Jazz | Fusion Vinyl 593 Items

Sons And Daughters Of Lite

Release: 1970 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Nucleus's Elastic Rock is undisputedly a milestone in Jazz-Rock. A beautiful and vital debut album, it was first released on Vertigo in 1970. Original copies are now very tricky to score and, like all the Nucleus records, it’s aged ridiculously well. This Be With re-issue, re-mastered from the original analogue tapes, shows off just why this deserves to be back in press.

Genius trumpeter and visionary composer Ian Carr was one of the most respected British musicians of his era. He was a true pioneer and saw the potential in fusing the worlds of jazz with rock, just as Miles Davis and The Tony Williams Lifetime did in the US. In late 1969, following the demise of the Rendell-Carr quintet, and tiring of British jazz, Carr assembled the legendary Nucleus. Regarding music as a continuous process, Nucleus refused to “recognise rigid boundaries” and worked on delivering what they saw as a “total musical experience”. We can get behind that.

Under bandleader Carr, Nucleus existed as a fluid line-up of inventive, skilled musicians. This constant evolution and revolution was all part of the continuous musical exploration and discovery that took jazz to new levels. And the music has kept relevant. To steal a line from a review of our re-issue of Roots, when it comes to anything Nucleus “it’s basically already hip-hop”.

The very title Elastic Rock could be regarded as the group's MO, describing a melting point between their rock and jazz impulses. Indeed, housed in a memorable gatefold jacket designed by Roger Dean, the die cut molten teardrop shape on the front sleeve opens to reveal a fiery volcanic crater. On the back, Dean's drawing has Carr with saxophonist Brian Smith, guitarist Chris Spedding, drummer John Marshall, bassist Jeff Clyne and sax, oboe and pianist Karl Jenkins in a circle, the central core of a movement and the basis for its activity.

Recorded over four days in January 1970, Elastic Rock didn't sound like any other British jazz album. Exploding out the gate, "1916" opens with Marshall's frantic pounding before melancholic horns enter. The smooth title track, "Elastic Rock" is just a gorgeous electric blues track. Light drums, gentle melodic horns, piano and a solid bassline serve as the perfect bed for Spedding's graceful bluesy guitar melodies. The serene "Striation", a Clyne and Spedding collaboration, is led by bowed bass and is the epitome of calm before the late night laid back vibe of "Taranaki" breezes along sweetly and smoothly with great trumpet and tenor.

The truly emotional "Twisted Track" is elegant with horns, while guitar is gently played with drums and bass. Initially deeply soothing, it gradually builds with various solos and duets. "Crude Blues (Part 1)" features an excellent oboe part by Jenkins with laconic guitar helping out. "Part 2" is livelier, with a heavy backbeat and great wind parts. "1916 (Battle Of Boogaloo)" features a steady bassline and great call and response parts from the horn section.

The highly-charged centrepiece of the record, the mesmeric epic "Torrid Zone" features an hypnotic bassline and hi-hat with some of the ensemble's best soloing. Brilliantly encapsulating the jazz fusion aesthetic so desired by the group, the rhythm section is rock-influenced but magically retains a laid-back jazz vibe. Just perfection. Spacey jazz in the style of In a Silent Way, the semi-ambient "Stonescape" features smooth, muted brass, warm, smokey keys and a barely-there rhythm section. Heavenly.

The bubbling, fragile restraint of "Earth Mother" partially utilises the "Torrid Zone" bassline but takes the energy in a different direction with Marshall's frenetic drumming and Spedding's unpredictable riffing. Next comes the very idiosyncratic drum solo track by Marshall in the appropriately-titled "Speaking for Myself, Personally, in My Own Opinion, I Think." The album closes with the raucous "Persephones Jive", a track that ends the album frantically, riotously, just as it began.

This Be With edition of Elastic Rock has been re-mastered from the original Vertigo master tapes, Simon Francis’ mastering working together with Cicely Balston's cut at AIR Studios to weave their usual magic with these wonderful recordings. The stunning die-cut gatefold sleeve has been restored in all its molten glory.

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Let The Sun Shine In

LP | 1978 | US | Reissue (Ubiquity)

LP | 1973 | JP | Reissue (P-Vine)

Release: 1978 / US – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Formed in Oakland in the early 1970s, the Sons and Daughters of Lite recorded Let The Sun Shine In, their only LP, which has now achieved holy grail status among collectors. Let The Sun Shine In is a spiritual recording filled with soul, funk, jazz, and African percussion. The musical collective described themselves as a mix of African rhythms, Latin flavors, and Far Eastern textures. This album was virtually unknown to DJs and collectors until Michael McFadin's discovery in the late 80s. He then scoured the bay area and bought up multiple copies for his record store The Groove Merchant on Haight Street in San Francisco, many of which were bought from flea markets and the dollar bins of other shops. The outrageously funky title track became a jazz dance classic, courtesy of heavy radio and club play by top UK DJ and tastemaker Gilles Peterson.

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Weldon Irvine

Time Capsule

Brian Auger's Oblivion Express

Release: 1973 / JP – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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The impact of Weldon Irvine’s music across a wealth of genres cannot be overstated with his piano playing and compositions regularly handed down through generations, and influencing new waves of musicians. Artists like Q-Tip and Mos Def are noted admirers of the jazz-funk artist, and the distinct sounds of Irvine can be heard in the tapestry of the 90s sound via samples appearing in key records of the jazz hip-hop movement and beyond.

Time Capsule was originally released in 1973, and is keen to strike up a conversation with the listener as social commentary and poetic reflections signpost the way through its otherworldly jazz. Early tracks like 'Feelin’ Mellow' see a contemplative Weldon brew a satisfying blend of soul with lovingly warm vocal harmonies and gliding instrumentation. In contrast, other windows into the mind of Weldon like the meandering 'Watergate - Don’t Bug Me!,' are as much a virtuoso display of his bouncing creativity, as a charting of the rocky political climate at the time.

P-vine is thrilled to be releasing Time Capsule as a limited edition LP with a newly remastered audio, and an iconic Japanese obi strip attached.

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Live Oblivion 2 Remastered Edition

2LP | 1974 | EU | Reissue (Soul Bank Music)

LP | 1980 | EU | Reissue (Jazz Room)

Release: 1974 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Live albums are often a "hit or miss" affair but "Live Oblivion 1 & 2" buck that trend. Recorded across 2 nights in 1974 at the Hollywood venue The Whisky A Go Go. Now released to mark the 50th Anniversary of their recording and release it"s the first ever vinyl reissue since the original releases in the 1970"s.

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Ariel

Release: 1980 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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LP | 1977 | UK | Reissue (BGP / Flying Dutchman)

Lonnie Liston Smith

Live!

LP | 1977 | EU | Reissue (Redi)

Release: 1977 / UK – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Lonnie Liston Smith cut his teeth as a sideman with legendary bandleaders like Art Blakey, Pharoah Sanders and Miles Davis. He first appeared on a Flying Dutchman LP when he played piano on the Leon Thomas album “Spirits Known And Unknown.” from 1969. Bob Thiele later signed Smith and his debut LP “Astral Travelling” under the banner of Lonnie Liston Smith and the Cosmic Echoes was released in 1973. This blend of jazz funk quickly found an audience that led to the follow-up “Cosmic Funk” in 1974. The seminal “Expansions” followed in 1975 which took Smith’s music to a wider audience and is now considered as a stone cold classic.

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Paolo Casa

Nature

LP | 1985 | UK | Reissue (Freestyle)

Release: 1977 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Originally released in 1977 on Edizioni Leonardi’s Wild Cat label, “Nature” is one of the rarest Italian synchronization LP’s, and it is almost impossible to find traces of it among the library music enthusiasts communities despite having been recorded by a real ‘supergroup’ of its era. Finally, thanks to Redi Edizioni, this album is now available on black vinyl, in a sleeve that faithfully reproduces the original artwork.

The musical content of “Nature” is truly excellent: in addition to funk, jazz-rock and blues, Gabriele Ducros’ flute leads the listener towards pastoral atmospheres, typical of the early ’70s folk-prog genre. In addition to Paolo Casa (12-string guitar, Mellotron), this LP sees the participation of Alberto Visentin (piano, Fender, synth), Franco Di Stefano (drums, percussion), George Simms (guitars), Gianni Dall’Aglio (drums), Jeans Orchestra (strings), Mauro Chiari (bass, vocals), Remigio Ducros (piano Fender), Roberto Puleo (electric guitar) and Roger Smith (bass).

“Nature” was also recorded at Piero Umiliani’s Sound Work-Shop studio! A real must for any library music enthusiast!!!

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Ambiance Ii Fusion

Come Touch Tomorrow

Release: 1985 / UK – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Live In Cleveland 1976 Clear Vinyl Edition

Gabor Szabo

LP | 1976 | EU | Reissue (Ebalunga!)

Chet Baker With Bobby Jaspar

Release: 1976 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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“Hungarian guitarist Gabor Szabo (1936-82) issued only three live recordings during his lifetime. Significantly, the first of these, The Sorcerer (1967), remains the most popular album in the guitarist’s all-too abbreviated discography. But there were also More Sorcery (1968) and Gabor Szabo Live with Charles Lloyd (1974), offering Szabo totally in his element and at his bewitching best. Several more of Szabo’s concert recordings have surfaced in the intervening years, including this one, superbly captured for radio broadcast live in 1976 at the 600-seat Agora Ballroom in Cleveland, Ohio. It is a revelation. There is a sense here that concert patrons may have been hearing an altogether different Gabor Szabo than record buyers.

For one thing, Szabo is heard fronting what is likely his own group, rather than an army of studio musicians. In 1976, Szabo was leading a tremendous quartet with George Cables (or Joanne Grauer) on piano, Tony Dumas on bass and Sherman Ferguson on drums. Szabo had not had a band with this much jazz clout since his famed quartet with Jimmy Stewart in 1967-68 – and it is a union worth savoring: Szabo’s records during this period were light, at best, on jazz.

It’s unclear if any of these musicians are on the Agora date, but as Dumas’s “It Happens” opens the program, it’s a good bet, at least, that the bassist is on board here. But as Szabo’s ’76 quartet is not known to have recorded a studio record, Live in Cleveland is the closest thing to what a mid-seventies Szabo jazz album would sound like. Gone, are the strings, vocals, and concessions to commercial consideration so prevalent on so many of Szabo’s studio records at the time. What is present, though, is fine craftsmanship, tremendous interplay, and the exciting improvisation that good jazz always yields.

This particular concert was part of Sansui’s “New World of Jazz,” a series of 13-hour-long jazz concerts recorded at Cleveland’s iconic Agora Ballroom and broadcast over 40 FM radio stations. The series was sponsored by Sansui Electronics, a Japanese manufacturer of audio and video equipment, which previously sponsored a similar series of rock concerts recorded at the Agora as well. Sansui was promoting its matrix QS 4-channel sound system – offering, what was considered at the time, superior diagonal separation and stereo compatibility. The firm, partnering with Agora Ballroom and Agency Recording Studio owner Hank LoConti (1929-2014), was looking to take advantage of what they rightly felt was the then-current jazz renaissance. Each show’s 16-track master tape was mixed through the Sansui QS 4-channel encoder,” according to an August 1976 Billboard article detailing the arrangement, “for distribution to the 40 FM stations throughout the United States that bought the series” – allowing for three commercial spots for local dealers to advertise.”

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Chet Baker In Paris/Vol 3/Barclay/1956

LP | 1986 | EU | Reissue (Sam)

Release: 1986 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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2LP | 1980 | EU | Reissue (RCA)

Perigeo

Alice Red Vinyl Edtion

Release: 1980 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves, Rock & Indie

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LP | 1976 | EU | Reissue (New Platform)

Tullio De Piscopo

Sotto E 'Ncoppa

Release: 1976 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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All Stars 1977 4 Lica Jazza

V.A.

2LP | 1978 | EU | Reissue (Croatia)

Release: 1978 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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LP | 1976 | US | Reissue (We Are Busy Bodies)

Pat Matshikiza

Sikiza Matshikiza

LP | 1973 | US | Reissue (Now-Again)

Release: 1976 / US – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Recording for the As-Shams/The Sun label in the 1970s, Pat Matshikiza released the collaborative album Tshona! with sax giant Kippie Moeketsi in 1975. The album was followed in 1976 by Sikiza Matshikza, Pat's solo debut with Moeketsi appearing as a featured artist. The personnel on the album were an early iteration of the group that would become Spirits Rejoice in 1977, with Duke Makasi on tenor sax, George Tyefumani on trumpet, Sipho Gumede on bass, Gilbert Mathews on drums and Sandile Shange (who appears alongside Matshikiza and Moeketsi on the album's cover photo) on guitar.Pat Matshikiza's mid-70s recordings mark a high point in his career and are essential documents in the history of South African jazz on vinyl. With these reissues, we hope to bring his artistic legacy to prominence and share his work with lovers of jazz around the world.

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Wendell Harrison

Evening With The Devil

LP | 1976 | CA | Reissue (We Are Busy Bodies)

Release: 1973 / US – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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The Tribe co-founder’s debut, remixed from the original mutli-track master tapes under the direction of its creator and lacquered by Bernie Grundman. Now-Again presents the denitive Tribe Records reissues. Deep, Spiritual Jazz of the highest order. The Tribe label, one of the brightest lights of America’s 1970s jazz underground, receives the Now-Again reissue treatment. This is your chance to indulge in the music and story of one of the most meaningful, local movements of the 20th Century Black American experience, one that expanded outwards towards the cosmos. In the words of the collective themselves, “Music is the healing force of the universe.” Included in an extensive, oversized booklet, Larry Gabriel and Jeff “Chairman” Mao take us through the history of the Tribe, in a compelling story that delves not just into the history of the label and its principals, but into the story of Black American empowerment in the latter half of the 20th Century. The booklet features never-before-seen archival photos and rare ephemera from Tribe’s mid-1970s heyday.

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Almon Memela

Funky Africa

LP | 1976 | US | Reissue (Now-Again)

Release: 1976 / CA – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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We Are Busy Bodies returns with a reissue of composter, guitarist, and later producer, Almon Memela's ultra rare 1975 album, Funky Africa. From the original liner notes: Africa has always been many things to many people. To some, Africa is the Dark Continent, a mysterious, romantic and vast expanse of unexplored territory. To others, again, Africa is the ultimate symbol of man's triumph over his environment: a wakening giant destined to play a significant role in world affairs. But to Almon Memela, Africa is Home . . . and his music tells it like it really is. "Funky Africa" is the sound of Africa today. And as you listen, you will find that Africa is indeed many things. For in the music of Almon Memela lies everything that is Africa: the call of the wild and the scream of the Jumbo; the throb of the bush and the roar of Commissioner Street. So here it is . . . "Funky Africa". The sound of Africa, by an African, for the world.

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Phil Ranelin

Vibes From The Tribe

LP | 1974 | US | Reissue (Now-Again)

Release: 1976 / US – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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The Tribe co-founder’s masterpiece, lacquered directly from his master tapes in an all analog transfer by Bernie Grundman. The denitive reissue of this Spiritual Jazz album, one of the most sought after artifacts of the 1970s jazz underground. The Tribe label, one of the brightest lights of America’s 1970s jazz underground, receives the Now-Again reissue treatment. This is your chance to indulge in the music and story of one of the most meaningful, local movements of the 20th Century Black American experience, one that expanded outwards towards the cosmos. In the words of the collective themselves, “Music is the healing force of the universe.” Included in an extensive, oversized booklet, Larry Gabriel and Jeff “Chairman” Mao take us through the history of the Tribe, in a compelling story that delves not just into the history of the label and its principals, but into the story of Black American empowerment in the latter half of the 20th Century. The booklet features never-before-seen archival photos and rare ephemera from Tribe’s mid-1970s heyday.

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Phil Ranelin

The Time Is Now

Haki R. Madhubuti And Nation: Afrikan Liberation Arts Ensemble

Release: 1974 / US – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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The Tribe co-founder’s debut, lacquered directly from his master tapes in an all analog transfer by Bernie Grundman. The definitive reissue of this Spiritual Jazz album which set the stage for his Vibes from the Tribe The Tribe label, one of the brightest lights of America’s 1970s jazz underground, receives the Now-Again reissue treatment. This is your chance to indulge in the music and story of one of the most meaningful, local movements of the 20th Century Black American experience, one that expanded outwards towards the cosmos. In the words of the collective themselves, “Music is the healing force of the universe.” Included in an extensive, oversized booklet, Larry Gabriel and Jeff “Chairman” Mao take us through the history of the Tribe, in a compelling story that delves not just into the history of the label and its principals, but into the story of Black American empowerment in the latter half of the 20th Century. The booklet features never-before-seen archival photos and rare ephemera from Tribe’s mid-1970s heyday.

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Rise Vision Comin

LP | 1976 | JP | Reissue (P-Vine)

2LP | 1987 | EU | Reissue (Left Ear)

Release: 1976 / JP – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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If being the founder and chairman of Third World Press Organisation - the largest independent black-owned publishers - wasn’t enough for activist and poet Haki R Madhubuti, he is also credited with a lesser-known yet remarkable music career. As the bandleader of Haki R. Madhubuti and Nation: Afrikan Liberation Arts Ensemble, Madhubuti combined his razor-sharp spoken-word poetry with a band of incredible musicians to create an unforgettable experience of avant-garde and spiritual jazz.

The first album by the group Rise Vision Comin was released in 1976, and features among others Wallace Roney on trumpet, Clarence Seay on bass and Agyei Akoto on saxophone who also served as creative director. It features 9 tracks with the title track, “Rise, Vision, Comin” a great example of the adhesive comradery between instrumentation and Madhubuti’s spoken-word. On the track, they match each other pace for pace and build into frenzy where they finally reach Madhubuti's prophetic words, “We are what we are, We are what we are not, we are what we are going to be”.

A prominent name in the Black Arts Movement, Haki R Madhubuti to date has published over 20 books with his direct and illuminating form of poetry having shared the same halls as other vital voices in the movement like Audre Lorde and Maya Angelou. P-vine is thrilled to reissue Rise Vision Comin on limited-edition vinyl with a unique Japanese obi strip, and celebrate the music of Madhubuti’s extraordinary career.

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Picture Music

Governor's State University Jazz Band

Release: 1987 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves, Electronic & Dance

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Concocted in a share house in the South of Brisbane in the mid-80s, a small collective of well-acquainted musicians including Jon Anderson, Rainer Guth, Gary McFeat & Rod Owen gathered to compose film soundtracks, music for pictures, therefore ‘Picture Music’. To this end, a ‘spec’ tape of Picture Music recordings would be produced to give to potential clients and or sold to local stores. A distinct album comprising a collection of ambient, minimal-jazz and experimental music. If there is a red thread running through the Picture Music album, it is its "late night" ambience. The wrath of the sub-tropical summer heat of Brisbane is not kind on electronic equipment, which would crash regularly by day. So, all recording was done in the relative cool of the late evening, in a room only dimly lit by lamp and candle. The Picture Music collective would make music and party all through the night, departing around sunrise. They would sleep through the heat of the day, only to return in the evening for more of the same. This 2021 reissue of their self-titled 1987 cassette, was taken from the original master tapes and remains an evocative representation of the music that resulted from the late-night, dimly-lit, atmospheric-enabled environment, that sparked the creativity of a group of like-minded friends in a tiny corner of Brisbane. Dedicated to the memory Rainer Guth.

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Gsu Jazz Live!

LP | 1974 | JP | Reissue (P-Vine)

LP | 1974 | UK | Reissue (Soul Jazz)

Release: 1974 / JP – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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This is a live albumperformed by a band of college students from the Governor's State University in Chicago under the direction of Warwick L. Carter.Although therewere many college bands that existed at the time, this is one quite unlike any other and under the strong leadership of Carter, the group rose to towering heights in a performance very fortunate to be recorded to tape.

The almighty jazz-funk cover of "Freedom Jazz Dance" under the title of "Listen Here" bursts with a strong break, and is full of intense jazz-funk that crosses the bounds of amateur performance into something else entirely. College band performances are often seen as just a means to an end; a necessary development stage before embarking on a career, but this doesn't apply here with renditions packed full of skillfully realised creative ambition owing greatly to the teaching of Carter. The originaledition which was released in 1974is hardly foundinmarkets becauseof its rarity. One of the long awaited reissuesforRare Groove fans is arriving at last on vinyl for the first time in the world!

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Steve Reid

Nova Red Vinyl Edition

Window Of The Mind Black Vinyl Edition

Release: 1974 / UK – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Soul Jazz Records are re-releasing the debut album from the legendary Steve Reid. As a radical jazz artist, Steve Reid played with an extraordinary group of artists - Miles Davis, Sun Ra, Fela Kuti, James Brown, Ornette Coleman, Lester Bowie and many more. He began his career as a teenager in the 1960s as a drummer at Motown. Reid was born in the South Bronx, and grew up in Queens, New York, three blocks away from John Coltrane. In 1969, Reid refused to enlist to the Vietnam war and was arrested as a conscientious objector and given a four-year prison sentence. On his release in 1974, he formed the Legendary Master Brotherhood and the independent record label, Mustevic Sound, to release his debut LP Nova. At the start of the 21st century, Steve Reid began a successful collaboration with Kieran Hebden (Fourtet), who Reid referred to as his 'musical soul mate', resulting in a number of joint albums. Steve Reid died in New York in 2010. Subsequently the Steve Reid Foundation was set up in his name, to help aspiring musicians and artists. "A truly phenomenal artist." Gilles Peterson "Steve Reid is one of the greatest drummers. He is a musical genius." Kieran Hebden (Fourtet)

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Billy Brooks

LP | 1974 | EU | Reissue (Wewantsounds)

2LP | 1980 | UK | Reissue (Matsuli)

Release: 1974 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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2022 restock; LP version. Wewantsounds reissue of Billy Brooks's much sought-after album Windows of the Mind, released in 1974 on Ray Charles's Crossover Records. The album was co-produced by Charles and features such heavy players as Herman Riley, Calvin Keys, and Larry Gales. There's not a huge amount of information to be found about trumpet player Billy Brooks. A solid session musician who'd been around since the '50s, he played with the likes of Lionel Hampton, Cal Tjader, and of course Ray Charles, who signed him to his sub label Crossover Records in the early '70s to release Windows of the Mind. Interestingly, Brooks also appears on Bea Benjamin's 1976 cult classic African Songbird produced by Dollard Brand. Windows of the Mind released in 1974 remains Brooks' only solo album. Windows of the Mind was recorded in Los Angeles and co-produced by Ray Charles. It is a skillful, brass-led mix of jazz and funk performed by such cult players as bassist Larry Gales (Thelonious Monk), drummer Clarence Johnston (Freddie Roach, James Moody), saxophonist Herman Riley (Side Effect, Pleasure, Earth Wind & Fire, Letta Mbulu), guitarists Jef Lee (Roy Ayers, Sylvia Striplin) and cult player Calvin Keys of Black Jazz Records fame. From the groove of "Rockin Julius", "Shetter Cheeze", and "Black Flag" to the mid-tempo jazz mood of "Cooling It" and "C.P. Time" and the cinematic brass pyrotechnics of "The Speech Maker", "Windows of the Mind" is a superb funked-up big band jazz album. Windows of the Mind did reasonably well among the jazz circles when it came out but its fate would change fifteen years later when, in 1990, A Tribe Called Quest heavily sampled its closing track "Fourty Days" for their own "Luck of Lucien" featured on the group's debut album People's Instinctive Travels And The Paths Of Rhythm (1990). The album revolutionized hip-hop and "Luck of Lucien" became one of the album's highlights, thus cementing the reputation of Billy Brooks original LP among DJs and collectors. Original LPs now change hands for a few hundred dollars. Wewantsounds now make this landmark album available again in partnership with The Ray Charles Foundation. Newly remastered audio; comes with original artwork.

