Jazz /
Live at Haight Levels Vol.2
The second instalment from Tramp of unearthed, long-lost recordings made in San Francisco during 1967 by the Afro-Blue Persuasion - led by jazz / funk mastermind Ulysses Crockett - Live at Haight Levels Vol. 2 captures the heights of afro-cuban jazz at its very best. Issued in a highly limited pressing of 500 copies, with the first volume already commanding high numbers on the secondary market, this one is bound to fly.
Black Is The Color: Live in Poughkeepsie and New Windsor 1969-70
Never-before-issued music from three very different settings in upstate New York, all recorded in the period running up to Poughkeepsie multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee's Nation Time (CVSD 054CD). From a year before that landmark LP, in the same hall at Vassar College, McPhee led a band with soulful vibraphonist Ernie Bostic and voluble rhythm section of Tyrone Crabb and Bruce Thompson, both of Nation Time fame, performing a John Coltrane-oriented set that included versions of Mongo Santamaria's…
African Rhythms 1970-1982
**Feature a 12” sized 4pp booklet featuring rare photos and a comprehensive interview with Plunky Branch within liner notes by Chris Menist** Strut present a comprehensive 3LP compilation of the seminal Oneness Of Juju, led by Plunky J. Branch. Tracing their career from the band’s earliest work in 1970 with South African exiled jazzman Ndikho Xaba in San Francisco, the compilation covers the band’s journey to New York’s loft jazz scene, forming Juju and releasing two landmark albums of hard-hitt…
Orgy In Rhythm - Volume One
It is interesting how the Jazz sounds of the 1950s and early 1960s influenced later psychedelic bands and if you dig yourself through to the most influentual records of that mind expanding extraordinary wing of jazz music you will hit Art Blakey and this album directly with your nose. The title says it all and what you get to listen to here will surely take you away from the cold and grey reality and drag you onto a trip to the center of your galaxy. It starts with a haunting passage that shows …
Bossa Nova Carnival
Here's another beautiful example of the great impact of Brazilian music on American Jazz in the '60s. Vibraphonist Dave Pike, mostly known for his work with the likes of Herbie Mann, Bill Evans, and Paul Bley, displays a marvelous sextet performing music of Brazilian composer João Donato. Recorded and released in 1962 on the New jazz Label, and considered as one of Pike's essential albums, "Bossa Nova Carnival" sounds like a perfect combination of Brazilian sensuous flavor and Jazz-swing sensibi…
Stitt Goes Latin
Musically born in the great tradition of Charlie Parker, Sonny Stitt was one of the alto sax giants in Jazz history. Recorded in 1963 and originally released on the Roost label, "Stitt goes Latin" catches him at the head of an all-star line-up, a highly distinctive combo in full Latin mood, featuring Thad Jones on trumpet, a young Chick Corea on piano, Larry Gales on bass and a fabulous drums + percussion section with the great Willie Bobo on drums, Carlos "Patato" Valdes - congas, bongos and Os…
Companionship
*2022 stock* Jazz music has more than its fair share of overshadowed figures that whilst contributing much to the music have little presence in its collective conscious. One such musician is the talented multi-reedist, Sahib Shihab. Born Edmond Gregory, as he was known before he adopted the Muslim faith in 1946, Sahib Shihab’s music background shows a deep and significant evolution, influenced by Thelonious Monk, Dizzie Gillespie (his experience in Dizzie’s band marked Sahib’s switch to Bariton…
Swing im Bahnhof
*2022 stock* The Kenny Clarke-Fancy Boland Ensemble has its headquarter and management in Cologne. Many international recordings and releases presents the lineup of the Clarke-Boland in trio, quartet, sextet and in bands with 13 and 21 musicians from all over Europe. This time, they were a sextet that traveled to Rolandseck, a German ensemble with no Germans.Kenny “Klook” Clarke is one of the heads of the bebop movement. He was also one of the founders of the Modern Jazz Quartet and he is consid…
Music For Small Hours
*2022 stock* Had it not been for the post-war migration of many top American jazz musicians to Europe, it is quite likely that the legendary Clarke-Boland Big Band might never have come into existence. As it happened, when Gigi Campi set up the first big band record date in Cologne on December 13, 1961, (Jazz Is Universal for the Atlantic label), he was able to call upon such distinguished self-exiled jazz stars as Benny Bailey (originally from Cleveland, Ohio), Sahib Shihab (Savannah, Georgia),…
Inventions & Dimensions
For his third Blue Note album Inventions & Dimensions (1963), pianist Herbie Hancock began moving away from the modernist hard bop sound that defined his first two albums Takin’ Off and My Point Of View. Inspired by explorers like Eric Dolphy and Tony Williams, Hancock went in search of greater musical freedom by composing a set of ingenious originals each with their own unique inner logic that did away with what he considered the established jazz “assumptions” of the time. Hancock also pared th…
Mémoires
A true fusional object, Béliz moves us to new horizons, both imaginary and poetic.
Spirits Known and Unknown
Leon Thomas' debut solo recording after his tenure with Pharoah Sanders is a fine one. Teaming with a cast of musicians that includes bassist Cecil McBee, flutist James Spaulding, Roy Haynes, Lonnie Liston Smith, Richard Davis, and Sanders (listed here as "Little Rock"), etc. Thomas' patented yodel is in fine shape here, displayed alongside his singular lyric style and scat singing trademark. The set begins with a shorter, more lyrical version of Thomas' signature tune The Creator Has a Master P…
Cosmik Sindika
**700 copies** Since childhood Serge Fabriano bathed in music, to-ing and fro-ing between his native Guadeloupe and Paris where he grew up. He attended the music conservatory, learnt how to play bass, played with many musicians and was ultimately angling for a career as a music teacher. During the mid-70's, he alternated between teaching classes and live gigs, and performed in Germany with a funk band comprised of ex-GIs from the US Army. He also met the members of Return to Forever, and especia…