Jazz | Fusion 382 Items

New label JWM Records launch with the selection 'Music is the Most Beautiful Language in the World'. A vibrant soundtrack to the Cockney Jewish experience, starting when the swinging hot dance bands were still all the rage, and the Yiddish language was spoken on the streets of Whitechapel, in London’s East End. For some, music or acting was a potential way out of the poverty experienced by these first and second generation refugees.

Sounds from long-forgotten 78 rpm discs only recently unearthed, reveal a host of recording artists, united here for the first time. Klezmer fused very easily with jazz, a connection that becomes apparent in these recordings. Hear the legendary dance band figures of the era like Bert Ambrose and his Orchestra, and Lew Stone and his Monseigneur Band, to the relatively unknown Jewish speciality acts like Johnny Franks and his Kosher Ragtimers, and Rita Marlowe, the siren of Yiddish song. Delight in the cheeky street patter of the incomparable slapstick drummer Max Bacon, rejoicing in the East Enders' love affair with ‘Beigels’; celebrate the world famous Petticoat Lane street market with not one, but two fox-trots - but also shed a tear with Leo Fuld, the remarkable Dutch Yiddish singer, whose recordings in post-war London were haunting reminders of a way of life decimated by the Holocaust.

‘Music is the most Beautiful Language in the World’ is compiled by Alan Dein, multi-award winning radio documentary presenter, whose own family harks back to the major wave of immigrants fleeing the pogroms in Eastern Europe from the end of the 19th century. The album title is inspired by a 1920s Yiddish slogan of an East London gramophone record shop, from a time when Whitechapel was a fertile breeding ground for singers, musicians, proprietors of record shops and club owners - according to Dein “their stories are now entwined with the development of the British recorded music industry. But for the first time ever, we can the discover the remarkable sounds of Jewish-themed jazz recorded in London between the 1920s and the 1950s - which thankfully had been preserved within the grooves of ancient discs”.

Designed by Will Bankhead, the LP comes with a fold-out insert, the slip-case CD with a 24 page booklet, both including a detailed essay by Dein, illustrated with rare photos and memorabilia. This release is co-compiled by Howard Williams, who has released a series of compilations spanning Moondog (The Viking of Sixth Avenue), Killing Melody (Japanese gangster soundtracks), cult Japanese jazz singer Maki Asakawa, and several other Japanese retrospectives.

2022 repress

Free your mind and float away, you’re now entering the mode of the Growing Bin. Hamburg’s centre for audio enlightenment is back with another sublime sensory experience, this time from the land of the rising sun.
Keen to get another stamp on his passport, Basso reached out to Japanese duo Singu, two open minded cats who just love to jam. Marrying Kiyo’s free drumming with Keta Ra’s melodic mastery of keyboard and guitar, the two-piece fuse free jazz, post-rock, kosmische and ambient into immersive and esoteric improvisations. Free from any compositional concerns, the Hiroshima outfit trade in energy, emotion and expression.
The frenetic percussion and ephemeral melodies of opener ‘Aurora Gate’ instantly transport you to the breathless churn of a Tokyo crossroads, where thousands of people rush by but you stand still in the eye of the storm. Though they may be explosive, the drums sit back in the mix, offering a soft intensity behind the shimmering wall of melody. A nimble and nuanced affair, ‘Bop’ brings rapid fire rhythm, slick syncopation and hypnotic piano refrains. Cool bass rolls along like KDJ’s ‘Rectify’, as Singu update the acid jazz template like Toshio Matsuura covering Carl Craig. Singu journey from far out to Furthur on Aside closer ‘Nagebu’, strapping in for psychedelic synth wig out which is heavy on the resonance and free on the filter.
Blooming out of the darkness on the B1, Basso favourite ‘Fazaria’ soothes and moves you with its twinkling keys, nebulous wave forms and delicate guitar, leaving you wide eyed in wonder as the drum fills burst like fireworks across a star-filled sky. ‘828’ sweeps into abstraction as Kiyo and Keta Ra combine snapping glitches and aquatic electronics with fractal guitar tones and woozy bass, pushing through a portal to see what’s beyond. An a-grade wall melter, this trip makes great use of tension as the crisp machine drums stand in sharp contrast to the whirring, blurring guitars. Finally ’44’ carries you home on a downbeat drift, a flawless fusion of buzzing electronics, misty pads and relentless percussion played with perfect poise. Turn on, tune in and trip out, Singu bring you music from the moment that you’ll love for a lifetime.

Percussionist Jamie Muir was a member of King Crimson during the recording of Larks’ Tongues In Aspic, in 1973. Staying less than a year with Robert Fripp, the Scot had already cut his teeth with another master guitarist, Derek Bailey, as part of the Music Improvisation Company, along with Evan Parker, Hugh Davies and Christine Jeffrey, whose eponymous 1970 album was one of the first releases on ECM. Muir and Bailey recorded Dart Drug eleven years later, in 1981.