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Hugh Masekela & Company

Live In Lesotho

Earth Blossom Deluxe Edition

Release: 1980 / UK – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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“Hugh Masekela and Miriam Makeba’s double-bill Lesotho concert was a daring, defiant and ultimately dazzling act. For the first time since its limited release in South Africa in 1981, Matsuli Music is proud to re-issue this gem of a pan-African, funk-infused, extended audio double album with unpublished photographs and new liner notes from Atiyyah Khan.

The Christmas-weekend stadium-filled concert deeply challenged and disturbed South Africa’s apartheid regime. Makeba and Masekela were banned from entering South Africa, yet tens of thousands of their South African fans invaded Lesotho to party with their musical heroes.

Live in Lesotho documents an inspired Hugh Masekela and his stellar New York band putting a new spin on crowd favourites.

Another South African jazz gem from Matsuli Music’s growing catalogue of essential high-quality reissues. For an artist as prolific and famous as Hugh Masekela, it is a real surprise that this particular recording took so long to resurface.”

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John Betsch Society

LP | 1974 | Reissue (Heavenly Sweetness)

Release: 1974 / Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Preorder shipping from 2024-08-02

LP | 1970 | UK | Reissue (Charly)

Don Cherry

Mu. Second Part

Release: 1970 / UK – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Amigos Purple Vinyl Edition

Santana

LP | 1976 | EU | Reissue (Music On Vinyl)

LP | 1974 | EU | Reissue (Easy Tempo)

Release: 1976 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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180 GRAM AUDIOPHILE VINYL
GATEFOLD SLEEVE
INCLUDES INSERT
FEATURING “LET IT SHINE” AND “EUROPA (EARTH’S CRY HEAVEN’S SMILE)”
CERTIFIED GOLD STATUS IN THE US
REACHED THE TOP 10 WORLDWIDE: AUSTRALIA, CANADA, THE NETHERLANDS,
FRENCH, GERMANY, ITALY, JAPAN, AND THE UNITED STATES

LIMITED EDITION OF 1500 INDIVIDUALLY NUMBERED COPIES ON PURPLE COLOURED VINYL

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Genius

Gula Matari Deluxe Gatefold Sleeve Edition

Release: 1974 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Extremely obscure ‘Rare Groove’ album recorded in Argentina in 1974 and produced by great radio and music producer Mochin Marafioti. It has been impossible to learn who the musicians of the amazing session were. Soul, funk, psychedelia and latin melt into a sort of funkadelic sound. Spoken intro, sensual vocals and a monster rhythm section flirt with wah wah guitars and catchy melodies. A truly hidden treasury brought back to life by legendary Easy Tempo crew and destined to please the worldwide Rare Groove clubbing nation. To the original recording were added Edits by Andrea Passenger done in the spirit of the classic disco music manipulators like Tom Moulton, Danny Krivit and Walter Gibbons. To be played very loud.

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Quincy Jones

LP | 1970 | EU | Reissue (Elemental Music)

Release: 1970 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Artistry Black Vinyl Edition

Sirone

LP | 1979 | UK | Reissue (Moved By Sound)

Sings The Duke Ellington Songbook

Release: 1979 / UK – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Artistry was Sirone's first album as a leader, recorded in 1978, just after the split of the Revolutionary Ensemble. Artistry has an Atypical combination of instruments, bass, cello , flute and percussion and delivers aplenty. Listen and you will know.

Sirone ( Norris Jones) had an enormously prolific career as a bassist, both as a member of the Revolutionary Ensemble and playing with many of the best musicians of the 20th century - from Pharoah Sanders, Albert Ayler, John Coltrane, Gato Barbieri, Noah Howard, William Parker, Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, Sonny Sharrock,Marion Brown ... and the list goes on.

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Ella Fitzgerald

2LP | 1985 | EU | Reissue (Not Now)

2LP | 1981 | EU | Reissue (Outernational)

Release: 1985 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Ella Fitzgerald was, by any yardstick, a remarkable singer. She had achieved much by the time she signed to the newly created Verve Records in 1956, but it was the genius of Norman Granz, her personal manager and Verve founder, in suggesting she tackle the material of great contemporary composers in themed albums that sent her career into orbit. As the New York Times wrote on her passing in 1996, "These albums were among the first pop records to devote such serious attention to individual songwriters, and they were instrumental in establishing the pop album as a vehicle for serious musical exploration." The song selections ranged from standards to rarities, and the eight-title series represented an attempt by Fitzgerald to cross over to a non-jazz audience that may have been unaware of the talents she first committed to vinyl in 1935.

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Creative Arts Ensemble

One Step Out

Ornette, Coleman, Paul Bley, Don Cherry Charlie Haden & Billy Higgins

Release: 1981 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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“Sounds from the Great House! Outernational Sounds proudly presents a Nimbus West spirit jazz essential: the Creative Arts Ensemble’s classic debut One Step Out. Mastered at 45rpm on double vinyl for enhanced sound, this release features all tracks at full length for the first time on wax.

One of the most sought after and highly regarded titles to have appeared on Tom Albach’s celebrated Nimbus West imprint, the Creative Art Ensemble’s One Step Out is a timeless work of spiritualised jazz. A true gem from the Los Angeles jazz underground, the album was pianist and composer Kaeef Ruzadun Ali’s first recording as leader of the Creative Arts Ensemble, the only large ensemble group that emerged directly from Horace Tapscott’s legendary Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra community jazz group.

A Los Angeles native, Kaeef was introduced to the Tapscott circle in the late 1970s. His first experience of the Arkestra’s ethos was through PAPA tenorist Michael Session, who took him to the famous ‘Great House’ at 2412 South Western Ave., LA – a large mansion house which members of the Arkestra had taken over as a space for communal living. Life in the Great House was a continuous stream of music, dance and community events. ‘When I walked in there,’ recalled Kaeef, ‘it was like this whole rush came over me, just from going in the front door…It was like a very, very warm feeling of love. I went and I came out with ‘Flashback of Time’, and that was my first arrangement.’

Kaeef quickly became a significant contributor of compositions to the Arkestra’s songbook – his piece ‘New Horizon’ would be recorded by Horace Tapscott for the latter’s Tapscott Sessions series. But ‘Flashback of Time’ would eventually appear on One Step Out, played by the new group he had put together from stalwart Arkestra members. Inspired by both Tapscott’s example and by the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Kaeef had wanted to follow their lead by assembling a larger unit. ‘I would like to form a group that would be an extension of the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra,’ he told Tapscott. The group was to be known as the Creative Arts Ensemble, and One Step Out, released in 1981 by Nimbus West, was their debut.

Featuring seasoned Arkestra regulars including reedsman Dadisi Komolafe, drummer Woody ‘Sonship’ Theus and altoist Gary Bias, with veterans Henry ‘The Skipper’ Franklin on bass and George Bohannon on trombone, One Step Out is a key document of the Los Angeles radical jazz underground. Featuring the sanctified vocals of Kaeef’s sister, B. J. Crowley, the album is a tour de force of spiritually energised independent jazz music. Community uplift and sacred vision straight from the Great House, back on vinyl for the first time since 1981!

One Step Out is released as a limited, 2LP vinyl-only edition. 180g pressing, mastered at 45rpm for enhanced sound. Fully licensed from Tom Albach.”

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Live At The Hillcrest Club 1958

2LP | 1976 | EU | Reissue (Doxy)

LP | 1978 | US | Reissue (Frederiksberg)

Release: 1976 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Limited to 500 copies, Audiophile Clear Vinyl Series!

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Spirits Rejoice

Spirits Rejoice!

Young Power Red & Black Vinyl Edition

Release: 1978 / US – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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First ever reissue of this excellent self-titled South African jazz album by Spirits Rejoice. Check out tracks like 'Woza Uzo Kudanisa Nathi' or 'Papa's Funk' !

The 1970s is regarded as a period of experimentation, boundary-breaking and hybridization in modern music and this spirit certainly informed the mushrooming of ideas that occurred in South African jazz during this time. In the shadow of more commercial township jive and soul, South African jazz evolved on the fringe, nurtured by passionate and enterprising independent producers who courted the interest of the mainstream with enchanting concoctions of jazz with folk, rock, soul and funk.

With a lineup hailing from far flung regions of South Africa, the mercurial sound of Spirits Rejoice and its willingness to weave a patchwork of different influences into its recordings is not hard to account for. More difficult to reconcile is that the band didn’t manage to level up to the status enjoyed by its peers in larger music markets abroad. Nevertheless, Spirits Rejoice has maintained its revered status in the collective memory of South African jazz for over four decades and their recorded artifacts return in the 2020s with the group’s vitality and energy undiminished.

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Young Power

LP | 1987 | EU | Reissue (Warner)

Release: 1987 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Krystyna Pronko & Koman-Band

Krystyna Pronko

LP | 1974 | EU | Reissue (Warner)

Release: 1974 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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LP | 1974 | EU | Reissue (Wewantsounds)

Ayako Shinozaki

Music Now For Harp

12" | 1985 | EU | Reissue (Glossy Mistakes)

Release: 1974 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Wewantsounds is delighted to announce the first international reissue of Ayako Shinozaki"s hard to find LP "Music Now For Harp" released in 1974 by Nippon Columbia. The LP was released on the label"s cult "Master Sonic" series and features Shinozaki"s harp soundscape on works by renowned composer Toru Takemitsu and Katsuhiro Tsubono. The highlight of the album is the spaced-out, ethereal 25-min ambient epic "Heterodyne" featuring cult musician Takehisa Kosugi (Taj Mahal Travellers, Group Ongaku) on electric violin and sound waves. The album has been newly remastered by Nippon Columbia and is reissued here with its original artwork designed by legendary Japanese graphic designer Kohei Sugiura. It includes a 2 page insert with new liner notes by Alan Cummings.

