Jazz & Improvisation / All styles

2025 stock It´s not often a "jazz" band take the big step from the club scene to a 1300 capacity rock venue like Oslo´s Rockefeller. But then again, Elephant9 is not your ordinary jazz band, often being named as Norway´s best live band - surely quite rare for an instrumental band - they are equally popular in jazz and rock circles. Here Elephant9 once again join forces with Reine Fiske - who brings another dimension to the band - for an epic slice of mindblowing modern rock´n´jazz prog psychedel…

Their previous album Arrival of The New Elders presented a more varied and reflective trio, still as groovy as ever, but more structured and less jam oriented, earning them a 9/10 review in Uncut and a spot in their albums of the year list, noting their telepathic communion and concluding with “this is an Elephant9 you´ll never forget”. Reviews in Jazzwise, Shindig, Prog, Electronic Sound, The Quietus and several others followed in the same fashion. We´re delighted to confirm that Mythical River…

1988 release ** "Sometimes with a touch of disdain, but it’s merely poetic, political reflection on an incomplete world—the only one we know. Beauty and cruelty, joy and sorrow. The piano, mastering every language, responds to the glowing voice of the singer: Romansh, German, English, French. Sweet, strict, harsh, thrilling, playful."

2025 Stock. On their fourth album, counting the limited vinyl-only Live At The BBC (RLP 2118LP), Elephant9 join forces with Reine Fiske, the quite excellent Swedish guitarist from Dungen, The Amazing and Träd, Gräs och Stenar, for yet another heavy slice of mindblowing modern rock'n'jazz psychedelia. Writers have called upon names like Tony Williams´ Lifetime, Deep Purple, Brian Auger and early '70s Miles Davis to describe Elephant9's music, pointing to the fact that they are comfortable in both…

Girl Talk completes the "trilogy" of great records that started with Midnight Sugar and Misty, Girl Talk solidified Tsuyoshi Yamamoto's reputation as Japan's premier jazz pianist. Though he would continue to tour and record for Takeshi "Tee" Fujii more than a decade, Girl Talk became the pinnacle of his career. This trio of classic LPs together are a benchmark in Japanese jazz records in particular and recording engineering in general. As usual, master recordist Yoshihiko Kannari worked with Yam…

After completing her master's degree at the Anton Bruckner Private University in 2018, Judith Schwarz has been working nationally and internationally as a drummer and composer in the field of jazz and improvised music. Judith is active as an instrumentalist, bandleader and composer in the following projects: Other:M:other, chuffDRONE, Beyond the Beat, Little Rosies Kindergarten, Schülande Engaling, Duo Hofmaninger/Schwarz, Mel*E. She has collaborated with Maria Portugal, Sylvie Courvoisier, Ange…

Following his success with “Blow Up,” the once-weekly favorite bassist Isao Suzuki returns with his fourth release under the Three Blind Mice label. The heavy, groovy sound he crafts alongside the eccentric talent Kenji Mori remains timeless and undiminished by the years.

Helsinki tenor saxophonist Jussi Kannaste's debut album as a band leader has been a long time coming. A top musician in the local scene revered by his contemporaries and sought after as a band member,  Kannaste now presents his new work Out Of Self and Into Others on We Jazz Records. His quartet, Kannaste4, brings together Finnish musicians Tomi Nikku (of Bowman Trio) and Joonas Riippa, plus Berlin-based Swedish bassist Petter Eldh (of Koma Saxo / Post Koma and Y-OTIS), and features an all origi…

Joona Toivanen Trio returns to We Jazz Records with their new album "Gravity", out 31 January 2025. A landmark work for the long standing group, the album showcases the forward-looking sound of the band, moving way beyond the basic scope of the "piano trio". There’s a startling sense of telepathy and intimacy at work in the music of the Joona Toivanen Trio, something you can glean from the opening moments of their latest album, Gravity. It’s that rare synergy that can only come with years of tim…