There’s no shortage of great percussionists in the brief history of free improvised music but on the strength of Dart Drug alone Jamie Muir deserves a place at High Table. Unlike for example Han Bennink and John Stevens, though, you can’t hear echoes of any particular jazz drummer in Muir’s playing, even if he has expressed appreciation for Milford Graves (who himself sounded like nobody else who’d come before him).

What on earth did Muir’s kit consist of? Some instruments are clearly identifiable (bells, gongs, chimes, woodblocks); others could be… well, anything. Old suitcases thwacked with rolled up newspapers? Tin cans and hubcaps inside a washing machine? Who cares? It sounds terrific – but if you’re the kind of person who faints at the sound of nails scraping a blackboard, you might want to nip out and put the kettle on towards the end of the title track.

Dart Drug is consistently thrilling, and often very amusing – but it’s certainly not easy listening. In music we talk about playing with other musicians, whereas in sport you play against another opponent (or with your team against another team). Why not play against in music, too? That’s precisely what happens very often in improvised music, and Bailey was particularly good at it. How can a humble acoustic guitar hope to compete with a Muir in full flight? Sometimes Bailey’s content to sit on those open strings, teasing out yet another exquisite Webernian constellation of ringing harmonics and wait for the dust to settle in Muir’s junkyard, but elsewhere he sets off into uncharted territory himself.

“The way to discover the undiscovered in performing terms is to immediately reject all situations as you identify them (the cloud of unknowing) – which is to give music a future.” Bailey evidently concurred with this spoken statement by Muir, including it in his book Improvisation.

Derek Bailey is no longer with us, of course, and Muir gave up performing music back in 1989. All the more reason for seeking out this magnificent, wild album.

180g vinyl including two bonus tracks!

John Cassavetes’ directorial debut Shadows was a largely improvised film set in the bohemian jazz scene of 1950s New York; often referred to as the first truly independent film of American cinema, it featured a brief disjointed soundtrack improvised by Charles Mingus and his saxophonist Shafi Hadi, with various percussionists slotting in, including Phineas Newborn Jr. Gloriously messy, reportedly unfinished and referred to with scorn by Mingus, the Shadows soundtrack sketches ultimately yielded the great ‘Nostalgia In Times Square’ ‘Alice’s Wonderland’ and ‘Self-Portrait In Three Colours,’ all included here – astounding!

The ranks of Camizole included some of the most essential personalities of the French underground, notably Dominique Grimaud (Vidéo-Aventures), Chris Chanet (Etron Fou Leloublan) and Bernard Filipetti (Art & Technique). Their idea of music, if we look further than the pair Dominique Grimaud – Bernard Filipetti and a style of music influenced by Klaus Schulze, is inspired by the liberty of free jazz. This is nonetheless modified by a cathartic approach close to the esthetic preoccupations of Julian Beckand Judith Malina's Living Theatre. The result is a musical happening, where the important thing is to improvise in the urgency of the moment in front of a not-always receptive public.

Before exploring constructed repetitive forms which would be perfected by Urban Sax, Lard Free were more in the domain of noise improvisation, or even a kind of jazz rock similar to that of Soft Machine, as can be heard on a late retrospective album, from which the track "À chacun son Boulez" emerged.

There was logically great complicity between Camizole and Lard Free, which would lead to the two groups finally merging. This was the case for four concerts in May before the two groups disbanded in order to finally get to grips with the free rock in the style of Faust that they liked so much. As an ode to anarchy, a record now bears witness to those communal experiences. 500 copies made. Obi Strip. 8 Page Booklet. Licensed from Camizole.

Includes one bonus track.

Includes two bonus tracks.

Jason Stein is a ubiquitous presence on the world class Chicago improvised music scene and beyond. He's a staunch force with a monogamous passion for his instrument of choice, the darkly sonorous and notoriously difficult bass clarinet. But Stein thrives as a leader also, as witnessed by his critically-acclaimed recent quartet release. However, no other aggregation he works with has quite the road legs, perspective, and intimacy of Locksmith Isidore, his long running trio with bassist Jason Roebke and drummer Mike Pride. Of late, this decade old unit has toured arenas throughout the US opening for comedy star Amy Schumer, who happens to be Stein's kid sister. Presenting avant jazz in such massive venues as Madison Square Garden and LA's Forum has cemented Locksmith Isidore's very special bond, which is more than apparent on their fourth album After Caroline.¨

Now, for the first time ever, the legendary three ultra rare and imposible to find EPs by Mantequilla y su conjunto are compiled in a lavish vinyl LP with remastered sound, featuring liner notes and photos and a fantastic period inspired, three backflaped, front laminated sleeve. It is a stricly limited edition of only 500 copies and they are expected to sell out very soon, do not miss your chance of getting yours - it may be the last chance of chasing the Mantequilla sound on vinyl at a reasonable price!

The Epic is a 172-minute, three-volume set that includes a 32-piece orchestra, a 20-person choir, and 17 songs overlaid with a compositional score written by Washington.

Almost 2 years after the success of the album THE TONY ALLEN EXPERIMENTS and a few months after the release of the 7inch AMORE, Nu Guinea return to the scene with a new LP published by their newborn label NG RECORDS.
After touring the world looking for sounds suitable for their vibrations, NU GUINEA decided to go back to square one, Napoli, where Massimo Di Lena and Lucio Aquilina were born and raised. They watched their city from a distance reconstructing its energy from their studio in Berlin, calibrating the synths on the meridian of Vesuvius, the volcano that has always protected and threatened Napoli.
NUOVA NAPOLI is the result of a long musical research that has become a historical investigation on the sound that shaped Napoli during the ‘70s and ‘80s, starting from the contamination of genres (disco, jazz-funk, African rhythms) which ended up in Nu Guinea’s DNA.
In this album the synthesizers fill the spaces between the past and the future, tightening in a single body acoustic instruments, electronics and voices in Neapolitan dialect. It is the first time that the duo has worked with such a large group of musicians, some of whom are exponents of the contemporary Neapolitan scene.

WARNING: We recommend listening to Nuova Napoli while walking in the alleys of Napoli’s historic center, around wet clothes hanging and street vendors on tiny three-wheelers.

Includes one bonus track!

Hollywood Spritz is a soundtrack to a police television drama from the '70s that doesn't exist, including a Jazz Funk rework of the Charlie's Angels theme. Italian DJ, composer and producer Federica Grappasonni, aka Mistura Pura, looks to the 70’s Golden Age of Hollywood TV and the accompanying music for inspiration.

Combining Jazz, Funk and Latin elements with Afro percussion, Mediterranean harmonies, minimal electronic effects, Hip Hop and Nu Jazz beats, Mistura Pura focuses her sound on the "action" element from these ‘70s soundtracks: scenes depicting danger or tension but also making sure to round it out with moments of love and fun. The presence of percussion in all the tracks with Afro, Latin American as well as Middle-Eastern and Hawaiian polyrhythms round out the album’s edges giving it a languid feel. "Hollywood Spritz" with it’s abundant Latin vibes would be a perfect accompaniment to a police drama set in LA, New York, Miami or any major metropolis with a vibrant Latino community. Another important aspect contributing to this musical work comes from Federica’s extensive, decades-long experience as a DJ digging and spinning rare grooves from Be Bop, Funk, Soul and Bossa Nova. Her familiarity and connection with notable players in the scene gave her acces to record with a talented group of musicians such as pianist Jessica Lauren (Hollywood Spritz, LA Sound 1976, Nuevo Jungo) known for her work in the London Acid Jazz scene, Cuban multi-instrumentalist Lorenzo Patrix Duenas (Looking For The Angels, Intro - The Angels Connection, Charlie’s Angels Theme), Italian Jazz pianist Alessandro Gwis (Angels On A Cruise, Jill Is Dancing In The Dark), Mediterranean flutist Carlo Nicita, the king of the Latin rhythms Hector Barez from Puerto Rico, the cool trumpet of Josh Evans (Nuevo Jungo), volcanic percussion work from Gennaro Scarpato (High Tide At Waimanalo beach), Nu Jazz drums from Lorenzo Tucci (Angels On A cruise, Jill Is Dancing In The Dark (with milonga drums)), with the combination of Lorenzo Feliciati (Angels On A cruise) and Marco Siniscalco (Hollywood Spritz) on Jazz bass, oud musician Jean Pierre Smadj (The Arab Connection), and young Italian pianist Alberto Napolioni (Sunset at Venice beach) rounding out the cast.

At the vanguard of a new unbridled French jazz scene, and attracted to the rich ramifications of modern grooves, the Florian Pellissier Quintet has since its inception in 2002 expressed an attraction for far-flung pursuits; though discernible on previous albums today this fascination is front and center of Bijou Voyou Caillou, the quintet’s fourth album. Featuring Arthur H, Anthony Joseph, Roger Raspail, Nawer. TIP!!!

When Soul-Jazz meets Italian Cinematic Style. 10 cool tracks from a super-groovy combo powered by an explosive horn section and a stunning strings orchestra. Dancefloor Stompers make their debut album on Four Flies Records, recording the music for a TV series that has not yet been written... 100% Black & Cinematic Groove!