encompassed latin-inspired grooves, deceptively simple and catchy melodies, as well as freer improvisations. His willingness to collaborate openly with European improvisers as well as being part of the American tradition was an attractive template to follow.Pat Thomas, Dominic Lash and Tony Orrell grew up in the UK with the children’s tv series Play School and whe…
观世音 Kannon
观世音 Kannon' is an album that was composed in the aftershadow of Sunn O)))’s most recent successes in immersive collaboration (the group worked with Scott Walker on 'Soused', Ulver on 'Terrestrials' in 2013 and 2014) and also from the broad and influential wake of their epitimous 'Monolith’s & Dimensions'. '观世音 Kannon' emerged both independently as a conceptual entity and with roots in the legacies of those projects, yet was fully realized years later, in 2015. The album is 36 minutes in length a…
The Jazz Messengers
On December 17, 1947 Art Blakey led a group known as “Art Blakey’s Messengers” in his first recording session as a leader, for Blue Note Records. The records were issued as 78’s at the time and two of the songs were released on the New Sounds 10” LP compilation (BLP 5010). This octet included Kenny Dorham, Howard Bowe, Sahib Shihab, Musa Kaleem, Ernest Thompson, Walter Bishop, Jr., and LaVerne Baker. Around the same time – in 1947 or 1949 – Blakey led a big band called “Seventeen Messengers”. Th…
Cry! Tender
Although his main instruments were the tenor saxophone and the flute, Yusef Lateef was known for his innovative blending of jazz with Asian music. In addition to the oboe and bassoon (which are both unusual in jazz), he played various instruments. Lateef began recording as a leader in 1957 for Savoy Records, a non-exclusive association that continued until 1959. The earliest ofhis albums for the Prestige subsidiary New Jazz overlap his Savoy Recordings. Cry!-Tender was one of these early albums …
Next Door
Adroit jazz guitar, prog rock fantasia, and Japanese environmental music all rest comfortably behind Leo Takami's Next Door. The follow up to the acclaimed Felis Catus & Silence, Next Door finds Takami ruminating on passages — of time, seasons, consciousness. Through music, Leo contemplates daily events and finds beauty in ordinary moments. He also seems to be questioning the value of being stuck in the world, allowing his mind to wander towards something beyond it. His music is earnest, deeply …
Soulnik
Jazz bassist Doug Watkins died in a car accident in 1962 at the age of 27. However, prior to his early demise, he recorded dozens of wonderful sessions with some of the greatest jazzmen of his time, among them Sonny Rollins, Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, and the Horace Silver Quintet. Soulnik marked his second and final album as a leader, and features Watkins on cello instead of bass, and in the company of the great Yusef Lateef.
Play
*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…
The House I Live In
2024 Stock. Modern Silence present the first ever reissue of Archie Shepp/Lars Gullin Quintet's The House I Live In, originally released in 1980. An incredible live album featuring saxophonists Archie Shepp and Lars Gullin, recorded at the Jazzhus Montmartre in Copenhagen, Denmark on November 21, 1963. 180 gram, virgin vinyl; Edition of 500."This is a fascinating release. Tenor-saxophonist Archie Shepp would not burst upon the U.S. avant-garde scene until 1964-65 but here he is featured at a Dan…
Poem For Malcom
Historic 1969 Paris session by the american saxophonist-vocalist-intellectual who conveys his deep anguish at the loss of a civil rights icon.
Live at Jazz Festival Willisau 2023, First Visit
“We are in the business of transformation, applying our knowledge of improvising together for twenty-five years, interwoven with our resonance with these melodies and forms. We have found our collective way with honouring what these pieces express to us, through our personal language, comments Gerry Hemingway.” He agrees that there's a concept of authenticity”. “The feeling of swing is our own, but shaped by the pieces we are playing”. Authenticity is acquired through assimilating traditions, an…
Free Jazz to Ornette „Revisited“
Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation is an album by the jazz saxophonist and composer Ornette Coleman. It was released through Atlantic Records in September 1961: the fourth of Coleman's six albums for the label. Its title named the then-nascent free jazz movement.
About Ornette! Brian Olewnick commented that Coleman is found "plumbing his quartet music to ever greater heights of richness and creativity," concluding that the album was "a superb release and a must for all fans of Coleman and cr…