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Finis Africae

El Pulso De La Madera

LP | 1980 | US | Reissue (We Are Busy Bodies)

Release: 1985 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves, Electronic & Dance

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"Pulso de la Madera" comes as the definitive official reissue of the first album by the legendary band, along with previously unreleased remastered material, on a double LP with extensive liner notes and previously unseen pictures of the band. Essential to revisit the work of a band that inspired fourth world and organic ambient as we know it today; these tunes sound immersive and still contemporary.

On their short but influential career, Finis Africae proposed an informal and decentralized model of creativity that was decades ahead of current practices linked to technological advances; they explored unknown worlds and imagined landscapes of the “fourth world” apart from their present; they neither affirmed nor denied any of the labels they were to assign to them (“New Age”, “ethnic music”, “world music”, etc.); they recreated, used, and nourished foreign cultures without fear.

And most importantly - they shaped a sound “finis”. Your own space. Where there were no rules. A dimension in which the collective was submerged in long sessions of improvisation; where they could be goblins and magical entities; a place where they could imagine scales and structures unreal; where they could play any instrument in the known world; where they could tour the Mediterranean, Africa, and the Middle East in a blink of an eye; where they could be themselves without caring about anything that happened outside.

The unreleased tracks come as a careful selection of a deep-dive over hundred tracks and demos, compiled by Urba and Glossy Mario. The license comes from Juan Alberto Arteche's family.

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Lionel Pillay

Deeper In Black

LP | 1979 | US | Reissue (We Are Busy Bodies)

Release: 1980 / US – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Lionel Pillay’s broad list of associations is a testament to how widely respected he was in South Africa’s diverse jazz scene. In addition to his work with Mankunku, he played with Hugh Masekela in the early 1960s, produced the exquisite long-form recordings “Shrimp Boats” and “Cherry” with Basil Coetzee in the 1970s and collaborated with trumpeter Murray Campbell and saxophonist Bez Martin in the 1980s. However, is it with his 1980 album Deeper in Black, backed by core members of the jazz-fusion supergroup Spirits Rejoice, that his legacy was cemented.Deeper in Black was inspired by the 1969 Blue Note recording of American trumpeter Blue Mitchell entitled Collision in Black and took its name from Pillay’s cover of the album’s Peggy Grayson composition. Pillay’s album featured another two compositions from Collision in Black by way of the Monk Higgins track “Keep Your Soul,” with distinct arrangements straddling Side A and Side B, and Vee Pea’s “Jo Ju Ja” closing out the set. Although the source material was over a decade old when Pillay recorded his album, Collision in Black had struck a chord in South Africa with its first pressing in 1969 and even seen a local repressing in 1978. Blue Mitchell owed much of his popularity in South Africa to a six-week tour with saxophonist Harold Land in 1976. It was during this time that As-Shams/The Sun producer Rashid Vally seized the opportunity to record the Dollar Brand album Blues for a Hip King with Mitchell and Land backing Abdullah Ibrahim. Although the recording and release of Pillay’s Deeper in Black coincides with Blue Mitchell’s death in May 1979, the album was not explicitly promoted as a tribute but did certainly offer a respectful nod to the esteemed trumpeter who was among the few American jazz heavyweights who managed to connect with the South African scene during the Apartheid era.

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Lionel Pillay

Plum & Cherry

LP | 1973 | US | Reissue (We Are Busy Bodies)

Release: 1979 / US – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Following the April 2022 reissue of the album Shrimp Boats, We Are Busy Bodies presents companion titles Plum and Cherry and Deeper in Black to round out a Lionel Pillay and Basil Mannenberg Coetzee “trilogy” as part of the label’s As-Shams South African jazz archive series. The connection between these three albums is tight as the 1987 release Shrimp Boats compiled unreleased recordings from both the 1979 session for Plum and Cherry and the 1980 session for Deeper in Black. These two rare records have been carefully remastered from their original tapes and are back in print for the very first time in over 40 years.Shrimp Boats and Plum and Cherry capture the extraordinary musical chemistry that existed between pianist Lionel Pillay and tenor saxophonist Basil Coetzee in the late 1970s. The respective album showpieces “Shrimp Boats” and “Cherry” each occupy an entire side of vinyl with both exquisite musical journeys clocking in at an epic 25 minutes a piece. While “Shrimp Boats” was an instrumental reimagining of the popular 1951 song by American singer Jo Stafford, “Cherry” drew inspiration from Abdullah Ibrahim at the behest of producer Rashid Vally, who wanted to emulate the success of the famous track that had helped launch his independent As-Shams/The Sun record label in 1974. Ibrahim’s hit “Mannenberg” had also featured Basil Coetzee and it was this zeitgeist South African jazz recording that had given rise to his stage name.Capturing the grace and vitality of working-class township life on the city fringe, “Cherry” channels the type of laid-back Cape groove that Abdullah Ibrahim, recording as Dollar Brand, introduced to South African jazz in the 1970s. On the flip side, “Plum” appears to take its own simple chord change in the same direction before breaking into a chugging 20-minute romp that verges on proto-electronica and on which Pillay hangs all manner of savage keyboard riffing and experimentation. The two distinct flavours of Plum and Cherry make for a well-rounded platter with an iconic cover featuring the work of abstract expressionist painter and As-Shams/The Sun collaborator Hargreaves Ntukwana.

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Virgilio Armas

Espejismo

Release: 1973 / US – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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LP | 1970 | US | Reissue (We Are Busy Bodies)

Virgilio Armas

De Repente

Release: 1970 / US – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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12" | 1984 | CA | Reissue (Morning Trip)

Karma Moffett

Chomolhari

LP | 1974 | EU | Reissue (Speakers Corner)

Release: 1984 / CA – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves, Electronic & Dance

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On 1984's Chomolhari, new age pioneer Karma Moffett eschews the arsenal of Tibetan bells and resonant singing bowls, which he usually uses to conjure his healing ambient works. Instead, he opts for the shimmering arpeggiation and gentle glissando of the Moog synthesizer. With this aural palette, he soundtracks a rich inner voyage of peace and reflection. Bookended by the calming drone of the Tibetan longhorn, the trip to Chomolhari and back is one worth taking again and again.

Karma Moffett reminisces: “Chomolhari. Bhutan’s deeply venerated guardian peak. While living in San Francisco, I wandered into the first Tibet Shop in the city. I met Dorje Lama, the creator.He became my good friend and guide, and introduced me to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa, the venerable Kalu Rinpoche, and Tai Situ Rinpoche. He opened the door to the path of an inspired and enlightened journey for me. After reading ‘Seven Years in Tibet’, I created ‘Chomolhari’ as a mystical journey to the higher planes of the majestic mountains. Dorje would say: ‘The wildest dreams of the Americas are the facts of Tibet.

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Charlie Mingus

Oh Yeah

LP | 1976 | EU | Reissue (Speakers Corner)

Release: 1974 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Commenting on this album in 1962, Billboard magazine wrote: »He seems to be everywhere, everywhere that is but on his usual instrument«. Charles Mingus, one of the most impressive musicians in the history of jazz, doesn’t play a single note on the bass for a change, but leads the band from his (blues-)piano – the instrument that he always used for composing. He hits the keys, he sings the blues, he shouts and he encourages – apparently Mingus really found the need to express himself loudly in this album. (Doug Watkins stood in for him on the contrabass.) "Oh Yeah" is definitely Mingus’s most powerful and passionate album. He calls on two hot, intensive saxophonists – Roland Kirk and Booker Ervin – as well as Jimmy Knepper on the trombone. Kirk is the main soloist, but all three wind-players deliver expressive improvisations, carrying out a non-stop dialogue with one another, and pushing one other to achieve maximum energy. The music is wild and ecstatic, but it’s not free jazz, remaining – as it does – grounded in blues and gospel. "Hog Callin’ Blues" is an enthralling shuffle with a wealth of riffs, "Devil Woman" a clever slow blues with inventive wind figures. "Ecclusiastics", with its constant change of rhythm and expression alternating between gospel and blues has the most complex form. Blues has always been a part of a black church service, said Mingus. "Eat That Chicken" (a homage to Fats Waller and his favourite food) even plays around with an old-time, Dixie feeling. Humour is never far away. Even in the atomic bomb song (this too, a sort of churchy blues) one hears the words: »Don’t let ’em drop it! Stop it! Be-bop it!«

This Speakers Corner LP was remastered using pure analogue components only, from the master tapes through to the cutting head. More information under www.pure-analogue.com. All royalties and mechanical rights have been paid.

Recording: November 1961 at Atlantic Studios, New York City, by Tom Dowd and Phil Iehle Production: Nesuhi Ertegun

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Alice Coltrane

Eternity

Rough & Tumble Tone Poet Vinyl Edition

Release: 1976 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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When the brilliant saxophonist John Coltrane died in 1967, the core values of jazz music had long drawn him into the spiritual world ("A Love Supreme", "Ascension", "Meditations" etc.). His widow and final pianist followed in his footsteps. Alice Coltrane (1937–2007) sought after »cosmic sounds, higher dimensions, astral levels« – she had an important influence on the spiritualised, esoteric music scene of the 1970s. Her first album was only released after John Coltrane’s death, but "Eternity" was already her tenth. (In the same year she founded a Hindu Vedantic Center in California.) The album draws its power from highly contrasted sound worlds. The size of the ensemble ranges from an unaccompanied harp solo ("Wisdom Eye") to a large orchestra with a big band of up to 25 plus a 12-man string section. Alice Coltrane’s main instrument is the electric Wurlitzer organ, whose rasping sound conjures up John Coltrane’s saxophone (especially in the opening number "Spiritual Eternal"). Mostly she improvises modally, sinuously, or with meditative ecstasy – whether in the style of Latin rock ("Los Caballos") or quite without a firm tempo ("Morning Worship" with a tamboura accompaniment). Support comes from such renowned musicians as Charlie Haden (bass), Jerome Richardson (saxophone and flute), Hubert Laws (flute) and Ernie Watts (cor anglais). In the number "Om Supreme" Coltrane switches to a gently swinging Fender Rhodes electric piano, which is joined by a six-voice vocal group. A surprising finale to the album is an orchestral adaptation of an excerpt from Stravinsky’s "Le Sacre du printemps". Here the moments of dissonance and free jazz are far from meditative contemplation.

This Speakers Corner LP was remastered using pure analogue components only, from the master tapes through to the cutting head. More information under www.pure-analogue.com. All royalties and mechanical rights have been paid.

Recording: August and October 1975 at The Burbank Studios, Burbank, CA, and Westlake Audio, Los Angeles, CA, by Baker Bigsby Production: Ed Michael

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Stanley Turrentine

LP | 1973 | UK | Reissue (Blue Note)

Release: 1973 / UK – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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LP | 1974 | EU | Reissue (Speakers Corner)

Andy Bey

Experience And Judgement

LP | 1974 | EU | Reissue (Speakers Corner)

Release: 1974 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Andy Bey was one of the most sought-after vocalists in the era of jazz fusion. Between 1968 and 1973 he was first choice as a studio singer for Max Roach, Duke Pearson, Horace Silver, Gary Bartz and Stanley Clarke, to mention but a few. His warm and engaging baritone voice easily crossed the bridge from conventional blues and gospel to a pugnacious, politicising style of soul – Andy Bey was 'spiritual' in every sense of the word. "Experience And Judgment", his debut album under his own name, was recorded in New York in 1973 and quickly became a cult album. Bey delivers twelve songs in single length, which are full of relaxed, funky grooves, soulful and electrifying, and quite lacking in gimmickry – in many of them a blues number is lurking in the background as a basic idea. His most important colleagues are Wilbur Bascomb, who lets his electric slap bass really thump out, and Bill Fischer who joins in on an electric piano, synthesizer and various other keyboards and really sets off a little fusion firework display. The most powerful numbers come from Andy Bey himself, such as "Experience", "Judgment", "Celestial Blues", "Tune Up" and "Being Uptight" – often powering forwards with a vengeance. Bill Fischer – at that time Artistic Director at Atlantic Records – added a few soul ballads to balance out the LP. This album inspired numerous jazz singers, including Gregory Porter. Jamie Cullum says: »What I love about Andy Bey is that he creates an atmosphere. As soon as he opens his mouth, you’re transported to another place.«

This Speakers Corner LP was remastered using pure analogue components only, from the master tapes through to the cutting head. More information under www.pure-analogue.com. All royalties and mechanical rights have been paid.

