Sam HHV Records 26 Items

Stickly Limited Edition 3000 copies. Re-mastered from the original stereo master tapes. 180 gr vinyl pressed in Marciac, France by Garcia & Co. Deluxe flipback album jacket. Facsimile reissue using the original artwork. Double insert using an original photo by Jan Persson. Each record has been visually checked to prevent defects. Recorded August, 1965, Copenhagen, Denmark.

Original LP issue: Oktav – Oklp 111

Sahib Shihab (Edmund Gregory) played with many of jazz’s finest musicians. Shortly after he became one of the first jazz players to change their names due to an Islamic conversion, he joined Thelonious Monk for his Blue Note sessions. He also played with Art Blakey, Dizzy Gillespie, Oscar Pettiforn and Quincy Jones. A unique musician, he was at home in every musical style, from the experimentalism of Thelonious Monk to the more direct hard bop of Art Blakey. Sahib Shihab’s distinctive sound was rooted in his modernist compositions and arrangements, complemented by an intense, soulful playing style.

In 1959 he toured Europe with Quincy Jones after getting fed up with racial politics in USA and ultimately settled in Scandinavia. He worked for Copenhagen Polytechnic and wrote scores for television, cinema and theatre. He remained there until 1973. During this period, he recorded several albums as leader for European labels such as Vogue, Storyville and Futura.

In 1961 he joined The Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band and remained a key figure in the band for the 12 years it ran. He married a Danish lady and raised a family in Europe, although he remained a conscious African-American still sensitive to racial issues.

This record, on the Danish Oktav label, his second as a leader and also his rarest is a true masterpiece !!!

Personnel : Sahib Shihab (Baritone saxophone, Flute, Cowbell) Poul Hindberg (Alto saxophone, Clarinet) Ib Renard (Baritone saxophone) Bent Nielsen (Baritone saxophone, Flute, Clarinet) Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen (nhop) (Bass) Alex Riel (Drums) Allan Botschinsky (Trumpet) Fritz von Bülow (Guitar) Bent Axen (Piano) Bent Jædig (Tenor saxophone, Flute) Niels Husum (Tenor saxophone) Svend Åge Nielsen (Trombone, Bass trombone) Torolf Mølgaard (Trombone, Euphonium) Palle Bolvig (Trumpet) Palle Mikkelborg (Trumpet) Poul Kjældgård (Tuba) Louis Hjulmand (Vibraphone)

Absolutely seminal Danny Krivit re-edit of Gary's Gang "Let's Lovedance Tonight"!

Originally released on Nurvous Records a decade ago this finally sees the light of day again... Original 12"s go for $100 each on discogs. Re mastered for 2016 and released in conjunction with the original Sam Records.

‘80s funk at its best. Originally only ever available on the album ‘Just How Sweet Is Your Love’, New Jersey group Rhyze’s ‘Do Your Dance’ gets its first ever reissue as a single on 7 inch backed with the disco monster ‘Free’. A staple of some of the biggest DJs and diggers out there, this is a must have record. Your first time to grab this on 7" Official SAM release with original labels and housed in a picture sleeve.

