Jazz /
Hoarded Dreams
*2022 stock* Graham Collier is one of the best known and most important British jazz composers and over a 40 year career, his list of compositions and commissions has grown to encompass ensembles around the world. He is well-known as an author and educator, having written seven books on jazz. Hoarded Dreams is a previously unreleased long-form composition heard here in a powerful live performance from 1983 by an international all-star band that includes Tomasz Stanko, Conny Bauer, Malcolm Griffi…
Shadows And Reflections
Super Tip ** original copies, last ones ** 'Trumpeter Baikida Carroll was once again in the company of alto saxophonist Julius Hemphill for a January 1982 recording with pianist Anthony Davis, bassist Dave Holland, and drummer Pheeroan Ak Laff for Soul Note called Shadows & Reflections. The material here sounded like it could have been a late Blue Note recording; in fact, there were times when the horns brought back flashbacks of the Jackie McLean-Charles Tolliver front line of the '60s. And for…
To Hear The World In A Grain Of Sand (World Music - Live At The Donaueschingen Festival)
** original copy ** "...Of course, they are all just 'grains of sand' in the universe of world music - and yet, a grain of sand, a drop of water, can be a symbol of the entire universe. In this way, the title given to his composition by German composer and saxophone player Berndt Konrad - 'To Listen To The World In A Grain Of Sand' - so beautifully expresses what this concert stands for." (from the CD liner notes by Joachim-Ernst Berendt). Live Recorded at the Donaueschingen Musiktage (Contemp…
Irina
** original copy ** Altschul is the common denominator on these two excellent reissues of early ’80s records, and if anyone is unconvinced that he is one of the great drummers of his generation, there’s proof on every track here. He is joined on Irina by Enrico Rava, John Surman and Mark Helias in a program ranging from originals to “Jitterbug Waltz.” It’s great to hear the two hornmen in such fine fettle. Their solos are excellent, and much of the music involves group improvs with the horns in …
Update
** original copy ** Recorded in Italy in 1986, this solo set by Mal Waldron draws from a rich range of sources and traditions. Update songs An inventive composer, arranger and player, these six pieces combines melodic directness with percussive harmonic support. Update album for sale Opening with his own "Free for C. Update CD music T., " he moves into the realm of standards for most of the set, visiting works by Dizzy Gillespie, Sammy Cahn, and Frank Loesser, among others. His "Variations on a …
Angedras
** original copy ** Angedras is the mirror image of Sardegna (the Italian name for Sardinia). The long tale which unfolds in this record has been dedicated by Marcello Melis to this island, morred at the center of the Mediterranean Sea. It is a tale narrated in a language that draws its substance from several different worlds: the urban reality of jazz, the deep rhythms of Africa, the melodic tradition of Sardinian shepherds. ...The work is formed in four parts and immediately reveals the musica…
Some Order, Long Understood
** original copy ** 'The music is one of two tracks that make up the entire album, one on each side as it was originally released as an LP, and each over 20 minutes long. The other side is the titled “Psalm”. The recording was made live to two track at Studio Henry, later known as One Morten Street. The trio was put together just for this gig, and features Butch Morris on cornet, William Parker on bass, and myself on piano, some kind of crummy organ, and electronics-including an Aries synthesize…
The Gift Of Love
For most though, this Detroit Soul Jazz veteran will likely be unknown, and unfortunately so because not only was Sanders a great saxophonist with his own warm and lyrical post-bop sound, he was an important fixture of historical significance in the Detroit jazz . "Prior to forming Visions, Sanders and trumpeter Marcus Belgrave fronted a band with pianist Harold McKinney called the Creative Profile. Belgrave and Sanders would continue to perform together, often with Sanders' big band, the Pionee…
Japanese Jazz Spectacle Vol.II
Tip! "It is my great pleasure to introduce you to the second volume of the "Japanese Jazz Spectacle" series. Following the first compilation which focused on recordings from the Nippon Columbia catalog, this time we are digging into the King Records archives. It is almost impossible to capture the whole picture of Wa-Jazz in a couple of compilation albums since it is such a broad and deep genre, however, by extracting tracks from the Nippon Columbia and King Records collections - both labels hav…
At Yoshi's
When any recording made by George Coleman is issued, it's an instant event. Though Coleman has always been busy performing, writing, and especially teaching, scant few LPs or CDs have come listeners' way. It is especially thrilling to hear him live in concert performance at the initial site of the then newly minted Yoshi's in Oakland, CA, as his extended techniques and heightened sense of tonal ideas come fully to the fore. Coleman and pianist Harold Mabern, both originally from the fertile jazz…
Shukuru
'Pharoah Sanders' "Shukuru" is noteworthy as being the album that reunited Sanders with vocalist Leon Thomas, who sang on some of Sanders' most endearing and powerful compositions-- among them the legendary "The Creator Has a Masterplan".
