Jazz /
Garden Of Expression
*2024 stock* The debut album of Joe Lovano’s Trio Tapestry was one of 2019’s most talked-about releases. The trio’s musical concept – the Boston Globe spoke of “utterances of hushed assurance, lyricism and suspense” – is taken to the next level on its second album, Garden of Expression, a recording distinguished by its intense focus. Lovano, a saxophonist whose reach extends across the history of modern jazz and beyond, plays with exceptional sensitivity in Trio Tapestry. And the music he wri…
Madagascar Now - Maintenant 'Zao
** First ever standalone vinyl reissue. Carefully remastered. 4 page booklet with rare and unpublished photos. Heavyweight 180 gr. LP ** While he was working on the repertoire for the new version of his group Malagasy, with young Malagasy musicians he had met in Paris in 1972 (and who can be heard on the album "Malagasy At Newport-Paris"), Jef Gilson realised that two of his new discoveries, in addition to being established polyinstrumentalists (who both had sharpened their skills in the legenda…
Malagasy at Newport
** First ever standalone vinyl reissue. Carefully remastered. 4 page booklet with rare and unpublished photos. Heavyweight 180 gr. LP ** In May 1972, the wave of anger and the thirst for freedom that had swept the world in 1968 arrived in Madagascar. The Malagasy youth took the opportunity to exile in search of a brighter future. Several of them, all jazz musicians and often polyintrumentalists, came to Paris with their afro hair and bellbottoms. Their names were Sylvin Marc, his cousin Ange "Zi…
The Air-Conditioned Nightmare
After over five decades of making music at, in, and around the piano, Denman Maroney may have left New York for the more rustic climes of a quaint French town, but he has not abandoned his musical ambitions. Choosing March 2020 to travel, and kept in place by the pandemic shutdown, Maroney put down roots that are now flourishing in this double album with fresh local conspirators. Taking John Cage’s prepared piano and Conlon Nancarrow’s rhythmic innovations to new musical territories, Maroney’s p…
Conspiracy
A new ECM studio album and a programme of new music from Terje Rypdal is cause for celebration. On Conspiracy the great Norwegian guitarist seems to reconnect with the wild inspiration that fuelled such early masterpieces as Whenever I Seem To Be Far Away, Odyssey and Waves, exploring the sonic potential of the electric guitar with both a rock improviser’s love of raw energy and a composer’s feeling for space and texture. Keyboardist Ståle Storløkken, who contributed to Terje’s Vossabrygg and Cr…
I Took Up The Runes
One of the Norwegian saxophonists most outgoing dates, the best-selling “Runes” also marked the first appearance of Manu Katché with the Jan Garbarek group. Centerpiece of the album is the five-part “Molde Canticle”.
Lonely Shadows
After critically-acclaimed ECM recordings with the Maciej Obara Quartet (Unloved, Three Crowns), Polish pianist Dominik Wania delivers a solo album recorded in November 2019 in Lugano. Wania’s sensitivity to touch, tone and texture is informed by his classical background. But he also has the in-the-moment instincts of a great improviser, acutely focused on the unfolding details of the music in the responsive interior of the Auditorio Stelio Molo studio. The balancing of influences from both disc…
Human
In its review of pianist Shai Maestro’s ECM leader debut The Dream Thief, All About Jazz spoke of “a searching lyrical atmosphere, emotional eloquence and communal virtuosity that serves the music.” All of which also applies to Human, where Maestro’s outgoing, highly-communicative band with fellow Israeli Ofri Nemya on drums and Peruvian bassist Jorge Roeder becomes a quartet with the inspired addition of US trumpeter Philip Dizack. Shai’s expansive pianism is well-matched by Dizack’s alert, …
Vermillion
Kit Downes joins forces with long-time collaborators Petter Eldh on bass and James Maddren on drums for a carefully assorted piano trio programme that treads gentle lyricism and bold creative outbursts in equal measures. Downes, whose prior ECM offering Dreamlife of Debris was termed a “work of otherworldly beauty” by BBC Music Magazine, carves out some of his most compendious pieces to date on Vermillion. Replete with subtle twists and turns, the trio offers its idiosyncratic take on the piano …
John Scofield
John Scofield’s first guitar-solo-recording ever gives a résumé of all the influences and idioms he has cultivated over his career in performances on guitar, accompanied by his own rhythmic pulse and chordal backing using a loop machine. Besides jazz, John is known to have always also had a soft spot for the rock and roll and country music he grew up with, revealed here in unencumbered renditions of Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away” and Hank Williams’ “You Win Again”. Between elegant and personal re…
Last Decade