This concert recording from Munich’s Schwere Reiter performance space features improvisation with an expanded palette of possibilities. “To work with these colours is a great challenge and joy!” says bassist Barry Guy of the glowing and ever-changing tints, timbres and tones radiating from Jordina Millà’s freely associative piano.  Like Guy, Millà is both a player of prodigious technical capacity and a fearless improvisational explorer, and her highly creative use of the piano interior opens up …

1999 release **

Unbalanced Out (Unbalanced In)'. A powerful, challenging 50-minute collaborative piece constructed over a year through file-sharing by a sextet of leading musicians across the world, with Barry Chabala (USA, guitar), Bonnie Jones (USA/Korea, electronics), Louisa Martin (UK, laptop), Tisha Mukarji (Germany, piano), Toshi Nakamura (Japan, no-input mixing board) and Gabriel Paiuk (Argentina, piano)

Abdul Wadud's 1977 solo cello album, privately released and never reissued until now, cut from a DSD transfer of the only surviving master tape. Wadud plays the cello much as a jazz bassist would.

"Beyond a Dream" is a live jazz album by saxophonist Pharoah Sanders and drummer Norman Connors, recorded on July 22, 1978, at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland and released in 1981 by Arista Novus. The album showcases a blend of spiritual and free jazz elements characteristic of Sanders' style, complemented by Connors' dynamic drumming. A reviewer from Dusty Groove described it as "a dream of a record from this legendary spiritual jazz duo."

"Finnish saxophonist Harri Sjöström has been calling Berlin home for nearly 40 years, and for over 10 of them, he has been organizing concerts at venues around the city, featuring a who-is-who of the city's rich improvisation scene and beyond, under the title "SoundScapes." Starting in 2016, he extended the concept and held the first two SoundScapes Festivals in Helsinki, followed by one in Munich, and then, finally, in his adopted hometown. SoundScapes #4 was held over two mid-autumn nights in …

This year we are celebrating the 10th birthday of our label. On this occasion, we have prepared a lot of surprises and very unique musical offerings for you. Here is the first one! What you can expect from the music is perfectly reflected in the album title. Parallel aesthetics which, however, when listened to together become a new perhaps the third aesthetic!One of the most active and respected saxophonists and improvisers on the American jazz scene. An American, Brazilian-born, Jewish-born mus…

"Remedy’s “Hipp Hipp Hooray” honors the 100th birthday of pianist and composer Jutta Hipp, born February 4th, 1925, in Leipzig, Weimar Republic. Consisting of nine compositions loosely related to Hipp’s life story and output, the goal wasn’t to emulate the sound of her day but to get to the essence of Jutta Hipp’s spirit and tell her story through our artistic lens. A multi-level pioneer, Hipp was known as “Europe’s First Lady of Jazz,” the first woman ever to record as a leader for Blue Note Re…

Simon Nabatov - piano, live electronicsMark Helias - bassTom Rainey - drums All music by Simon Nabatov (GEMA) except collectively improvised tracks 4,8,10,12

Marius Cultier was born in 1942 in Fort-de-France, Martinique. He was recognised a highly talented and gifted child who, at the age of nine, conducted with the L'Office de Radiodiffusion-Télévision Fançaise, the French national public broadcasting organisation. He also cut his teeth as a radio presenter, hosting a popular show 'Punch en Musique', a rapid and precocious rise that further cemented his name as a musical prodigy. Cultier recorded his debut album in 1969 and by the mid-70s was crafti…

2007 release  ** "NEWS is a new work, whose ingredients, on the surface, are quite simple. Lukas Simonis wrote the music, while Takayuki Kawabata wrote the lyrics, which are featured on the CD cover, and also spoken or sung, in Japanese or in English. Simonis plays the guitar, which mostly appears as "sound" (the main exception being an arpeggio sounding halfway between Thinking Plague and Pink Floyd which appears more than once in the track titled Original NEWS), and also "effects", which judgi…

2006 release  ** "This is the 2nd album by the incredible Polish Jazz ensemble Sing Sing Penelope, led by drummer Rafal Gorzycki and also including trumpeter Wojciech Jachna, saxophonist Tomasz Glazik, keyboardist Daniel Mackiewicz and bassist Patryk Weclawek. Violinist Sebastian Gruchot guests on one track. They play all original music, composed mostly by Gorzycki and Jachna or credited to the ensemble. Stylistically this is an incredible mixture of many elements from Jazz, Rock, Ambient, RIO a…

1998 release  **

2006 release  ** "Avant garde jazz, it's all just a load of old guys making squeaky sounds with long pauses isn't it? Well yes, to a point it is but I think Rune Grammofon have taught us that it can, occasionally, be a lot of fun. Over two giant sprawling live improvisations (one 40+ mins and the other 30+), Bob Marsh and co proceed to learn and unlearn their craft, weaving in and out and creating some quite terrifying sounds. You don't need a degree in avant garde musical forms to enjoy this, b…

2010 release  ** "In the late 1990s, New Yorkers became enamored with a brash group of freewheeling improvisers from Atlanta going under the name Gold Sparkle Band. The chemistry of their fresh and ambitious style clicked with the New York establishment, and the group members soon began integrating with the entrenched Downtown musicians in taking the music forward at events like the Vision Festival and venues where free speech was practiced. Drummer Andrew Barker and reed player Charles Waters a…

2007 release  ** "Trapping captures BTT virtually live in the studio - from memory, only the vocals were overdubbed - , and reveals a tight band which constantly rehearsed and modified it's music always with the next gig in mind. The recording covers the whole range of the band's music from free improv to RnB influenced pop. The disc kicks off with "Sanctified", which combines Pete and Paul's stop/start riff with a horn part I ripped off from John Lee Hooker's VeeJay recording of Green Onions ad…

2010 release  ** "Bolognesi has expanded her group this time out - featuring a core group of bass, drums, trombone, saxophones and percussion surrounded by other performers on various saxes, flutes, clarinets and trumpet, to form an 11-piece ensemble. This "open-ness" opens up a wide range of sounds and colors that is centered by Bolognesi's vibrant yet substantial bass tones. […] The result is a cohesive whole that displays Bolognesi's surprisingly mature writing that combines traditional with …

2007 release ** "Tanake is unexpected music, hearth lungs sweat (even brain but kept in a hidden place), is music mentally physic, is music physically mental, is twilight at dawn, bitter honey, fresh decomposition, joy in crying. tanake is music generated by her 3ree sweethearts... In the early days [by the way: in the first album "tsu.zu.ku" (2000) tanake meant to reach structure by means of improvisation, but time left the songwriter soul all alone, and tanake's been surrounded by the never en…

Among the fiercest and greatest documents of Free Jazz is a lone LP - Al-Fatihah - self-released in Ohio by Black Unity Trio in 1969, the official reissue of which stands before us now. A hard cut diamond of pure fire and artistry, it’s a good as improvised music from this era gets and absolutely not to be missed

*2023 stock* "The arrangements by Carla Bley are miracles of dynamics, rising and falling in volume and velocity and the awe-inspiring balance of collective ensembles improvising freely through swellings and contractions of individual voices entering and leaving the mysterious swirling circle of simultaneous songs as diverse as the number of performers yet never lacking in the kind of transporting telepathic unity that makes this multiplicity of musical lines such a far cry from the chaos of the…

2025 Stock. Instant Composers Pool presents Goede Reis !. All music composed by Oscar Jan Hoogland and Han Bennink except Hornin’ In, Epistrophy and Ugly Beauty by Thelonious Monk, Peer’s Counting Song by Misha Mengelberg, Aanhanghuis by Oscar Jan Hoogland, Rhythm Three by Cor Fuhler and Fleruette Africaine by Duke Ellington.  Recorded & Mixed by Marc Schots at Bimhuis, Amsterdam August 13th 2020. Artwork by Han Bennink. Photo artwork by Pieter Boersma. Graphic Design by Emma Fischer.