Recording: July and September 1973 at Regent Sound Studios, New York, by Bob Liftin Production: William S. Fischer

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Billy Cobham

Total Eclipse

LP | 1976 | US | Reissue (Holy Basil)

Release: 1974 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Ever since his time with John McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra (1971–1973), the drummer Billy Cobham is one of electric fusion jazz’s greatest heroes. "Total Eclipse" was the third album he made as a leader within just a few months, and here again he composed all the numbers himself. In the opening 'suite' entitled "Solarization" (eleven minutes long) he already shows his broad and certainly refined stylistic spectrum. Cobham’s music leaps from high-energy jazz-rock with wild guitar and thundering volleys on the drums to highly original improvisations on the piano and winds. Smooth electric Latin grooves and gripping funky numbers are not missing either. Cobham’s handpicked band is bursting with virtuosos. A look at the names of the three-man wind section proves the point: Michael Brecker, Randy Brecker, Glenn Ferris are highlights in themselves. And the then 30-year-old band leader himself was the non plus ultra when it came to jazz-rock drumming technique – his amazingly rapid drum volleys are just as sensational today as they were then. With this album this exceptional drummer will thrill all fans of first-class fusion sound similar to Weather Report or Return To Forever.

This Speakers Corner LP was remastered using pure analogue components only, from the master tapes through to the cutting head. More information under www.pure-analogue.com. All royalties and mechanical rights have been paid.

Recording: 1974 Atlantic Recording Studios and at Electric Lady Studios, New York, N.Y. by Ken Scott Production: Billy Cobham & Ken Scott

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Modern Sound Quartet

Cocktail Bar

LP | 1978 | EU | Reissue (Speakers Corner)

Release: 1976 / US – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Originally released in 1976, "Cocktail Bar" was the first release of the Modern Sound Quartet ensemble lead by Oscar Rocchi, one of the most brilliant yet unrecognized composer of the library music era. As the title might already suggest, the 14 songs bring an incredibly fresh mix of sounds and flavours, each one named after a different spirit, with every single track floating around different soundscapes and atmospheres. Wether it be a gin & tonic poolside, a melancholic drink of strega on the hills of southern Italy or some kümmel by a dutch canal, this masterpiece has got something for every taste. Now available on vinyl for the first time since its original release as a limited edition of 500 copies.

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Ry Cooder

Jazz

LP | 1978 | EU | Reissue (Speakers Corner)

Release: 1978 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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When someone such as Ry Cooder, who delved deeply into traditional sources, just names his LP "Jazz", it is unlikely that one will hear avant-garde music. Actually, in the numbers gathered together here the investigative guitar man dedicated himself more or less to almost forgotten music. Historically informed, yet not adhering to the original instrumental ensemble, this ostensibly antiquated music enjoys a brilliant renaissance. Just like in an album of charming black and white photographs, the old-fashioned style shines out brightly, such as in "Big Band Bill", which (hardly by accident) is modelled on the jaunty swing of Django Reinhard, but does not imitate him. Cooder’s slightly acidic-sounding guitar mixes homogeneously with the delightfully rustic sound of the tuba and a bluegrass mandolin ("Face To Face…"). The typical Caribbean rattle of the marimba enters into a pleasant dialogue with the warped sound of the slide guitar. Folksy bliss in three-four time ("Happy Meeting In Glory") stands confidently on a par with the merry, self-willed saxophone ("In A Mist") and with the poetic, dreamy and meditative guitar ("Flashes"). And just listen to how the classic number "Davenport Blues" – with its emphasis on the woodwinds – grooves along with the vibraphone and tingly inner parts. This sound is both filled with the spirit of Bix Beiderbecke and, based loosely on Mingus, will sooth the Jelly Roll Morton-soul of its fans.

This Speakers Corner LP was remastered using pure analogue components only, from the master tapes through to the cutting head. More information under www.pure-analogue.com.
All royalties and mechanical rights have been paid.

Recording: 1977 at Amigo Studios, North Hollywood, by Lee Herschberg & Douglas Decker
Production: Ry Cooder & Joseph Byrd

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Al Di Meola

Casino

2LP | 1973 | EU | Reissue (Music On Vinyl)

Release: 1978 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Master of the strings, Al Di Meola, who turn his back on over-ambitious manual dexterity as in "Elegant Gypsy" to concentrate more on musical substance, demonstrates his intensive work with the material in the follow-up album "Casino". For example in "Egyptian Danza", an amalgamation of melodies which circle around one another and evoke with light electronics the contrasting worlds of the Orient, Occident and New World. A far sharper sound is conjured up in "Chasin‘ The Voodoo", which escalates to an extremely tightly-knit continuous fire, infused with the maestro‘s familiar guitar sound. Di Meola - with himself alone - combines the idea of multiple rhythms and parts: In the "Fantasia Suite For Two Guitars", four miniatures with percussive zapateado and whirling flamenco, he accompanies himself thanks to multi-tracking. All great stuff, but the best comes last: in the lengthy title number "Casino" all powers come together to create a magnificent performance with varying tempos, layered patterns, deceptive metrical changes and, of course, guitar playing of the highest order.

This Speakers Corner LP was remastered using pure analogue components only, from the master tapes through to the cutting head. More information under www.pure-analogue.com.
All royalties and mechanical rights have been paid.

Recording: May - September 1977 at Electric Lady Studios, New York, by Dave Palmer
Production: Al Di Meola

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Miles Davis

Black Beauty

Release: 1973 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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2LP | 1974 | EU | Reissue (Music On Vinyl)

Miles Davis

Big Fun

Rock Communication Yagibushi

Release: 1974 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Originally released in 1974, Big Fun presents music from three different phases of Miles Davis's early-seventies "electric" period. Sides one and four ("Great Expectations" and "Lonely Fire") were recorded three months after the Bitches Brew sessions and incorporate sitar, tambura, tabla, and other Indian instruments. "Ife" was recorded after the 1972 On the Corner sessions, and the framework is similar to tracks from that record. Recorded in March 1970, "Go Ahead John" is an outtake from Davis's Jack Johnson sessions.

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Norio Maeda & All Stars

LP | 1970 | EU | Reissue (Wewantsounds)

Seasons Clear Green Vinyl Edition

Release: 1970 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Wewantsounds is delighted to announce the reissue of Norio Maeda"s cult classic "Rock Communication Yagibushi" released in Japan in 1970. The album has since become a Japanese Jazz Funk cornerstone and is now highly sought-after on the international DJ scene. The album reinterprets 14 traditional Japanese folk songs into jaw-dropping Jazz Funk instrumentals featuring killer arrangements by Maeda that would fit perfectly between David Axelrod and Lalo Schifrin. One of the most prolific Nippon arrangers, Norio Maeda on a par with Yuji Ohno and Kentaro Haneda and this album has long been on many collectors" wantlist. "Rock Communication Yagibushi" is reissued internationally for the first time, with newly remastered audio, original gatefold artwork and new liner notes by Paul Bowler.

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Pete Jolly

LP | 1970 | US | Reissue (Future Days)

2LP | 1974 | EU | Reissue (Music On Vinyl)

Release: 1970 / US – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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First ever vinyl reissue of this rare masterpiece - Remastered from the original analog tapes by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio - Includes new liner notes by Dave Segal interviewing Herb Albert and Chuck Berghofer - Pressed at RTI on Clear Amber Wax & Clear Light Green Wax - Originally released on A&M in 1970 - Featuring session heavyweights Chuck Berghofer (bass), John Pisano (guitar), Milt Holland (percussion), Paul Humphrey (drums), Emil Richards (percussion) and Herb Albert (producer) - Sampled by Cypress Hill, Jay Dee, & Busta Rhymes Organic, electric, freeform. Pete Jolly's Seasons is comprised of melodies and textures composed live and without pretense—its grooves contain a complete and divine listening experience that surpasses all others of the era in which it was originally released, coming as close to transcendent musical meditation incarnate as one could possibly imagine. Seasons is an unsung masterpiece of ensemble groove and stellar musicianship, equally unsurpassed and inspired in its quiet excellence.

While Seasons never had significant commercial success upon its release, it has since amassed a cult following, leading collectors to pay top dollar for copies of the rare record. Out of print since 1971, it has only been reissued once on CD. In his liner notes accompanying this release, Dave Segal puts the album’s massive demand in perspective: “British label owner Jonny Trunk put up an original pressing of the LP for sale for an undisclosed but large sum on Instagram in January 2023, and it sold in five minutes. With Seasons back in circulation, maybe Pete Jolly will finally gain the broader audience that his phenomenal skills merit,” writes Segal. “If nothing else, it serves as a valuable lesson to artists: venturing outside of your comfort zone can bring the most interesting, enduring results.”

Remastered from the original analog master tapes by Kevin Gray at Coherent Mastering, this record not only foreshadows the roots of hip-hop but manages to embody the richness of a full album listening experience that few records can offer. Its timeless appeal is rare—and its dynamic range sets it apart as an album that straddles both the jazz and pop worlds in a way that almost no others can. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the changing and complex colors of Seasons for the first time ever since its initial release.

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Miles Davis

Get Up With It

Release: 1974 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Voices & Rhythms Of The Creative Profile Green Vinyl Edition

Harold McKinney

LP | 1974 | US | Reissue (Now-Again)

2LP | 1987 | UK | Reissue (BBE)

Release: 1974 / US – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Voices Of Rhythm & Creative Pro le Is Now Available In A Limited Edition Green Vinyl Pressing The in uential Detroit pianist’s sole 1970s album. Remastered and lacquered by Bernie Grundman. Now-Again presents the de nitive Tribe Records reissues. Deep, Spiritual Jazz of the highest order. The Tribe label, one of the brightest lights of America’s 1970s jazz underground, receives the Now-Again reissue treatment. This is your chance to indulge in the music and story of one of the most meaningful, local movements of the 20th Century Black American experience, one that expanded outwards towards the cosmos. In the words of the collective themselves, “Music is the healing force of the universe.” Included in an extensive, oversized booklet, Larry Gabriel and Jeff “Chairman” Mao take us through the history of the Tribe, in a compelling story that delves not just into the history of the label and its principals, but into the story of Black American empowerment in the latter half of the 20th Century. The booklet features never-before-seen archival photos and rare ephemera from Tribe’s mid-1970s heyday.

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Wütrio

34,84 €* 40,99 € -15%

Release: 1987 / UK – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Spectrum Crystal Clear Vinyl Edition

Billy Cobham

LP | 1973 | EU | Reissue (Warner)

2LP | 1985 | EU | Reissue (ECM)

Release: 1973 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Reissue as a part of the Start Your Year Off Right Kampagne von Warner. Gepresst auf 140g Crystal Clear Vinyl, mit direct to board gatefold jacket / black poly-lined sleeve / Syeor sticker. Cobham's debut record after making a name for himself collaborating with Miles Davis and the Mahavishnu Orchestra remains a remarkable moment in progressive jazz. "Stratus" would later be sampled on Massive Attack's "Safe From Harm" and featured in Grand Theft Auto IV radio. (Original RD: October 1973)

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Mark Turner

Return From The Stars

Release: 1985 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Kimiko Kasai with Herbie Hancock

Butterfly

LP | 1979 | EU | Reissue (Be With)

LP | 1978 | EU | Reissue (Wewantsounds)

Release: 1979 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Preorder shipping from 2024-09-20

This is the 2020 repress. Due to its super-rare status as a Japan-only release, this exquisite collection of covers never got the recognition it deserved at the time, despite incredibly inspired performances from Kimiko, Herbie and the supremely talented musicians assembled for the project. From heavenly drummer Alphonse Mouzon and renowned organist Webster Lewis to bassist Paul Jackson, reedman Bennie Maupin and the master percussionist Bill Summers, the legendary performers crafted amazingly good vocal versions of Herbie / Headhunters jazz-funk.

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Yukihiro Takahashi

Saravah!

Release: 1978 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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27a Raccolta Picture Disc Edition

Fausto Papetti

LP | 1978 | EU | Reissue (Sony)

Release: 1978 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Gigi Masin / Charles Hayward

Les Nouvelles Musiques De Chambre Volume 2

LP | 1989 | JP | Reissue (P-Vine)

35,14 €* 36,99 € -5%

LP | 1970 | EU | Reissue (Sonor Music Editions)

Release: 1989 / JP – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves, Classical Music

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The two emerging explorations of aquatic themes on 1989’s Les Nouvelles Musiques de Chambre Volume 2 were a unique insight into the respective compositional approaches of its two central figures. The split album featured the Italian composer Gigi Masin on side-a with delicate piano movements rippling above undulating electronics. Its second track ‘Clouds,’ has become an ambient standard with Bjork, Nujabes and cloud-rap duo Main Attrakionz all sampling its rich and euphoric tones.

Side-b belonged to Charles Hayward and the twenty three minute sound portrait ‘Thames Water Authority’. A founding member of post-punk and avant groups This Heat and Camberwell Now, Hayward’s natural inclination towards percussive instrumentation is highlighted by shape-shifting cymbal recordings that trace the expansive systems that meander beneath Greater London. The track later appeared on his tribute album to Mark Rothko, fusing its symmetry with artistic abstraction.

P-vine is thrilled to reissue Les Nouvelles Musiques de Chambre Volume 2 on limited edition vinyl with an iconic Japanese obi strip attached.

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Giovanni Tommaso

Indefinitive Atmosphere

35,14 €* 36,99 € -5%

Fred Frith & Totsuzen Danball

Release: 1970 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Giovanni Tommaso is the greatest Italian Jazz bassist and founder and member of the most important ever Italian Jazz Rock ensembles, the Perigeo band. He composed "indefinitive Atmosphere" at the end of 1969, released a few months after in 1970 on Sermi label, and recorded it at Rca studios in Rome. "indefinitive Atmosphere" represents a special album for him and for us as well, since it was his first album released as a sole composer/artist. The Maestro dug in personal archive for us and finally found a copy of the original master tape containing part of the recordings. Besides the misspelled title "Indefinitive" instead of "Indefinite", that became part of the legend here, this album was incredibly ahead of his time, with the young Maestro Tommaso playing electric bass and contrabass a in studio ensemble composed of 3/4 elements plus the strings section, with plenty of stunning Jazz-Funk, Jazz-Rock and Free Jazz tracks. The session is also known for including the legendary American Jazz soprano sax Steve Lacy on the track called "Steve", where he plays a sax solo. We entirely restored the full session from the original tapes found, and digitally remastered the sound for a greater sound experience, chasing the original analog source.

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LP | 1982 | JP | Reissue (P-Vine)

Masahiko Togashi / Don Cherry / Charlie Haden

Release: 1982 / JP – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves, Rock & Indie

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The combined powers of Fred Firth (ex. Henry Cow) and Totsuzen Danball! Originally released on cassette in 1982, the collaborative album is getting its first release on vinyl!

The first album from Totsuzen Danball, Can I? (1981) made waves with its experimental new wave sound, and the band suddenly found themselves with more overseas fans than they knew what to do with. Chief among them was Fred Frith, guitarist and co-founder of British art-rock group Henry Cow, who played with Totsuzen Danball during what was no doubt a legendary live show at Shinjuku Loft on July 23rd 1981. The recording from that night, originally released on cassette from Totsuzen Danball’s own label Floor - is finally getting an analog release! Listen as the sounds, and occasional noises, of two guitars, a pump organ, and drums intermingle to create something that’s never been heard before or since!

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Song Of Soil

LP | 1979 | EU | Reissue (Wewantsounds)

LP | 1970 | JP | Reissue (P-Vine)

Release: 1979 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Wewantsounds is delighted to announce a special edition of the legendary 1979 Masahiko Togashi album "Song of Soil," recorded in Paris with Don Cherry and Charlie Haden and released on Japanese label Paddle Wheel. Supervised by Parisian producer Martin Meissonnier - then Don Cherry"s right hand man - "Song of Soil" reaches heights of spirituality mixing Eastern influences with jazz and deep ambient soundscapes. The album is reissued here with its original artwork and remastered by King Records in Japan. It includes the original Japanese 2-p insert plus a deluxe 8-page booklet featuring new notes (Eng/Fr) by Martin Meissonnier in conversation with Jacques Denis and also an Togashi Biography by Paul Bowler and never-seen photos by cult French photographer philippe gras who witnessed this unique session.

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Sonny Stitt

When Sonny Blows Blue

LP | 1977 | US | Reissue (Etats-Unis)

Release: 1970 / JP – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Groove Diggers is delighted to present a reissue of When Sonny Blows Blue by the legendary saxophonist Sonny Stitt for the first time on limited edition vinyl. Originally released in 1970, this album featured a star-studded line-up with the likes of Herbie Hancock, Grady Tate and Ron Carter backing Stitt across a number of jazz standards. By force of its cast, ‘Summertime’ and ‘Out of This World’, have never sounded quite like this. The gold sleeve returns along with an iconic Japanese obi strip.

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V.A.

Blorp Esette Volume One

LP | 1976 | US | Reissue (Etats-Unis)

Release: 1977 / US – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Los Angeles Free Music Society (lafms) formed in the mid-1970s as a loose-knit experimental music collective and multimedia publishing vehicle. Founded by teenage Le Forte Four members Chip Chapman, Joe Potts and Rick Potts and soon joined by Tom Recchion of Doo-Dooettes, Lafms incorporated free improvisation, modular synthesizers, tape music, sampling, musique concrète, homemade instruments, noise, mail art and avant-rock in permissive and anarchic sessions at the Raymond Building and Poo-Bah Record Shop in old Pasadena. Inspired by The Residents, Lafms self-released records and periodicals, organized performances and connected with fellow outsiders via post in the years before punk. Their uninhibited, egalitarian ideal of music-making and DIY distribution would influence generations of underground musicians. In 1977, Lafms released Blorp Esette, one of several compilations tracking the collective's growth and wild-eyed experimentation. Ace Farren Ford, an early Lafms recruit from the Poo-Bah circle, produced the album and solicited cover artwork by Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart). Ford appears in various configurations alongside members of Smegma, Le Forte Four and "unknown artist" (as the credit for more than one piece reads). The Residents, showing their affinity with Lafms, contributed "Whoopy Snorp" for their first non-Ralph Records release. Blorp Esette shows the artists grasping for new, non-idiomatic voicings and collaborative modes, anticipating Lafms affiliates and offshoots such as Airway, Human Hands and Monitor. A second volume would come out in 1980, featuring Ford's punk band The Child Molesters. If you're looking for the missing link between mid-'70s art practice and outsider music, then look no further. This first-time vinyl reissue is limited to 500 numbered copies. Comes with inserts.

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V.A.

I.D. Art #2 L

Release: 1976 / US – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves, Electronic & Dance

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Los Angeles Free Music Society (lafms) formed in the mid-1970s as a loose-knit experimental music collective and multimedia publishing vehicle. Founded by teenage Le Forte Four members Chip Chapman, Joe Potts and Rick Potts and soon joined by Tom Recchion of Doo-Dooettes, Lafms incorporated free improvisation, modular synthesizers, tape music, sampling, musique concrète, homemade instruments, noise, mail art and avant-rock in permissive and anarchic sessions at the Raymond Building and Poo-Bah Record Shop in old Pasadena. Inspired by The Residents, Lafms self-released records and periodicals, organized performances and connected with fellow outsiders via post in the years before punk. Their uninhibited, egalitarian ideal of music-making and DIY distribution would influence generations of underground musicians. Lafms primarily reached outside Los Angeles via word-of-mouth and the United States Postal Service, foreshadowing the self-publishing and cassette trading networks of post-punk and industrial subcultures. In 1976, Joe Potts solicited recordings from Lafms affiliates and admirers to edit and compile I.D. Art #2, utilizing correspondence art's technique of "assemblings." (The first installment in this series was a magazine, and the third was a coloring book.) Potts received dozens of pieces by members of Le Forte Four, Doo-Dooettes, Smegma and Ace & Duce as well as painters, filmmakers and non-artists with few recording credits to their name, creating a delirious, winking sound-art collage of field recordings, voicemails and improvisations. Participants purchased time on the record and received one copy each of the finished LP, realizing the philosophy contained in Lafms' motto: "The music is free, but you have to pay for the plastic, paper, ink, glue and stamps." This first-time vinyl reissue is limited to 500 numbered copies. Comes with insert.

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Ben Webster

Live At Pio's

Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra

Release: 1974 / UK – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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A great small club date from Ben Webster – different than some of his European concerts of his final years, in that this one was done at a lounge in Rhode Island, and maybe has a bit more bite and focus overall! The tracks are short, and Webster gets superb rhythm accompaniment from the trio of Junior Mance on piano, Bob Cranshaw on bass, and Mickey Roker on drums – who really come out swinging, and push Ben to take some of his boldest solos of the period – plenty of bite throughout, and a fire that you don't always hear on his other 60s recordings. Titles include "Cookin For T", "Sunday", "Pennies From Heaven", "How Long Has This Been Going On", and "Gone With The Wind".