A never-before released Mal Waldron Trio 1970 live recordings. First official release with the full permission and cooperation of the Mal Waldron Estate & INA (Institut National de l’Audiovisuel). This was recorded inside the Palais d’Orsay Hotel in Paris on March 10, 1970. The city’s International Sound Festival was being held at the time, and this recording was aired in the “Jazz Vivant” radio show presented by André Francis. The performance here is a first on record, and it captures the renaissance of pianist Mal Waldron, fronting a trio comprised of drummer Christian Vander (co-founder of the group Magma) and bassist Jean-François Catoire (a long-time partner of Vander). Waldron’s career was reviving after his European exile, a lengthy hiatus tied to his patient process of reconstruction after years spent fighting his addiction. In 1969 he recorded Free at Last for the brand-new ECM label (it was their very first production) and two years later he would do the same for the Enja label. Before that, in 1970, he had also toured in Japan for the first time, and it would make him instantly popular there. Before the present concert recorded on March 10, 1970, Mal Waldron had appeared the previous year (a summer gig) in a club at Antibes, the Early Bird, playing with the same comrades, namely Christian Vander and Jean-François Catoire. Many critics had praised that trio’s quality in the media, and the late Maurice Cullaz, a great admirer of Waldron, even went so far as to say he had “rarely heard these three musicians play in such an extraordinary manner.” So it was quite logical, when the trio got together again in March in Paris, that the same cohesion would be apparent in their opening tune “Rat Now,” a theme that had appeared on the Free at Last album recorded for ECM (November 1969) only four months before this concert. The pianist plays throughout in his characteristic style, the left hand accentuating a constant undertow while his right hand releases a controlled energy. Christian Vander’s unbridled percussion gives a free dimension to this tune, which lends a kind of austerity that shows the fundamental influence that the great Thelonious Monk had wielded over Waldron’s piano style, alongside that of Bud Powell: ”After I fell into the depths, I couldn’t find the lyrical side of my playing again. The way I expressed myself had become more dense; it had refocused itself more.” That legacy is even more palpable in the tune that follows, “Champs Elysées,” a composition from the album Impressions (1959). The melody lines, impregnated by the blues, mingle gleefully with the whirling figures provided by Mal and his partners. “Rock My Soul”—and its heady tempo, where once again we can measure the strength and complementary nature of Waldron’s left hand, transmitting a breakneck rhythm beneath the controlled lyricism coming from his right hand—also appeared among the pianist’s recently recorded compositions on the Free at Last session. Vander’s tumultuous drumming here feeds the flow with a robust jazz that is brimming with vigorous phrases; and when the tempo dies down, the double bass of Jean-François Catoire instils a truce that fools no-one: it heralds a feverish finale. The final theme “Mount Fujiyama” was inspired by a trip to Japan that Waldron made in the winter of 1969-70. Here the music carries the imprint of serenity, yet once again it is the reflection of Mal Waldron’s deep-rooted New York heritage. Romain Grosman – Translation by Martin Davies Mal Waldron (Piano) Jean-François Catoire (Bass) Christian Vander (Drums)

In 1957, Miles Davis is in Paris for an engagement at the Club Saint-Germain and a wonderful concert at the Olympia Theatre. Once in Paris, Miles came into contact with many members of the modern existentialist cultural environment in the neighborhood of Saint-Germain-des-Près. These include the director Louis Malle who had just finished his first movie : "Ascenseur Pour L'échafaud". Jean-Paul Rappeneau, a Jazz fan and Louis Malle's assistant at the time, suggested asking Miles Davis to create the film's soundtrack. A private sceening has been organized.
On December 4 1957, Miles Davis brought three French Jazzmen - Barney Wilen on tenor saxophone, René Urtreger on piano, Pierre Michelot on bass and his american compatriot Kenny Clarke on drums - to the recording studio Le Poste Parisien without having them prepare anything. Miles Davis only gave the musicians a few rudimentary harmonic sequences he had assembled in his hotel room. This recording was made at night in a most informal atmosphere.
The soundtrack was not released on it's own in the USA but ten songs from this soundtrack were released as one side of the album "Jazz Track" which received a 1960 Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Performance, Solo or Small Group.
"Ascenseur Pour L'échafaud" has become a great achievement of artistic excellence.

Art Blakey's "Live In '65" boasts an exceptional one-hour concert from Paris in 1965. This performance showcases one of the few undocumented Blakey bands, the New Jazzmen, featuring Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Jaki Byard on piano, Reggie Workman on bass, Nathan Davis on sax, and, of course, Blakey on drums.

Freddie Hubbard's incendiary playing on "Blue Moon" and the blistering 24-minute version of his own "Crisis" shows that he was one of the most innovative trumpeters in jazz history.