Thomas only joins the band on two tracks-- "Mas in Brooklyn (Highlife)" and "Sun Song". The former gets a full calypso reading complete with steel drum sounds and chanted vocals traded between Sanders and Thomas. It's a lot of fun, but by and large, throwaway. …
Jazz Street
American jazz bassist, composer and producer Jaco Pastorius was a member of Weather Report during the Seventies and also recorded albums as a solo artist. As of 2017, he is the only electric bassist inducted into the Downbeat Jazz Hall of Fame and has been lauded as one of the best electric bassist of all time.
He recorded five albums in total with acclaimed drummer Brian Melvin, including the 1989 Jazz Street. This body of work is one of Pastorius' last studio dates and features session musicia…
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…
Miles Davis Live - What It Is (Montreal 7/7/83)
This double LP release features one of Miles Davis final great bands: John Scofield on guitar, Bill The Other Bill Evans Evans on saxophones, flute and electric piano, Darryl Jones on bass, Al Foster on drums, and percussionist Mino Cinelu. Miles was back in amazing form (incandescent and iridescent as ever, critic Greg Tate noted), when he mounted the stage at the Theatre St-Denis during the Festival International De Jazz De Montreal in July 1983, and this revelatory performance has been loving…
Bahia Com 'H'
*In process of stcoking* Ethereal, sensual, subtle. Maria de Fátima is that new favourite singer you think you just discovered, but had actually always been there. This Brazilian muse from Tijuca (Rio de Janeiro) has worked and recorded with artists such as Milton Nascimento, Gilberto Gil, Arthur Verocai, Airto Moreira & Flora Purim, Chico Buarque and Lincoln Olivetti amongst many others.
We're immensely proud to bring you a deluxe reissue of her only solo album Bahia com H. Recorded in 1981 in …
Monodrama
Recently rediscovered while digging through our vaults, this is the original 1984 vinyl edition of the album. It doesn't get any better than this! This is an album featuring octet led by the Milanese musician Giorgio Gaslini.
Painted Lady
*2022 stock* The American vocalist and actress Abbey Lincoln made a name for herself in the 1950s under the name of Gaby Lee as a variety singer and film actress (The Blonde and I). At the end of the 1950s, married to drummer Max Roach, she participated with him in several important recordings with Sonny Rollins, Coleman Hawkins, Benny Golson... It was the fabulous "Freedom Now Suite", recorded in 1960 with Max Roach, that made her famous to the general public. Twenty years later, associated in …
Ra to the Rescue
'Ra to the Rescue was initially pressed in limited quantities in 1983, but several of its tracks subsequently were reissued with incongruous tracks on the albums (commonly referred to as) When Spaceships Appear, Cosmo-Party Blues, Somewhere There, and Children of the Sun. Those album "titles" are in many cases simply the names of the first track on a particular side (these were scribbled in pen on otherwise blank labels). To complicate matters, some tracks were retitled for reasons that shall fo…
Soul Connection
One of the most influential and underground Hammond organists of the 1960's was "Big" John Patton as he was then known. If it was the groove that you wanted Patton was your Man and he made several albums for the legendary Blue Note label, many of which went on to sell for eye watering prices. As his style went out of favor, some of the recordings never saw the light of day until almost 20 years later and at the same time Patton slipped into the background. He resurfaced in the 1980s and went int…
Japanese Jazz Spectacle Vol.I
Tip! “Japanese jazz has been recognized and celebrated by music lovers worldwide for decades. The origins of this trend may be traced back to the rare groove movement that flourished in the 1990s, but its current deep and wide popularity seems to be connected to the fact that Japanese people have been reevaluating their own jazz since the mid-2000s, locally referred to as WaJazz ("Wa" meaning Japan but also the Shōwa emperor period, from 1926 to 1989). Since the beginning of the 2000s, there has…