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Flight 17

LP | 1978 | UK | Reissue (Pure Pleasure)

Sextet: Music From The Source

Release: 1978 / UK – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Horace Tapscott's Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra (P.A.P.A.) was one of the most transformative, forward-thinking and straight-up heavy big bands to have played jazz in the 1960s and 1970s. If P.A.P.A. doesn't have the interstellar rep of that other famous Arkestra, and if the name Tapscott doesn't ring bells like Monk or Tyner, there's a reason why: in an industry dominated by record labels, a band that doesn't record doesn't count. And the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra didn't record for nearly twenty years. But recording success was never their concern -- they weren't about that. First formed as the Underground Musicians Association in the early 1960s, Tapscott always wanted his group to be a community project. From their base in Watts, Ugma got down at the grassroots. The group was renamed the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra in 1971, and soon after they established a monthly residency at the Immanuel United Church of Christ which ran for over a decade, while still playing all over LA and beyond. But they never released a note of music. It was the intervention of fan Tom Albach that finally got them on wax. Determined that their work should be documented, Albach founded Nimbus Records specifically to release the music of Tapscott, the Arkestra, and the individuals that comprised it. The first recording sessions in early 1978 yielded enough material for two albums, and the first release was "Flight 17". The album commences with the magnificent title track. It is effectively in three parts. It begins with unaccompanied pianos. Then the ensemble embark on a dense, circular and mechanical movement, a platform for horns and pianos to swoop and dive. We return to Earth with a beautiful solitary flute. The second track, the piano-centric, "Breeze" is different to "Flight 17" in intensity and also brevity but it is quietly as daring as the title track. It concludes with a moving lush wash from the full Arkestra, which sound almost like strings only more substantial. These first two tracks take full advantage of the texture of the unusual mix of the various instruments. Next though, it’s a significant change with "Horacio", which is an exuberant Latin infused jingle. It’s unlike anything else on the album. I like to think it was named after the conductor’s Cuban alter-ego! "Clarisse" gracefully switches between slow blues and bop and is bookended with a grand vaguely East Asian theme. The busy bass line introduces "Maui". As with the previous track, it moves between a number of contrasting melody lines and rhythms but there’s still space for a tuneful sax solo. This is a must-have album. I think the first two tracks on their own make this essential release.

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Cecil McBee

LP | 1978 | UK | Reissue (Pure Pleasure)

Release: 1978 / UK – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Recording with a sextet at the New York jazz club Sweet Basil in August 1977, McBee’s band included Chico Freeman on reeds, Dennis Moorman on piano, Joe Gardner on trumpet, Steve McCall on drums, and Famoudou Don Moye on percussion. Two complete albums of music were released by Enja Records from this engagement, the ground breaking recordings "Music From The Source" [1978] and "Compassion" [1979]. »Few groups today sound as fresh, generate as high an emotional charge, or leave as lasting an impression as McBee’s sextet,« Chris Albertson wrote upon the release of these recordings. »It is as if each member were a unique piece of a puzzle, carefully placed to complete precisely the breath taking picture intended. The music is adventurous enough to satisfy any aural daredevil who has not completely lost his or her sense of beauty, yet all the basic jazz values have been preserved with due reverence.«

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Stanley Cowell

Musa-Ancestral Streams

Shamek Farrah & Sonelius Smith

Release: 1974 / UK – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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"Musa-Ancestral Streams" remains a relative oddity in the pantheon of jazz's black consciousness movement -- a solo piano set of stunning reach and scope, its adherence to intimacy contrasts sharply with the bold, multi-dimensional sensibilities that signify the vast majority of post-Coltrane excursions into spiritual expression, yet the sheer soulfulness and abandon of Stanley Cowell's performance nevertheless vaults the record into the same physical and metaphysical planes. Cowell's energy and touch are remarkable, as if guided by divine power, and for all the music's structural spaciousness and rhythmic freedom, not a note feels out of place, let alone excessive. Most intriguing is "Travelin' Man", an overdubbed 'duet' featuring Cowell on both acoustic and electric piano that underscores his uncommon affinity for space and presence.

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The World Of The Children

LP | 1977 | UK | Reissue (Pure Pleasure)

LP | 1981 | UK | Reissue (Pure Pleasure)

Release: 1977 / UK – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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An amazing session of spiritual soul jazz – and one of the rarest albums on Strata East! Shamek Farrah's soulful alto is matched with the free spiritual piano of Sonelius Smith, for a totally memorable session that virtually defines the essence of the Strata East sound! The music is free, but not too free; lyrical, but never indulgent; and always turning over with a fresh sense of imagination, and a soaring groove that's very much in the classic Strata East mode!

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Creative Arts Ensemble

One Step Out

Ruben Rada & Eduardo Mateo

Release: 1981 / UK – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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One of the most sought after and highly-regarded titles to have appeared on Tom Albach's celebrated Nimbus West imprint, "One Step Out" is a timeless work of spiritualized jazz. A true gem from the Los Angeles jazz underground, the album was pianist and composer Kaeef Ruzadun Ali's first recording as leader of the Creative Arts Ensemble, the only large ensemble group that emerged directly from Horace Tapscott's legendary Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra community jazz group. A Los Angeles native, Kaeef was introduced to the Tapscott circle in the late 1970s. His first experience of the Arkestra's ethos was through Papa tenorist Michael Session, who took him to the famous "Great House" at 2412 South Western Ave., LA -- a large mansion house which members of the Arkestra had taken over as a space for communal living. Life in the Great House was a continuous stream of music, dance and community events. »When I walked in there,« recalled Kaeef, »it was like this whole rush came over me, just from going in the front door -- It was like a very, very warm feeling of love. I went and I came out with "Flashback Of Time", and that was my first arrangement.« Kaeef quickly became a significant contributor of compositions to the Arkestra's songbook -- his piece "New Horizon" would be recorded by Horace Tapscott for the latter's Tapscott Sessions series. But "Flashback Of Time" would eventually appear on "One Step Out", played by the new group he had put together from stalwart Arkestra members. Inspired by both Tapscott's example and by the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Kaeef had wanted to follow their lead by assembling a larger unit. Featuring seasoned Arkestra regulars including reedsman Dadisi Komolafe, drummer Woody "Sonship" Theus and altoist Gary Bias, with veterans Henry "The Skipper" Franklin on bass and George Bohannon on trombone, "One Step Out" is a key document of the Los Angeles radical jazz underground. Featuring the sanctified vocals of Kaeef's sister, B. J. Crowley, the album is a tour de force of spiritually energized independent jazz music.

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Botija De Mi Pais

LP | 1987 | EU | Reissue (Little Butterfly)

LP | 1979 | UK | Reissue (Pure Pleasure)

Release: 1987 / EU – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Recorded between 1985 and 1987, this album brings together the two founders and leading performers of candombe-beat, Ruben Rada and Eduardo Mateo. They hadn´t collaborated in a project since 1969. Both artists had reached their creative prime, with Mateo having released “Cuerpo y Alma” and Rada, “La yapla mata” (which included the classic song ‘Tengo un candombe para Gardel’). 140 gram vinyl with OBI & Insert This initiative sprang from the artists themselves. But when it was time to create, they rarely got together in the studio, preferring to work on their own. Once finished, the album failed to make an impact, since neither of them promoted it. This revival brings that semi-hidden treasure to light. It includes two tracks of the artists strictly performing a duet, the only recordings of Mateo and Rada working alongside each other and no one else. It also contains two additional tracks where you can relish Rada accompanied by Mateo’s guitar and Mateo backed by Rada’s percussion. It includes a track where Mateo commands the instruments (as in Mateo solo bien se lame) and another with Rada’s solo on vocals and percussion. There are instances when Rada’s band of that moment and “super-group” (with Osvaldo Nolé on keyboards, Ricardo Lew on electric guitar, Urbano on the bass and Osvaldo Fattoruso on drums), makes an appearance. Sometimes, Urbano comes forth as lead singer, completing the triad of singers of “El Kinto”. All excellent songs. This album is exceptional and one-of-a-kind, an overflow of talent, musicality, swing, imagination, rhythm, spark, and transcendence. Guilherme de Alencar Pinto

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Babatunde And Phenomena

Levels Of Consciousness

Norman Williams And The One Mind Experience

Release: 1979 / UK – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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This reissue of an LP cut for the Theresa label contains plenty of exciting music. Percussionist Babatunde Lea takes stirring solos and constantly inspires the ensembles and soloists during a generally high-powered set. The musicians were all based in San Francisco at the time, including guest soloists trumpeter Eddie Henderson and trombonist Julian Priester. The music is Afro-Cuban jazz with bits of 1970s electronics and funk added to the mix. But despite some R&B-ish vocals (which dominate a bit during the last few tracks) and commercial moments, the music is excellent, there are some strong solos.

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The Bishop

LP | 1980 | UK | Reissue (Pure Pleasure)

Release: 1976 / UK – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Bishop Norman Williams is an amazing musician. He not only has command of his instrument and music, but a great spirit that reflects a knowledge and love of his people and what they give the world — the same spirit shared by Satchmo, Bird, and Trane. Reign on, Bishop. Michael Howell Bishop Norman Williams is one of those unique talents in music. He has the gift of being able to say what he wants and at the same time say something always significant. He has many influences because he is open to all of the good music of the world. When you hear him play, you feel that he has assembled all of these 'world ideas' in music to speak through his horn. John Handy It’s time. It’s time for all to hear the Bishop proclaim spiritual truths in his church, the One Mind Temple, dedicated to the spirit of John Coltrane. The time is also overdue for all to hear the Bishop proclaim musical truths through the medium of his alto saxophone. My first few gigs in 1962 were with the Bishop’s band. I’ll never forget what an inspiration it was for me learning how to play while standing next to the Bishop, who already had it together. I’m sure after hearing the Bishop, you will also agree that his time has come. Eddie Henderson

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Idris Muhammed

Kabsha

Charles Tolliver / Music Inc & Orchestra

Release: 1980 / UK – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Re-mastering by: Ray Staff at Air Mastering, Lyndhurst Hall, London

This little-known album by New Orleans-born drummer Idris Muhammad (1939-2014) was originally recorded for Theresa at Rudy Van Gelder's studio in New Jersey on September 12, 1980 with George Coleman & Pharoah Sanders on tenor saxophones & Ray Drummond on bass.

The six powerful tracks include originals from Muhammad & Drummond and an impressive version of Billy Eckstine's 'I Want To Talk About You' featuring Sanders.

'Kabsha', which is dedicated to Muhammad's youngest daughter, is recommended to anyone who appreciates inventive and passionate modern jazz.

Drummer Idris Muhammad's strongest jazz date as a leader. Muhammad, who had often been heard in funky or more commercial settings, really excels in this sparse setting, showing off what he learned from hearing bands in his native New Orleans. In addition, both the underrated Coleman and Sanders are heard in top form, stretching out on originals, basic pieces, and "I Want to Talk About You" (during which Sanders lets out a few trademark screams so everyone knows that he is not John Coltrane). Highly recommended. Scott Yanow/AMG

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Impact

Release: 1976 / UK – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Trumpeter/flügelhornist Charles Tolliver often straddled the line between the lyricism of hard bop and the adventurous nature of the avant-garde. Released in 1975, "Impact" contained a stimulating progressive edge within an energetic large band (14 horns, eight strings, and rhythm section) format. Tolliver's arrangements are consistently bright and build momentum, while the soloists are given sufficient room to manoeuvre through the multiple textures. Featured soloists in the remarkable reed section include Charles McPherson, James Spaulding, George Coleman, and Harold Vick.