German-American pianist Benjamin Lackner makes his highly melodious ECM debut with an all-star quartet of trumpeter Mathias Eick, the esteemed Manu Katché on drums and bassist Jérôme Regard. Mathias and Manu share an extensive recording history with ECM and their respectively unique instrumental signatures can be traced across this set of exclusively original material – eight pieces by Benjamin, one by Jérôme. The bassist and the leader’s partnership goes all the way back to 2002, when, in New Y…
Free At Last - Extended Edition
Revisited and remastered, with additional takes, texts and photos, here is the very first ECM session, recorded in Ludwigsburg in November 1969, featuring the great American pianist Mal Waldron, whose resume included work with Coltrane, Mingus, Dolphy and Billie Holiday. In his original liner notes, Mal wrote: “This album represents my meeting with free jazz. Free jazz for me does not mean complete anarchy… You will hear me playing rhythmically instead of soloing on chord changes.” As Jazz Journ…
The Song Is You
Their collaboration has been hailed as a summit meeting of two jazz masters. Enrico Rava, trumpeter from Trieste, and Fred Hersch, pianist from Cincinatti, share a deep affection for the tradition and a profound sense for melodic invention. In this recording, with flugelhorn and piano glowing in the superb acoustic of the Lugano studio, Rava and Hersch explore some much-loved standards: Jerome Kern’s “The Song Is You”, Thelonious Monk’s “Mysterioso” and “’Round Midnight”, Jobim’s “Retrato em Bra…
Sphere
The Bobo Stenson Trio’s ability of covering far-reaching idioms and wide-ranging repertoire within the scope of their personal diction has become both hallmark and custom, inspiring the New York Times to say the pianist “makes sublime piano-trio records without over-playing. It’s pulsating, with long improvised phrases; it’s alive.” Sphere is primarily comprised of works by 20th and 21st century composers including Per Nørgård, Sven-Erik Bäck, and Jean Sibelius and offers two originals by Jormin…
Our Daily Bread
The third album from Joe Lovano’s Trio Tapestry finds the group continuing to extend its spacious and lyrical approach, with deep listening and intense focus. “Our Daily Bread is fueled by the rhythm spirit of expression that projects the mysterious world of music that lies ahead,” says master saxophonist Lovano in his liner note, and these elegantly fluid pieces and free-floating ballads indeed feel like songs of the soul. “The intensity comes not from ferocity but from depth of feeling,” wrote…
Plays The Music Of Carla Bley
Original 1990 LP edition. Experience the vibrant and soulful sounds of Sicily with Orchestra Jazz Siciliana's latest album, "Plays The Music Of Carla Bley." This dynamic ensemble pays tribute to the iconic composer and pianist Carla Bley, with their own unique jazz interpretations of her compositions. The album features a fusion of traditional Sicilian melodies and Bley's avant-garde jazz influences, creating a dynamic and captivating listening experience. Led by renowned saxophonist and conduct…
DLW: Extended Beats
bastille musique presents its twenty-eighth release »DLW: Extended Beats« featuring world premiere recordings by Dell-Lillinger-Westergaard, Klangforum Wien, Sonar Quartett, Tamara Stefanovich (piano), Martin Adámek (clarinets) and Johannes Brecht (electronics). Together with the guests, Dell-Lillinger-Westergaard extend their beats in terms of co-composition and form as well as instrumentation. In addition to the recordings produced at the Paul-Robeson-Studio, the set also contains a 48-page bi…
Stefanovich, Dell, Lillinger, Westergaard: SDLW
*2024 stock* bastille musique presents its twenty-first release »Stefanovich, Dell, Lillinger, Westergaard: SDLW« featuring world premiere recordings by Tamara Stefanovich (piano), Christopher Dell (vibraphone), Christian Lillinger (drums, percussion) and Jonas Westergaard (double bass). Produced at the Teldex Studio Berlin, the album documents the collaboration between Dell-Lillinger-Westergaard and Tamara Stefanovich for the first time. In addition to the recordings, the set also contains a 48…
As Far As November
2024 stock. When the stage is soaked with gasoline, a simple spark of sound from one of them will be needed to blow everything up in the air. That fleeting moment, which barely lasts as long as it takes a note to emerge from the sax, a double bass string to start to vibrate, or to hit a drum head, will now carry on for an hour on the clock. Make no mistake, everything that seems to happen during that time, in fact, is contained in a very single instant. It is a big bang of musical energy expandi…
Ytinamuh
2024 stock. Natalia Kordiak is one of the most promising vocalists, we believe, not only on the Polish but also on the European jazz scene. Ytinamuh (Humanity) is her new album, the second in her career, recorded with a band composed of Poland's most talented young musicians. Maciej Lewenstein wrote in his review : "A clear Masterpiece, and one of the best Polish improvised vocal records of all times!!!"