Jazz | Fusion 213 Items

180g 1LP Gatefold Sleeve

This 200-gram Analogue Productions LP reissue is a magnificent-sounding recording of a historic TV event. For a rare and glorious one-hour nationwide broadcast, CBS brought together 32 leading musicians — a Who's Who of the swing era — including Count Basie, Lester Young, Ben Webster, Billie Holiday, Jo Jones and Coleman Hawkins; the Chicago style players of the same era, like Henry 'Red' Allen, Vic Dickenson, and Pee Wee Russell; and younger 'modernist' musicians such as Gerry Mulligan, Thelonious Monk, and Jimmy Giuffre. These players played separately with their compatriots, but also joined to combine various styles in one group, such as Red Allen's group and the group backing Billie Holiday on "Fine and Mellow".
The one-hour program aired on Sunday, December 8, 1957, live from CBS Studio 58, the Town Theater at 851 Ninth Avenue in New York City.
Columbia Records released this LP in 1958 that is actually a rehearsal that preceded the telecast (recorded on December 4 at Columbia's 30th Street studios), and is not its soundtrack. The recording doesn't include all of the performers on the TV show (Mulligan refused to participate because no additional payment was involved) and includes several who were not on the show.
For this Analogue Productions reissue we started with the original tape and the best mastering available — Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound did a steller job, and naturally, plating at Quality Record Pressings was handled by master plating technician Gary Salstrom. Our 200-gram QRP platters serve up an utterly noiseless background that lets the superior sonics shine through.

Thundercat presents “drunk”- a 23-track epic journey into the often hilarious, sometimes dark mind of the Grammy-winning singer/ bassist - featuring a few of his friends joining him along the way including: Kendrick Lamar, Pharrell, Michael Mcdonald, Kenny Loggins, Wiz Khalifa, Kamasi Washington and Brainfeeder Mastermind Flying Lotus.

A great album by the London-based oufit, one of the hottest
acts on the city's contemporary jazz scene. Led Bib stakes out
a unique spot in the musical terrain that falls somewhere
between the realms of John Zorn, Ornette Coleman, Charles
Mingus and Eric Dolphy, all imbued with a very strong jazz-rock
sensitivity. This double-LP comes on 180-gram vinyl.

Afrobeat legend Tony Allen will release “The Source”, the Nigerian-born Paris-based drummer's debut full-length album for Blue Note Records, following the tantalizing 4-track EP release “A Tribute to Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers”.

“The Source” is the next step in Allen’s musical and spiritual voyage, and a further exploration of his early jazz influences. To share writing tasks and take care of the arrangements, he called on saxophonist Yann Jankielewicz, with whom he has worked since 2009 and the album Secret Agent. They began by getting together to listen to and exchange their favorite jazz records: Lester Bowie, Charles Mingus, Art Blakey, Gil Evans… albums that served as a compass to guide them on their way.

“Tony has never played drums as well as this,” says Jankielewicz. “He's never had as much freedom, never had as much power as he does today.”

Surrounding Allen are some of the best musicians on a Paris scene that is difficult to call “jazz” due to its highly changeable nature: Jankielewicz alongside saxophonists Rémi Sciuto and Jean-Jacques Elangue, trumpeter Nicolas Giraud, trombonist Daniel Zimmermann, bassist Mathias Allamane, pianist Jean-Philippe Dary, and keyboardist Vincent Taurelle, who produced the album with Bertrand Fresel… a French cast to begin with, but with the addition of guitarist Indy Dibongue from Cameroon who, like Allen, contributes an indispensable African sound to this palette. 11 excellent players in total would finally deliver The Source, including one notable guest: Damon Albarn, who adds an ethereal piano part to “Cool Cats.”

The album sparkles in the variety of its timbres and the diversity of its colors. Each of the 11 instrumental tracks—all new originals co-written by Allen and Jankielewicz—bring forward a particular instrument: Giraud's trumpet on “Bad Roads”; the bass of Allamane on “Crusin’”; Dary's piano inside “On Fire,” and Sciuto's bari sax on “Woro Dance.” With “Cool Cats,” it's the turn of Elangue and his tenor, while Zimmerman's trombone is featured on “Wolf Eats Wolf.” And throughout, Tony’s indelible signature, a unique way of hitting skins or a cymbal, its main characteristics a caressing, almost ethereal energy, and a formidable efficiency.