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 …

Norway’s Grand Old Lady of jazz, Karin Krog turned 80 in May 2017, and the Odin label honoured her with a superb 6CD box set overviewing her outstanding career. Karin Krog is one of the great jazz singers. Few others worked within so many different areas of the music and fewer still could have done so with the same assurance, commitment and elegance. Like her peers such as Jan Garbarek, Arild Andersen, Jon Christensen and Terje Rypdal, she is a figurehead for that explosion of Norwegian jazz tal…

Launching into the new year with some serious heat, the seminal Italian free jazz imprint ICTUS Records returns with their Reissue Series dedicated to archival unreleased gems and back catalogue releases, with three of their most exciting and exhilarating reissues to date: Evan Parker & Andrea Centazzo's "Bullfighting On Ice", and Alvin Curran, Evan Parker, & Andrea Centazzo's “Real Time” and “Real Time Two”. Capturing three of avant-garde music's most visionary voices in rare collaborations at …

**300 copies** Traditional Noise, the final instalment in Holidays’ latest batch, is a collaboration between two up and coming stars of experimental music - Mette Rassmussen and Pak Yan Lau - and possibly the most exciting of them all, offering glimpses of probable futures of improvisation across its brilliant two sides.Mette Rasmussen is a Danish saxophone player based in Trondheim, Norway, who first gained attention as a member of Trio Riot, before increasingly branching out as solo artist, wo…

2015 release  ** "Mexican composer and vibraphonist based in Berlin since 2012, Emilio Gordoa in a duo with guitarist Nicola L. Hein, using preparations to their vibraphones, percussion, and guitar, in an 8 part composition of diverse approaches to improvisation, from exuberant interaction to Reich-like minimalism to cantankerous experimentation, a well-rounded and interesting album."

Previously unreleased. Stereophonic sound. 1-4 recorded 11th November 1973.5-8 recorded 22nd December 1974. Lineup:Kenny Wheeler - flugelhornGreg Bowen, Ian Hamer, Dave Hancock (1-4), Alan Downey (5-8), Henry Lowther - trumpetsBobby Lamb (1-4), Keith Christie (1-4), Dave Horler (1-4), Chris Pyne, Malcolm Griffith, Cliff Hardy (5-8), Jim Wilson (5-8), Pete Smith (5-8) - trombonesAlfie Reece (1-4), Cliff Bevan (5-8) - tubaDuncan Lamont (1-4), Stan Sulzmann (5-8) - tenor/soprano saxophoneNorma Wins…

Reissue on 180-gram opaque white vinyl. Originally released in 1965. The transitional "Bells" was just under 20 minutes, released originally as one side of a clear vinyl LP with the other side empty of music. It was recorded at a May 1, 1965, Town Hall concert of ESP artists, displaying Albert Ayler's new group, which added Albert's brother Donald and Charles Tyler. The denser sound of "Bells" shows Ayler moving towards the bigger sonic statement made on Spirits Rejoice (ESPDISK 1020CD/LP), h…

Part of Rashied Ali’s artistic strength involved turning improbable sound combinations into unchallenged masterpieces. After the pattern established by John Coltrane’s Interstellar Space, and Duo Exchange with Frank Lowe, the drummer stepped into a rather unlikely duet with violinist Leroy Jenkins for Swift are the Winds of Life. Five years with the Revolutionary Ensemble had established Jenkins as a composer; he designed all the pieces played on these 1975 duets with Ali. That record is issued …

** 2020 restock, nice price** Albert Ayler's trio with Gary Peacock and Sunny Murray is best known for the July 10, 1964, recording of Spiritual Unity (ESPDISK 1002CD), the album that made both Ayler and ESP-Disk' famous when it was released in 1965. A decade after that, in 1975, ESP-Disk' also released, as Prophecy(ESP-3030), the first documentation of the group, recorded a month before Spiritual Unity by Canadian poet Paul Haines at a concert at a 91st Street club. These Cellar Café recordings…

Live recording of Albert Ayler's large septet configuration, featuring brother Donald, Charles Tyler, Sunny Murray and both Henry Grimesand Gary Peacock on bass. Compared to the bare trio of Spiritual Unity, this nearly big band of two bass players and a strong horn section allows Ayler's expressive vision depth from the joyous to the aggressive in Ayler's five original compositions. The digitally remastered recording was originally made at 30 ips instead of the usual 15 giving it excellent fide…