On this live session, the audiences seem to have been enthusiastic and appreciative. »Everywhere we’d go people would say, this is the best Jazz Messengers we’ve heard!«, according to Davis. »And because of the way Jaki would play and Reggie would go, it was like a semi-freedom thing – with Messengers heads, you know, but when we got to soloing...! And Blakey was ridin’ and oatin’ the time ... but he would always be loose enough to follow, to keep it going. He’s one helluva musician.«

Re-mastered from the original master tapes.
Limited edition 2000 copies.
180 gr vinyl pressed by Optimal in Germany.

Two days after recording the first album ever issued on the Black Saint label, Billy Harper and his quintet were onstage at the Antibes Juan-Les-Pins jazz festival. Though "Black Saint" is a phenomenal album and is rightfully considered as one of the finest jazz releases of the period, "Antibes ’75" shows that Billy and his men gathered momentum to push the boundaries of their studio effort even further. That night, surrounded by stars, pine woods and a captivated audience, the quintet delivered a powerful and inspired performance. Never had Harper’s signature tunes “Cry of Hunger” and “Croquet Ballet” reached such a soulful expression, and we only wish that this moment of truth would have lasted a little longer. We are honored to present to you this concert for the first time on record, a 180g LP including a 6-page insert with previously unseen photos by Gérard Rouy and Thierry Trombert and an essay by Bernard Loupias.

Donald Byrd's 1958 residency in Paris to study with composer Nadia Boulanger resulted in one of the greatest groups of his career with Bobby Jaspar on tenor sax and flute, Walter Davis, Jr. on piano, Doug Watkins on bass and Art Taylor on drums. Sam Records is proud to present this previously unreleased concert by the Donald Byrd/Bobby Jaspar quintet which was recorded during the evening dedicated to 'Modern Jazz' at the first and only Cannes Jazz Festival on July 11, 1958. The initiative for this unique festival came from Yvonne Blanc, a lady of good society who played the piano and lived between Paris and Cannes. This festival was organised in partnership with the festival of Knokke-le-Zoute, in Belgium.

Style is not a given. Not many musicians reach the level of artistic personality where you can unmistakably recognize them. It takes character, roots, honesty, soulfulness. Nathan Davis had style.
His tone on tenor was unique. So was his soprano sound and his distinctive approach to flute. His musical world was equally original and knew no boundaries.
This concert in Paris is audible proof that as a performer, his fluid phrasing, distinct articulation, booming bottom register, growls and shrieks were fuelled by tremendous drive and furious invention - the man was on fire!
These live sessions demonstrate the limitless invention of Nathan’s solos. Holding no punches, weaving signature phrases, shouts and riffs into his solos, he was a fierce and fervid performer. With a sort of hollow resonance at the heart of his reedy and warm sound, Nathan Davis was a highly original artist, from an era when having a distinct sound on your instrument was the grail of jazz artistry. Harold Land, Jimmy Heath, John Gilmore, Paul Gonsalves, Charlie Rouse, George Coleman, Booker Ervin, Clifford Jordan ... Jazz is made of such giants and Nathan Davis was one of them.