Limited 180gm vinyl LP pressing. 2017 release. For his follow-up to 2016's purely improvised studio recording Strength & Power (a cooperative quartet album featuring pianist Jamie Saft, bassist Trevor Dunn and drummer Balazs Pandi), the ever-adventurous trombonist-composer Roswell Rudd made a decided shift in direction on his first RareNoise Records release as a leader by embracing jazz standards he has loved and played throughout his long and illustrious career. Accompanied by the brilliant pianist Lafayette Harris, upright bass virtuoso Ken Filiano and soulful vocal sensation Fay Victor, the 81-year-old jazz master delivers with rare potency and poignancy on the aptly-titled Embrace. This intimate, drum-less quartet session is brimming with conversational playing between all the participants, with Rudd and Victor partaking in some particularly interactive exchanges on jazz classics like Billy Strayhorn's "Something to Live For," Charles Mingus' "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat," Thelonious Monk's beautiful ballad "Pannonica," the standard "Can't We Be Friends" and the traditional "House of the Rising Sun."

Now reissued on Verve Records.

Miles Mosley is a vocalist, upright bassist, guitarist, pianist, composer and arranger from Hollywood, California. He was named after Miles Davis. A founding member of the acclaimed collective, The West Coast Get Down, Mosley has released albums containing his own solo work, in addition to recording and touring with artists including Jonathan Davis (Korn), Miss Lauryn Hill (as her Musical Director and bassist), Harvey Mason, Kendrick Lamar, India Arie, Chris Cornell, Mos Def, Common and Andra Day. Now he releases his new album in cooperation with Alpha Pup Records. The genre-defying and otherworldly core six-piece band consists of the best musicians taking over the scene today-including saxophonist Kamasi Washington, trombonist Ryan Porter, keyboardist Brandon Coleman, pianist Cameron Graves, and drummer Tony Austin. On “Uprising” they are joined by trumpeter Dontae Winslow and the late saxophonist Zane Musa along with a full orchestra and choir. The members all hail from Los Angeles as a family of musicians that Mosley helped bring together during their formative years, and have imprinted their stamp on the world unlike any other musical collective in recent times. Mosley combines his deep love of songwriting with his innovative, mind-bending, effects-laced upright bass.

Highly Rare is a new mixtape produced and arranged by Makaya McCraven, featuring Junius Paul (bass), Nick Mazzarella (alto saxophone), and Ben Lamar Gay (cornet, diddley bow, voice). Recorded live to Tascam 424MKIII cassette four-track at the legendary Danny's Tavern in Chicago, Illinois.

Following 2016’s definitive collection of singles released by Sun Ra from across his illustrious career, Strut present the second volume of the vinyl edition on 3LP format which focus on Ra’s later 1962-1991 period.
Released sporadically during the three decades and primarily on the Saturn label, the 45s offer one-off missives from Ra’s prolific cosmic journey, tracing the development of his forward-thinking “Space-Bop” and his unique take on jazz and blues traditions which remains unlike anything else from the period. As with the first volume vinyl editions, the collection is hugely varied, ranging from Ra’s spoken word recitations and some of his R&B recordings to alternative versions of Arkestra staples like ‘Love In Outer Space’, ‘Enlightenment’ and ‘Rocket No. 9’. The singles are also unpredictable vehicles for Ra’s music, combining different tracks from different sessions and occasionally making available music which was recorded many years beforehand.
As Francis Gooding describes them, “they are answers to questions that albums won’t answer, and questions that can’t be asked or answered elsewhere.”
As with Ra’s LPs, most 45s were only pressed in small runs and have since become extremely rare and sought after. On the volume 2 vinyl editions, we feature tracks that have only ever been seen via a small handful of copies including ‘Love In Outer Space’ b/w ‘Mayan Temple’ and ‘The Blue One’ b/w ‘Orbitration In Blue’; some were planned and pencilled but allegedly never made it to vinyl and some appeared as limited one-off magazine singles including Ra’s very last single release, the reflective ‘I Am The Instrument’.
Sleeve note writers Chris Trent and Paul Griffiths brilliantly illustrate the role of the single within Ra’s career and break down each release with detailed track by track notes. Working with Sun Ra LLC and Sun Ra archivist Michael D. Anderson, Strut has also assembled the best possible master sources for each track.
‘Singles’ Vol. 2 features fully remastered tracks, rare photos, original 45 artwork,
Chris Trent sleeve notes and detailed track by track and session notes by Paul Griffiths.

