Jazz /
Bakishinba: Memories Of Africa
“An ambitious, brand new album has reached the Japanese jazz scene. It is ‘Bakimba – Memories of Africa.’” This is how Akira Ishikawa Count Buffalo Jazz And Rock Band’s album was advertised by the Japanese press in 1970.
The Japanese jazz artists were bravely approaching the rock scene, and their choice became an inspiration to jazz-rock groups like Takeshi Inomata & Sound Limited, Jiro Inagaki and Soul Media, and more. The blending between jazz and rock was born in the United States, thanks to …
Healing Force
*2023 stock* Healing Force is an album by American jazz pianist Don Pullen recorded in 1976 for the Italian Black Saint label.
Black and White
Tip! Existing somewhere between the post-psychedelic period of Soft Machine and the electric funk of Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters, Black And White, the 1976 album from Norway’s Vanessa is without question a formidable beast of a jazz-rock record. A potent brew of sonic experimentation and pulsating off-kilter groove. Taking their name from the genus of Nymphalidae butterfly, Vanessa was founded in 1971 by saxophonist Svend Undseth and pianist Frode Holm, the founder of the Oslo record store turn…
Aïré
*Rare original* French project combining flamenco and jazz. The music is reminiscent of recent bands around Ultra High Flamenco, recorded in 1985 at the Centre Autonome D'experimentation Sociale in Ris-Oragis, a suburb south of Paris on the Seine River. It sounds like an extension of sextet, innovatively brought bass, cajón and saxophone to flamenco. It's strange that neither the other works nor this project have attracted much attention, but they are unusually accomplished: the level of perform…
Time Capsule
The impact of Weldon Irvine’s music across a wealth of genres cannot be overstated with his jazzy piano playing and compositions regularly passed down to newer generations. Artists like Q-Tip and Mos Def are noted admirers of the jazz-funk artist, and the distinct sounds of Irvine echo across the ages in samples etched into hip-hop history. The album version of Time Capsule was originally released in 1973, and this is a brand new 10 inch EP edit aimed at DJs looking to incorporate its album trac…
Indo Jazz Fusions
"This is one of those occasions when we 'labellers of music' get stuck in our own glue. Consider the complication: A group called Indo Jazz Fusions containing Indian and British musicians, an American-born guest, and the result, a uniquely beautiful music which is patently not quite Indian, not quite jazz, not quite contemporary-American. I think the most accurate thing you can say is that it can only be played the way it is by men in contact with the jazz tradition.
The group is led, and all th…
Compass Rises
Tip! When artsts self-releases their own recordings, they do so in the hopes that a hit might develop, or even better, a sphere of influence might form. In a lot of cases these records provide a stamp of existence and intent – a sonic business card showing what musicians were made of. Compass Rises (1973), the privately pressed sole LP by Oneonta, New York’s Compass, is both a sampling of versatility and a declaration of straight-ahead purpose.
Regularly active in upstate New York between 1969 …
Big Beat
*300 copies limited edition. In process of stocking* Nick Ingman has had a long career - as a composer, arranger and conductor. Big Beat is just one nugget from his legacy, but it's certainly a big one. Was involved in the Eurovision Song Contest on several occasions, leading the orchestra for Olivia Newton John (1974) and writing the live arrangements to 'Making Your Mind Up' (1981) and 'One Step Further' (1982).
Anglo American Jazz Phase 1
*300 copies limted edition In process of stocking* Jazz classics featuring Hampton Hawes on piano. Released,1971. John Denis Hawksworth, British pianist, bassist, composer, and arranger. He worked with the "Ted Heath Orchestra" from 1951 to 1965. Hampton Hawes, American jazz pianist.
Afro-Rock
*300 copies limited edition. In process of stocking* Small band featuring brass and percussion. Argentinian artist born in Buenos Aires in 1941. In 1975 he moved to Gran Canaria, Spain, where he created the first jazz school of the island.
Coniunctio
** Edition of 300. In process of stocking ** Recorded in Supraphon's Prague studios in Dejvice in March 1970. Jointly created by the bands Blue Effect and Stivin's Jazz Q Praha. The result of this process is forty minutes of music in which the influence of external environments, the immediate ability of each participant, and the predetermination in regard to traditions which shaped their musical development to-date, are expressed by new beauty which contains both logic as well as free, imaginati…
Live At The Bottom Line, New York - August 20th , 1977
This is the dangerous tandem of Gil Scott Heron and Brian Jackson caught in action at the NYC Bottom Line in hot August 1977, just a week before the release of "Bridges" one of their best and durable efforts of the season. At the head of a super tight line up the two deliver a dense performance of politically conscious music based on unapologetic words and soulful sounds. Not just a stream of hits but dense, expanded renditions full of improvisation including timeless pieces such as "Home Is Whe…
Starting Point
Tip! In 1975, under the oppressive air of military dictatorship in Brazil, brothers Lelo and Zé Eduardo Nazario invited bassist Zeca Assumpção to join their musical experiments in a basement under Sao Paulo’s Teodoro Sampaio Street. As teenagers, the trio had already been playing together in Hermeto Pascoal’s Grupo, alongside guitarist Toninho Horta and saxophonist Nivaldo Ornelas, and it was while working together under Hermeto’s direction that the Paulista rhythm section (as they were then kno…
Une Bien Curieuse Planète
From 1960 to the present day, from Georges Arvanitas to Laetitia Shériff, or from Manu Dibango to "Mama" Béa Tékielski, everyone has wanted to include François Jeanneau in their team at some point. This, his first album under his own name, was recorded for Jef Gilson’s Palm label in 1975, a few months after ‘’Watch Devil Go’’ by Thollot, with more or less the same cast: Jeanneau on saxophone, Jenny-Clark on double bass and percussion, Lubat replaces Thollot on drums and Michel Grailler is added …
Tra Scienza E Fantascienza
Timeless atmospheres, hypnotic sonorities, minimal arrangements. And a composer gifted with a never ending passion for music, experimenter in his genetic code, innovator by vocation, at ease with various instruments in order to forge avant-garde themes. Piero Umiliani was already forward in building completely new sounds in the late Seventies. “Tra Scienza E Fantascienza” finds his alter ego Moggi experimenting with alternative grooves, electronic music, jazz tunes and soundtrack motifs. One of …
Bisu
*In process of stocking* Official Afrodelic reissue of the ultra-rare Tunde Mabadu’s debut album. Originally released in 1978 on Blackspot label (Decca's West Africa division), Bisu, which includes the supergroovy ‘Red Jeans’, differs from the later 1980 ‘Viva Disco’ album by a much more pure African style. A beautiful and soulful production in which Tunde's deep voice and sax move on the excellent horns arrangements, percussions, the wahwah rhythm guitar and weird keyboards and synths (at times…
Mulatu of Ethiopia
Strut present the first official reissue of a landmark album in the field of African music, Mulatu Astatke’s ‘Mulatu Of Ethiopia’ from 1972.
Nigeria 70 (Lagos Jump: Original Heavyweight Afrobeat, Highlife & Afro-Funk)
*2022 stock. In process of stocking* Back in 2001, the first edition of Nigeria 70 on Strut broke the mould for African compilations, featuring a wide spectrum of musical styles from across the 1970's, and an audio documentary tracing the music's history.
For 2008, Strut delve deeper into the Lagos underground for another box of essential West African dynamite. From the heavy jazz of Peter King to Bola Johnson's scratchy afro funk and the rolling grooves of Juju legend Sir Shina Peters, this is …
Nigeria 70 (No Wahala: Highlife, Afro-Funk & Juju 1973-1987)
*2022 stock. In process of stocking* New volume by Strut in their pioneering ‘Nigeria 70’ series., here bringing together rare highlife, Afro-funk and juju from the ‘70s and early ‘80s - Compiled by collector and DJ Duncan Brooker..
The compilation returns to a fertile heyday in Nigerian music when established styles like highlife and juju became infused with elements of Western jazz, soul and funk and musicians brought a proud new message post-independence. Brooker places the spotlight particul…
Nigeria 70 (The Definitive Story of 1970's Funky Lagos)
*2022 stock. In process of stocking* Strut present a definitive vinyl edition of the groundbreaking compilation 'Nigeria 70'. Originally released in 2001, the collection set the benchmark for a new generation of archive labels and releases mining the vaults for rare Afro funk and Afro jazz fusions and helped to paint the wider picture of the 1970s Lagos scene beyond Fela Kuti's catalogue for a legion of soul, funk and dance music enthusiasts. Check!