»They’d been living in Europe for months. They’d appeared in Cannes and at Knokke (…) yet the only thing missing was the consecration that a great concert in Paris would bring. They won that last battle with astounding brio, in front of an audience of connoisseurs. There were many there who thought modern jazz had never been so well-served in Paris.« (Jazz Magazine). Hard bop had arrived! Hallelujah! On its first French appearance, in July ‘58 at the Cannes Festival – the first and only Cannes jazz festival – the Donald Byrd Quintet had brought the house down. Yet four of its five members were relatively unknown in France … The French knew that the leader had replaced Kenny Dorham in the Jazz Messengers, that Doug Watkins was the Messengers’ bassist, and that pianist Walter Davis Jr. was still only 18 when he’d played with Charlie Parker. As for Art Taylor, even if his name meant something to fans, it was still difficult for people to have a more precise idea of his musical qualities. Only Bobby Jaspar was well-known to Paris audiences, and the tour marked the return of the prodigal son, the musician who’d decided, after setting the Club St. Germain on fire, to try his luck in the States early in 1956 – J.J. Johnson had hired him, and then Miles Davis (for a short spell) before Donald Byrd brought him into the group he was taking to Europe. This new tour would climax at the Olympia theatre during one of the “Jazz Wednesdays” that were organised there, ever since the "Jazz At Carnegie Hall” tour – Zoot Sims, JJ. Johnson, Lee Konitz, Phineas Newborn – had inaugurated the series a little earlier. Byrd and his band took pains not to disappoint a Paris audience they knew to be particularly fickle, and they astutely varied the public’s pleasures throughout the evening. The complicity that united the rhythm section – Walter Davis Jr., Doug Watkins and Art Taylor – was much in evidence on Ray’s Idea; mistrusting the traps of the spectacular at all costs, Donald Byrd, producing brilliant inventions on the trumpet, took the lion’s share of the honours on a theme that was then much in fashion, "Dear Old Stockholm", adapted from a Swedish traditional song; on "Flute Blues", Bobby Jaspar proved he was still a specialist on that instrument, and Paul’s Pal showed that, on tenor, the playing of Sonny Rollins hadn’t gone unnoticed. It must be said that it didn’t have much effect on the discreet lyricism underlying the choruses he played during his “St. Germain” period. The Olympia spectators weren’t sparing in their applause for the five musicians. How else could they have reacted, faced with the fire the band showed during a tune like "The Blues Walk"? It wouldn’t take much for us to applaud, too, even if it is fifty-five years later…

In its October ‘58 issue, the title carried by Jazz Hot magazine was: »Revelation at the Chat Qui Pêche. The spirit of jazz (which some thought was dying) is sparkling with life in the Donald Byrd Quintet.« And indeed, on its first appearance at the Cannes Festival in July (the Jazz Festival, not the other one), the Donald Byrd Quintet brought the house down. Its members were hardly the Who’s Who of jazz, however. People vaguely knew that the leader had replaced Kenny Dorham in the Jazz Messengers, that Doug Watkins had played bass with them, and that pianist Walter Davis Jr. had been with Charlie Parker before he was 19. As for Art Taylor, if he’d already enjoyed a career longer than that of his colleagues, it hadn’t yet brought him recognition beyond a small circle of cognoscenti. Only Bobby Jaspar – who’d shone at the Club St. Germain – was famous with the Parisian audience.

Stickly Limited Edition 3000 copies. Re-mastered from the original stereo master tapes. Cut by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Mastering. 180g vinyl LP pressed in Marciac, France by Garcia & Co. Deluxe flipback album jacket. Artwork by Jean-Louis Duralek. Sam Records presents:

A never-before released The Heath Brothers 1976 live recordings.

First official release with the full permission and cooperation of the INA (Institut National de l’Audiovisuel).

The Heath Brothers – Paris ‘76 – Recorded live in Paris, 1976.

Sam Records is proud to presents here a live recording the band gave in Paris at Studio 104, Maison de la Radio, on April 16, 1976. In addition to a superb version of ‘One for Juan’, the band perform two tracks from the ‘Marchin’ On! album, ‘Watergate Blues’ and a wonderful version of ‘Smilin’ Billy’.

“That was the first Heath Brothers album. Stanley Cowell had started the Strata-East label with Charles Tolliver, and they engaged us to do a record. It was a family affair, and we adopted Stanley because we thought he was amazing. That was a different type of record for us. We recorded it while we were on tour in Oslo, Norway. We used to get on the train and travel around Europe, and we’d be playing in these cabins on the train. Percy played a bass with a cello body that Ray Brown created, Tootie and I played flutes, and Stanley played a chromatic African thumb piano. People would stop and listen to us on these trains going from one country to the next, and it was something that they liked. It was like a chamber-music group. So we decided to include that sound on the record”.

Source : Jimmy Heath in ‘I Walked With Giants: The Autobiography of Jimmy Heath‘

Jimmy Heath (tenor & soprano saxophone, flute) Stanley Cowell (piano & mbira) Percy Heath (bass and “baby bass”) Albert ‘Tootie’ Heath (drums, flute and African double-reed instrument)Double insert using an original photo by Thierry Trombert. Each record has been visually checked to prevent defects.

Vinyl with scuffs and hairlines