180gram vinyl

Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda’s devotion to spirituality was the central purpose of the final four decades of her life, an often-overlooked awakening that largely took shape during her four-year marriage to John Coltrane and after his 1967 death. By 1983, Alice had established the 48-acre Sai Anantam Ashram outside of Los Angeles. She quietly began recording music from the ashram, releasing it within her spiritual community in the form of private press cassette tapes. On May 5, Luaka Bop will release the first-ever compilation of recordings from this period, making these songs available to the wider public for the first time. Entitled ‘World Spirituality Classics, Volume 1: The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda,’ the release is the first installment in a planned series of spiritual music from around the globe; curated, compiled and distributed by Luaka Bop.
This powerful, largely unheard body of work finds Alice singing for the first time in her recorded catalog, which dates back to 1963 and includes appearances on six John Coltrane albums, alongside Charlie Haden and McCoy Tyner, and 14 albums as bandleader starting with her Impulse! debut in 1967 with ‘A Monastic Trio.’ The songs featured on the Luaka Bop release have been culled from the four cassettes that Alice recorded and released between 1982 and 1995: ‘Turiya Sings,’ ‘Divine Songs,’ ‘Infinite Chants,’ and ‘Glorious Chants.’ The digital, cassette and CD release will feature eight songs. The double-vinyl edition features two additional songs, “Krishna Japaye” from 1990’s ‘Infinite Chants, and the previously unreleased “Rama Katha” from a separate ‘Turiya Sings’ recording session.
Luaka Bop teamed with Alice’s children to find the original master tapes in the Coltrane archive. The recordings were prepared for re-mastering by the legendary engineer Baker Bigsby (Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, John Coltrane), who had overseen the original sessions in the 80s and 90s. The compilation showcases a diverse array of recordings in addition to Alice’s first vocal work: solo performances on her harp, small ensembles, and a 24-piece vocal choir. The release is dotted with eastern percussion, synthesizers, organs and strings, making for a mesmerizing, even otherworldly, listen. Alice was inspired by Vedic devotional songs from India and Nepal, adding her own music sensibility to the mix with original melodies and sophisticated song structures. She never lost her ability to draw from the bebop, blues and old-time spirituals of her Detroit youth, fusing a Western upbringing with Eastern classicism. In all, these recordings amount to a largely untold chapter in the life story of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda.
In addition to the recordings, GRAMMY-winning music historian Ashley Kahn has written extensive liner notes on the collection. The package also includes a series of interviews with those who knew Alice best, conducted by Dublab’s Mark “Frosty” McNeill, and an as-told-to interview between musician Surya Botofasina (who was raised on Alice’s ashram) and journalist Andy Beta. 2017 marks what would have been Alice’s 80th year of life, as well as the 10th anniversary of her passing. Alice will be celebrated at events throughout the United States, Europe and South America in the coming year. With this in mind, the time is right to bring this meaningful piece of Turiyasangitananda’s legacy into focus.

Mercury Prize-nominated Portico Quartet has always been an impossible band to pin down. Sending out echoes of jazz, electronica, ambient music and minimalism, the group created their own singular, cinematic sound over the course of three studio albums, from their 2007 breakthrough 'Knee-Deep in the North Sea', and 2010 John Leckie produced 'Isla', to the self titled record 'Portico Quartet' in 2012. Now rebooted as Portico Quartet after a brief spell as the three-piece Portico, the group are set to release their fourth studio album Art In The Age Of Automation this August on Manchester's forward thinking indy jazz and electronica label Gondwana Records. It's an eagerly anticipated return, with the band teasing both a return to their mesmeric signature sound and fresh new sonic departures in their new music. So much so that their four-night run at Archspace E8 (June 22-25) sold out in less than an hour as fans from around the world scrambled for tickets to hear the return of Portico Quartet. Support from Gilles Peterson, Jamie Cullum and similar minded DJs around the world. Airplay from TSF France.Features in Jazzism, Jazzthing, Jazzwise and beyond. Reviews in the Guardian, Mojo, Uncutand more. Full servcing to the Gondwana Records international DJ and radio mailing list.

Limited edition 180gram vinyl edition!
Only one copy per customer!

From the Olympia stage at the end of 1961 to the Discoparade show in the beginning of 1962, the Radio recorded Dalida’s first public recitals. These yet unreleased live versions captured Dalida’s vitality and musical energy during her very first debuts performing on stage.

"louise Bock is one of the performing names worn by Taralie Peterson of that most excellent duo, Spires That IN THE Sunset Rise. And the music on Repetitives in Illocality recalls a few aspects of Spires' recent live shows. It's akin to a dreamily aggressive take on the outer fringes of early ECM-style improvisation. A lovely hover between out-chamber-jazz, new music and the unknown tongue. Using cello, sax and treated lap harp, Louise Bock creates surfaces that are sometimes as chopped as ice sculptures made with a chainsaw, and at other moments as smooth as the soft expanse of Brian Eno's forehead. Those passages where the cello takes the lead are the most serious. Some passages, with their mournful sweep, almost sound like the slower parts of Kodály's 'Solo Cello Sonata.' The treated lap harp has resonance qualities not unlike a jaw harp at times, enabled to produce long tone lines, as well as to wobble like a jaw full of loose teeth. When Taralie's voice comes in, it can almost seem like Martin Rev is playing a solo on an old pushbutton phone while Judy Nylon blows clouds of aether into his wig. But the vocals combine with the sweet saw of cello in an entirely different way. Suggesting snippets of not-yet-discovered operettas about life elsewhere. Meanwhile, lap harp and sax appear to exist in a post-progressive universe where early '70s Gong may have actually had some serious moments. And this is some seriously amazing stuff -- solo, duos, trios and quartets drawn from the deep well of Louise Brock's imagination. Defy illocality. Come close and listen.”—Byron Coley, 2018 Edition of 300.

A download code is included.

Vinyl LP pressing. 2017 release. On the heels of his acclaimed 2016 recording, Cuong Vu Trio Meets Pat Metheny and his 2014 collaboration with electro-acoustic pianist-composer and Director of the School of Music at the University of Washington Richard Karpen on their Ellington-Strayhorn tribute That The Days Go By And Never Come Again, trumpeter-composer Cuong Vu joins forces with guest guitarist Bill Frisell on Ballet, a tribute to renowned composer-arranger Michael Gibbs. With regular Vu 4Tet bassist Luke Bergman and drummer Ted Poor, the four exchange ideas in the moment in a collective fashion on the expansive opening track, "Ballet," which gradually morphs into a kind of quirky, dissonant blues waltz featuring brilliant solos from Vu and Frisell. Regarding this exhilarating Vu 4Tet project, Vu says, "This was a very collective/equal opportunity effort, so we just played and dealt with the cards collectively as they were dealt. I think it just comes down to the collection of players and our individual aesthetics coming together and trying to find a common goal/language." They succeed in triumphant fashion on Ballet, the second collaboration between Cuong Vu and Bill Frisell (their first was Vu's 2005 ArtistShare album Mostly Residual).

An album of originally unreleased Sun Ra, over 50 years after it was recorded, back in print on lightning yellow vinyl!

Sun Ra is still trying to get our attention 50 years after dispatching this transmission. Humanity's path since then makes his message even more urgent today. Years after Herman Poole "LeSony'r Ra" Blount "left the planet" he's still trying to reach us, to wake us up and to change our destiny.

Sun Ra and the Arkestra weren't a traditional studio band, and every star in the vast galaxy of their discography reflects this. The origins of these records can be hard to pinpoint at times, but when it comes to Thunder Of The Gods, it's a bit easier. "Calling Planet Earth - We'll Wait For You" was discovered on tapes from Ra's, Universe In Blue, believed to be recorded in '71. The raucous title track and "Moonshots Across the Sky" are unearthed from the '66 Strange Strings sessions. Modern Harmonic has once again paired Ra's sonic art with the visual art of "The Father of Modern Space Art," Chesley Bonestell, whose 1952 work "Formation of the Earth's Continents" spralls across the front and back covers.

Moondog is the fifth album by American composer Moondog.

Moondog had released no music for twelve years since his 1957 album The Story of Moondog. Finally, in 1969, producer James William Guercio invited him to record an album for Columbia Records.[1]

The resulting album compiled various music which Moondog had been working on since the 1950s. This included two "minisyms" (Moondog's term for short symphonic-styled works performed by small orchestras); two canons; a chaconne in memory of Charlie Parker; ballet music originally written for Martha Graham ("Witch of Endor"); and three symphonic (or "symphonique") works, one of which was dedicated to Benny Goodman and featured elements of swing. A version of one composition, "Theme", had previously been recorded for Epic Records in 1952

Captivating, ethereal and majestic, Mammal Hands unleash their third album, Shadow Work: drawing on spiritual jazz, north Indian, folk and classical music to create something inimitably their own. Recorded at 80 Hertz Studios in Manchester, it is the result of 18 months of intensive touring and mammoth writing sessions. The energy from their exhilarating live performances has fed into the writing process and yet there is a quiet reflective side to this album, giving it an expanded emotional range that draws the listener deep into Mammal Hand’s sound world.

A download code is included.

Soul Jazz Records’ new release ‘Soul of a Nation: Afro-Centric Visions in the Age of Black Power’ is released in conjunction with a major worldwide art exhibition, Soul of A Nation: Art in the The Age of Black Power which takes place at the Tate Modern, London, UK (July-Oct 2017) and The Brooklyn Museum, New York, USA.
The album shows how the ideals of the civil rights movement, black power and black nationalism influenced the evolvement of radical African-American music in the United States of America in the intensely political and revolutionary period at the end of the 1960s following the assassinations of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and the rise of the Black Panther party.
Featuring groundbreaking artists such as Gil Scott-Heron, Roy Ayers, Don Cherry, Oneness of Juju, Sarah Webster Fabio, Horace Tapscott, Phil Ranelin and many others, Soul of A Nation shows how political themes led to the rise of ‘conscious’ black music as new afro-centric styles combined the musical radicalism and spirituality of John Coltrane and radical avant-garde jazz music alongside the intense funk and soul of James Brown and Aretha Franklin and the urban poetry and proto-rap of the streets.
The Soul of a Nation exhibition draws on the links between Black art forms – art, music, poetry - and how they came together during the civil rights and black power era as part of the wider black arts movement across the United States.
Iconic African-Amercian revolutionary figures such as Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Angela Davis, John Coltrane, Muhammad Ali all appear in the radical artworks of Barkley L. Hendricks, Romare Bearden, Norman Lewis, Lorraine O’Grady and Betye Saar.
A selection of original radical jazz record sleeves artworks which appear in Soul Jazz Records’ earlier groundbreaking Freedom, Rhythm and Sound – Revolutionary Jazz Original Cover Art book will also be on show at the Tate, London throughout the exhibition. The Freedom, Rhythm and Sound book is also newly back-in-print in conjunction with this major exhibition and the release of the Soul of a Nation album.
Stuart Baker (founder of Soul Jazz Records) will appear on the panel of Jazz for Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power discussion at the gallery as part of the show.
Soul of a Nation comes with extensive sleeve-notes and exclusive photography in a large 36-page outsize booklet and slipcase. Double gatefold vinyl album edition comes with full colour inners + bonus download code and includes full sleeve-notes/photography.