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Cecil McBee

Mutima

LP | 1981 | US | Reissue (Pure Pleasure)

Release: 1974 / UK – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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A landmark recording in early creative improvised modern music, bassist Cecil McBee's recording for the Strata East label is an important document introducing him as a leader from the international jazz-based scene in New York City via his native Tulsa, OK and following a brief mid-'60s stint in Detroit. McBee as a pure musician has staggering technique, rich harmonic ideas, and an indefatigable swing, but it is as a composer that he is set apart from other musicians of this mid-'70s era. "Life Waves" is a stunning piece of composed and improvised music, with a brief clarion horn section setting off McBee's chordal strumming and harp bop drive. Trumpeter Tex Allen's brash lines, the incendiary tenor saxophonist George Adams, and more thoughtful alto saxophonist Allen Braufman dig into hefty but contrasting solos, while drummer Jimmy Hopps stokes the coals. The other premier piece, "Mutima", has a soaring longer melody switching on and off onto a samba palate that is pretty, beautiful, and much more introspective than other wild and woolly cuts. The legendary but under recognized flutist Art Webb shines on the floaty free "A Feeling", and the atypical but wholly contemporized "Tulsa Black", a portent to the music that would be made later in this time period by Sonny Fortune, and featuring the wah-wah electric bass guitar work of Cecil McBee, Jr. The two-minute "Voice Of The Seventh Angel" sports the disparity of a complex arrangement alongside the beautiful singing of a young Dee Dee Bridgewater, while the marathon "From Within" has McBee performing solo, but overdubbed on two basses in opposite stereo channels, using serene long-toned arco and static pizzicato in arresting sounds that meld into a bridge squawk reminiscent of the saxophone playing of bandmate Adams. In retrospect, McBee's great career was ostensibly launched well before this recording, having worked with prominently with Charles Lloyd, Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Yusef Lateef, Charles Tolliver, and countless others. "Mutima" (translated as "unseen forces") undoubtedly solidified his stature and brilliance as a major player.

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Adele Sebastian

Desert Fairy Princess

LP | 1980 | UK | Reissue (Pure Pleasure)

Release: 1981 / US – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Adele Sebastian was an Afro American jazz flutist and singer, active from the early 70s (when she was still a teenager) until her untimely death at the age of 27 (!) in 1983 from a kidney failure. In fact she had been depending on monthly dialysis to stay alive for years. She lived through and for the music and you can hear it on her only solo album “Desert Fairy Princess” which was first issued in 1981. The mostly acoustic instrumentation brings a very natural and therefore rather retrospective sound considering the year the album was recorded. Adele and her band pull it off right from the start as if it had been 1966 and it was time for a revolution to shake the dust from the old time jazz. In a perfect way she mixes classic American vocal jazz elements with playful and more free passages, Latin music and tribal African sounds in the lengthy and quite rhythm oriented “Man From Tanganyika” and makes the title track start with a mystical “Allahu akbar“ chant while it turns more and more into a dark and gloomy song with something like a psychedelic edge reminiscent of Pharoah Sanders on his early works. Wild rhythms from drums, percussions with tons of bells and chimes weave a thick groove carpet and conjure a magical atmosphere. Those jazz aficionados who love the mid 60s John Coltrane, his sidekick Pharoah Sanders and Alice Coltrane will go crazy for this album.

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John Hicks

Hells Bells

Release: 1980 / UK – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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John Hicks (1941-2006) gave much to jazz over several decades but never really received the appreciation he so richly deserved. As a pianist, he proved himself in the Art Blakey and Betty Carter universities. He was also the prototypical musician's musician, a first-call pianist for many jazz greats and a magnificent accompanist to the art's best saxists, including Pharoah Sanders, Arthur Blythe, Chico Freeman, Archie Shepp, and David Murray.
He was often accused of hovering in McCoy Tyner's shadow, which is unfair and untrue. But he evinced a great fondness for Coltrane's music and was often heard on many a Coltrane tribute, showing affection for the saxophonist and his appreciation for Tyner's contribution to Coltrane's finest music.
Another facet of John Hicks' career, which gets even less attention than his wondrous playing, is his ability to craft identifiable compositions that are wandering and melodic, suggestive and malleable yet memorable all at once.
It would be difficult to conceive the ideal tribute to John Hicks. As a jazz contributor, he wasn't easily pigeon-holed. While he was always a (straight) jazz player, he skirted the edges of free jazz and pure romanticism that neither side ever appreciates in the other. But both camps could find moments of joyous life in all the ways Hicks chose to express himself. He was an unmistakably perfect accompanist in any mode.

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John Gordon

Step By Step

LP | 1973 | UK | Reissue (Pure Pleasure)

Release: 1976 / UK – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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John Gordon, a trombone master, brings us another gem from that most renowned of 70’s record labels, Strata-East. The trombone is a difficult instrument. In the hands of an artist like John Gordon, however, it can create vivid images and conjure up beautiful music. And when the cohort of other players includes the likes of Charles Tolliver & Stanley Cowell, you know you’re in for an extra treat.

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Billy Harper

Capra Black

Release: 1973 / UK – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Shamek Farrah

First Impressions

Release: 1974 / UK – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Harold Vick

Don't Look Back

Release: 1974 / UK – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Norman Connors

Love From The Sun

Release: 1974 / UK – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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LP | 1973 | UK | Reissue (Pure Pleasure)

Cecil Payne

Zodiac

Release: 1973 / UK – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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It's impossible to talk about this album without acknowledging the spectre of death that hangs over it - not only is it the third entry in Strata-East Records' Dolphy Series, a collection of archival recordings from some of the label's close associates honoring the recently deceased multi-instrumentalist, but it is actually dedicated to two members of the band, Wynton Kelly and Kenny Dorham, who died in between the recording sessions and its release. The point is driven home even further by the fact that the album begins with a tribute from Payne to the fallen Martin Luther King, Jr., a piece that acts as a de facto solo for Dorham - his playing all rosy elegance and regal warmth - before shifting into the lighter (though equally coolly-paced) "I Know Love," a showcase for Payne's sax. While not the most somber jazz track ever recorded, this opening suite is a low-key and mournful way to open the affair, but thankfully the album really picks off and shows these musicians more in their element the rest of the way.

"Girl, You Got a Home" is a funky piece, beginning very soulfully with some tight interplay among the rhythm section of Kelly, bassist Wilbur Ware and drummer Albert Heath. Ware is in especially fine form on this track, tying together the disparate passages of the piece by grounding the more ponderous moments in a deep funk, while Kelly's playing is especially ear catching in the way he stabs at his piano like it's an organ. After the first two tracks take up nearly twenty minutes, the four-minute "Slide Hampton" feels almost impossibly brief, a feeling that's enhanced by its quick, jittery, and infectious rhythm, driven by some really dexterous work from Kelly. The final track, "Flying Fish," may be the album's highlight, a Caribbean-inspired composition that casts the rhythm section as flighty ground for both Payne and Dorham to vamp on. The track is oddly danceable for something released on Strata-East, maybe the most fun moment ever for the label, and relentlessly uptempo. Though this release may be in part defined by the deaths that preceded it, it's clear that the recording process was actually a lot of fun for everybody, as their enthusiasm and energy jumps right out of the speakers. This is one of the first Strata East records I really got into and is still one of my favorites, a must-hear for any fans of the flightier moments of Dorham or Kelly's career, and a fitting tribute for both master musicians.

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Stanley Cowell

Regeneration

Descendants Of Mike And Phoebe, The

Release: 1976 / UK – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Around the time of this recording, Stanley Cowell had achieved a degree of prominence as the pianist for the advanced bop quartet Music Inc., which he co-led with trumpeter Charles Tolliver, as well as for unusual projects like his Piano Choir. With Regeneration he chose another path, essentially trying to produce a jazz-infused pop album with strong African roots, perhaps owing a little bit to Stevie Wonder. He assembled an extremely strong cast of musicians for the venture, including Marion Brown, Billy Higgins, and Ed Blackwell, as well as several African string and percussion masters and, by and large, succeeded conceptually if not commercially. A few songs use vocals in a fairly standard pop framework, and, while they are performed capably enough, the lyrical content leaves something to be desired in typical mid-'70s fashion. But much of the rest of the music makes up for this with, among other things, a delightful fife and drum piece by Brown and strong bass work by Bill Lee (Spike's dad). Regeneration is an interesting, often enjoyable album which, aside from its own small pleasures, provides a snapshot of some of the cross-fertilization in genres occurring at the time.

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A Spirit Speaks

LP | 1973 | UK | Reissue (Pure Pleasure)

Release: 1974 / UK – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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One of the most unique albums on the Strata East label – and that's saying a heck of a lot, given the creative energies flowing through that legendary jazz outlet! "Descendents Of Mike & Phoebe" is a righteous little project put together by Spike Lee's father, Bill Lee, and his brothers and sisters (Cliff Lee, Grace Lee Mims, and Consuela Lee Moorhead) – working here in a group named after their slave ancestors, who are paid tribute in a beautifully flowing batch of tunes! Lee's round, warm bass tones are firmly at the head of the group on most numbers – recorded at a similar level to his excellent work with Clifford Jordan on Strata East during the same time – and other instrumentation includes piano from Consuela, flugelhorn from Cliff, and percussion from Sonny Brown and Billy Higgins – all used in a wonderfully evocative style that's even better than some of Lee's later soundtrack work. A few numbers feature vocals from Grace – singing wordlessly and with a really heavenly sort of quality – and together, the whole group have an undeniable sense of power and majesty, yet also one that's touched by a really personal sense of poetry too. Titles include a great version of Lee's "Coltrane", which was more famously recorded with Clifford Jordan.

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Milt Jackson

Sunflower

Thad Jones & Mel Lewis Orchestra

Release: 1973 / UK – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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Recorded over two days in December of 1972 at Rudy Van Gelder's Englewood, New Jersey home studio, vibraphonist Milt Jackson's "Sunflower" is the first -- and best -- of his three albums for Creed Taylor's CTI imprint. (And one of the finest offerings on the label.) With a core band consisting of Herbie Hancock (playing electric and acoustic piano), bassist Ron Carter, drummer Billy Cobham, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, drummer/percussionist Ralph McDonald, and guitarist Jay Berliner. A chamber orchestra exquisitely arranged and conducted by Don Sebesky adorns the session as well. Jackson's "For Someone I Love", opens the five-tune set, with Berliner playing solo flamenco guitar before the vibes, trumpet, and elements from the chamber orchestra delicately, impressionistically color the background. It gradually moves into a languid, bluesy ballad that slowly gains in both texture and dynamic until the strings trill tensely. Hubbard and Hancock engage them in solos that gently swing out the tune. The reading of Michel Legrand's "What Are You Doing for the Rest of Your Life" is a gorgeous showcase for Jackson; his solo dominates the arrangement. Carter gets downright funky on his upright to introduce Thom Bell's "People Make The World Go Round," and Hancock follows him on Rhodes. Jackson takes the melody, striking a layered contrast as Hubbard slips around all three playing an extension of the melody with requisite taste, fluidity, and taut phrasing. Hancock gets funky to the bone in his brief solo, as the vibes soar around and through his phrases. The title track is a Hubbard composition that floats and hovers with a Latin backbeat before shifting tempos as the solos begin. The expanded harmonic palette of trumpet with the reeds, woodwinds, and strings on the melody add an exotic textural palette for his solo. Jackson's "SKJ" closes the set with an old-school, swinging hard bop blues with barely detectable embellishments by Sebesky. While "Sunflower" sometimes feels more like a group session rather than a Jackson-led one, that's part of its exquisite beauty.

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Consummation

LP | 1970 | UK | Reissue (Pure Pleasure)

Release: 1970 / UK – Reissue

Genre: Organic Grooves

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LP | 1974 | JP | Reissue (P-Vine)

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Mulatu Astatke

Ethio Jazz