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Merope's most experimental and open-minded full length to date, Vėjula is a celebration of collaboration and playfulness, and features appearances from Shahzad Ismaily, Laraaji and Bill Frisell. Like its predecessors, the duo's fifth album still roots itself in Lithuanian folk forms, but sprouts out spiritedly from that point into unfamiliar landscapes, muddling ancient themes with contemporary philosophies, concepts and technology. Delicate instrumental sequences and ethereal vocals are woven into a rich tapestry of subtle synth work and evocative field recordings. On 'Kouma lil', Indrė Jurgelevičiūtė and Bert Cools experiment with digital images of the kanklės (a traditional Lithuanian chordophone), and Jurgelevičiūtė's voice, blurring the boundary between the organic and the artificial, while on 'Suiakmo, French percussionist Toma Gouband adds percussion from his custom-made sounding stones to Jurgelevičiūtė's gentle words and Cools' surreal, sensuous electronics. 'Vėjula' is an album that reaches into the unknown without loosing its tight grip on the past. Merope are in a new creative phase of their career, and they've never sounded quite so universal, or so vital.

Limited edition of 200 copies for the 2023 Summer of Jazz campaign, focused on South-African jazz. Only available at HHV.

The Mankunku Quartet's 1968 album 'Yakhal' Inkomo’ clocks in at just over 30 minutes of jazz perfection. This compact, and to-the-point, album would sit comfortably in amongst some of the best works in the catalogues of any of the quintessential jazz labels such as Blue Note, Prestige and Impulse. 'Yakhal' Inkomo’, however, was originally released on the South African record label World Record Co., which resulted in it becoming an elusive and sought-after piece for jazz collectors. First press copies sometimes fetch as much as £1,000 on the collectors' market. It has been long regarded as one of the finest South African jazz albums and DJ / broadcaster Gilles Peterson cemented this when he included it in his "best of genre" focussed radio show, 'The 20 - South African Jazz'. Tenor saxophonist Winston "Mankunku" Ngozi recorded the session on 23rd July 1968 at the Manley van Niekerk Studios, in Johannesburg. It was recorded by Dave Challen and produced by Ray Nkwe. The session is built up of two original works by Mankunku on the A-side, 'Yakhal' Inkomo' & 'Dedication (To Daddy Trane and Brother Shorter)', and on the B-side, the Horace Silver composition 'Doodlin', and a John Coltrane number 'