Organic Grooves Vinyl 598 Items

Originally released in 1968 as part of the "Serie Sonorizzazioni" series on Piero Umiliani's iconic Omicron label, "Preistoria" is the perfect example of a library music collection perfectly tailored to a theme. Through the use of orchestral accompaniment, jazzy arrangements, and tribal experimentation thrown in for good measure, the legendary Italian composer brings you back to the stone age, creating and ominous and primitive landscape, rich of caveman-style drums and deep bass lines. This extremely sought after gem is now available on vinyl for the first time since its original release, officially licensed by Piero Umiliani's family and available as a limited edition pressing of 500 copies.

Limited Clear Vinyl edition, 300 copies! Dorothy Ashby album from 1961 that also features female vibes player Terry Pollard. Comes with a version of The Skatalites 'Guns of Navarone' which is a pretty surreal listening experience. From the original liner notes: "Dorothy Ashby may not be the first jazz harpist (Caspar Reardon) or the first female jazz harpist (Adele Girard), but her good feeling for time and ability to construct melodic, guitar-like lines, mark her as the most accomplished modern jazz harpist (...) Accompanying her was another Detroit girl, Terry Pollard. Terry's main instrument is the piano and she is one of the best in the country, bar none. She is also a pretty fair country vibraharpist and in this set, Miss Pollard plays vibes exclusively. With them is still another Detroiter, Herman Wright, who like Miss Pollard has worked with Terry Gibbs and Yusef Lateef, and who also served as Miss Ashby's regular bassist. (...) Completing the quartet is Jimmy Cobb, drummer for the Miles Davis group. During the proceedings, Cobb travels between brushes and sticks without upsetting the equilibrium of this essentially quiet set. There is wide range of material presented here, from blues like Benny Goodman's title number, 'Soft Winds', and Miss Ashby's 'With Strings Attached', to movie themes such as 'Laura', 'Wild Is the Wind', and 'The Guns Of Navarone'. Then there are works by such superior writers of standards as Kurt Weill ('My Ship'); Gershwin ('The Man I Love' and 'Love Is Here To Stay')"

In 1959, flutist Herbie Mann put together a very interesting band that was in its brief existence (before Mann's interests shifted elsewhere) one of the top in Afro-Cuban jazz. Utilizing four trumpets (including Doc Cheatham), up to three percussionists and a flute-vibes-bass-drums quartet, Mann performs four standards (including "Dearly Beloved," "I'll Remember April" and "Autumn Leaves") and two originals in a style that was beyond bop and much more African- and Cuban-oriented.

Personnel: Herbie Mann (flute, bass clarinet), Johnny Rae (vibes), Nabil Knobby Totah (bass), Rudy Collins (drums), Ray Mantilla (conga drums), Ray Barretto (bongos except on #8 and #12). Plus trumpet section: Doc Cheatham, Siggy Schatz, Jerome Kail and Leo Ball. Recorded in New York City, 1959

This slice of Louisiana deep Southern soul has taken on a life of its own since Dave Godin included it on his first “Deep Soul Treasures” CD, and the single has shot up to well over three figures in value.

In 2021 the song is the subject of a cover version by the-name-to-drop Lady Blackbird and we felt it was about time that it was reissued in its original format.

Recorded in Stockholm in 1962, and originally released on Sonet Records, these sessions stand as Ayler's first step into a new sonic world. This was when Ayler was still dealing with classic Jazz standards such as "I'll remember April", M Davis's "Tune Up" and "Rollins Tune", a declared tribute to the older master Sonny Rollins. His already super-strong tenor sax voice dominates a quiet, almost shy, local rhythm section featuring Torbjorn Hultcrant on bass and Sune Spangberg on drums. This was just before stepping into his unique, hyper energetic and ecstatic form of Free Jazz. This was Ayler sowing the seeds of a revolution to come!

It is 1960, Rock’n’Roll has just lost a couple of its protagonists during this and the previous year, the time of the great balladeers has just begun but soon will run out due to the new and exciting beat invasion. In US mainstream the tiki culture has reached a certain peak and is about to collapse but still goes strong and with it comes the so called “exotica” music, a crossover between smooth jazz and swing, Latin grooves, haunting melodies that are rooted in the folkloristic sounds from different parts of this world plus weird sound effects that often create a spooky jungle or dreamy island beach atmosphere. It can even bend your mind that far you would see palm trees growing out of your speakers and witness monkeys and parrots having fun in your room. Eden Ahbez, born in 1908, passed in 1995, a man living an even more consistent dropout and hippie lifestyle way before the movement was born in the mid 60s, a beat poet and composer who wrote the hit tune “Nature boy” that gave Nat King Cole his first big success in 1947, approaches the field of exotica music from a different point of view creating an epic concept album about an utopian society living in peace and harmony on an island far away from the modern western world as we know it. And indeed we find many trademarks of the prototypical exotica music beginning with this relaxed groove combining easy listening swing and Latin patterns, peaceful, dreamy and even transcendental vocal melodies, tinges of folk music from around the world including powerful dances and a whole color palette of mind expanding sounds giving the whole music an even greater depth and width.

A deep dive into the one of most collectable jazz catalogues in the world, a selection of some of the rarest and most sought-after recordings from the 60s and 70s, a time when British jazz began to find its own identity. Drawn from the iconic labels of Decca, Deram, Argo, EMI Columbia/Lansdowne Series, Fontana, Mercury, & Philips. Kenny Wheeler was born Canada in 1930 and, with encouragement from his father - himself a trombone player - began playing trumpet at age 12. After studying at Toronto’s Royal Conservatory, he arrived in London in 1952, his playing enveloped in the sounds of Miles Davis, Booker Little, and Fats Navarro. In 1959, Wheeler joined the Johnny Dankworth Orchestra and stayed there until 1963, although he returned frequently for shows and other projects in the years that followed. He quickly become a distinguished soloist in the Orchestra and appeared on Dankworth’s key sixties albums. Wheeler met and played with the rising artists of London’s free jazz scene. Players such as Trevor Watts, Derek Bailey, and Evan Parker, musicians who would challenge the conventions of the day, eschewing formal composition and structure to embark on group improvisation. For a musician thoroughly schooled in all the conventions of charts and dance bands as Wheeler was, this was a radical departure. Wheeler’s contributions proved his ample flexibility and showed he was capable of inhabiting both the free environment and the more formal and controlled settings of a big band and orchestra. This was shown most clearly on his debut album, Windmill Tilter, recorded for Fontana with the John Dankworth Orchestra. The album features a young John McLaughlin on guitar along with bassist Dave Holland and a roster of talented and well respected musicians playing on one of the greatest modern jazz big band and orchestral albums.

A deep dive into the one of most collectable jazz catalogues in the world, a selection of some of the rarest and most sought-after recordings from the 60s and 70s, a time when British jazz began to find its own identity. Drawn from the iconic labels of Decca, Deram, Argo, EMI Columbia/Lansdowne Series, Fontana, Mercury, & Philips. If one were asked to pick an album that represented the best of British jazz in the 1960s, Le Déjeuner Sur l’Herbe by the New Jazz Orchestra would be a serious contender. Recorded in September 1968, it draws together many of the key streams that had developed in British jazz in the preceding years, and also presages much of what was to come. Notwithstanding the line-up, which includes some of the very best British jazz musicians directed by an inventive and ingenious leader in Neil Ardley, the session features pieces written by the most distinctive jazz composers active in Britain at that time alongside idiosyncratic interpretations of works by John Coltrane and Miles Davis. And it’s all captured beautifully by engineer Howard Barrow and producer Tony Reeves and it features a stella cast of some of the greatest musicians, not just from that era or genre but beyond; Jack Bruce, who would become one of the founding members of Cream, Barbara Thompson, Ian Carr, Michael Gibbs, Dave Gelly, Dick Heckstall-Smith and Jon Hiseman, who went on to form one of the greatest jazz/progressive/rock bands – Colosseum.

"Polk Salad Annie" was the song and cadence for delivering White's unmistakable swamp rock sound, which called to mind the sound John Fogerty whipped up on Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Bayou Country" and "Green River". Released in 1969, White's album debut "Black And White" contains some of the best swamp-folk-soul-funk of the era. White grew up in the soggy marshlands of Louisiana, his real-deal deep voice sounding like it's dredged from the bottom of the Delta. Rural life in the dirty south provided the inspiration for witty, sometimes funny, and sometimes poignant lyrics (later Tony Joe would pen the smash "Rainy Night In Georgia"). This Analogue Productions edition is the highest-quality reissue of "Black And White" released to date. It was mastered from the original analog tape by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio, and features unsurpassed plating and pressing on 200-gram heavyweight vinyl by Quality Record Pressings, makers of the finest-sounding LPs in the world. The dead-silent LP playing surface captures White's voice and his strong and funky backing band in true analog majesty. Besides "Annie", side one of "Black And White" includes several other White originals. AllMusic judges the best of these to be "Willie And Laura Mae Jones", a song about race relations with an arrangement similar to "Ballad Of Billie Joe", and "Soul Francisco", a short piece of funky fluff that had been a big hit in Europe in 1968. "Aspen, Colorado" presages the later "Rainy Night in Georgia," a White composition popularized by Brook Benton. The second side of Black and White consists of covers of hits of the era, with the funky "Who's Making Love" and "Scratch My Back" faring better than the slow stuff. Dusty Springfield had a minor hit with "Willie And Laura Mae Jones", and White's songs were recorded by other performers through the years, but "Polk Salad Annie" and the gators that got her granny provided his only march in the American hit parade. Highly recommended for fans of Creedence Clearwater Revival, J.J. Cale, and 1960s soul!

First released in Brazil in 1960 this is Joao Gilberto's second studio effort. A seminal album that just one year later introduced Bossa Nova to the United States. Joao Gilberto, one of the true masters of the genre, displays a great selection of songs including various Tom Jobim's classic gems such as "Samba de Uma Nota Só" ("One Note Samba"), "Corcovado" and "Outra Vez". An essential piece of work in the whole history of Brazilian music.

Reissued and remastered with replica artwork - the highly sort after classic rare groove track, 'Iron Leg' by DJ Shadow's favourite Funk band, Mickey & The Soul Generation.

Original copies trade hands for £125+. Black 7" dinked centre hole vinyl.

"Recorded for Berry Gordy's short-lived Workshop Jazz imprint, Roy Brooks' simply but authoritatively titled Beat fuses the intellectual rigors of the modern idiom with the physical prowess of soul-jazz to create a record of uncommon scope and reach. Working with Horace Silver Quintet colleagues Blue Mitchell, Junior Cook, and Gene Taylor alongside Detroit contemporaries George Bohanon and Hugh Lawson, Brooks channels influences spanning the breadth of the Motor City scene, resulting in a clutch of challenging but engaging performances with the unmistakable patina of the embryonic Motown sound. While their technical proficiency is stunning, Brooks' rhythms never lose sight of the almighty groove, and for its hard bop stridency, the record has the proverbial good beat and you can dance to it."

American Rhythm 'n' Blues singer Nathaniel Mayer (1944-2008) is mostly remembered for his raw vocal timbre and for his particularly wild live act. Originally released in 1963 on Detroit based label Fortune Records, "Going Back To The Village Of Love" still sounds like an incredibly explosive hyper-energetic irreverent piece of pure Detroit sound.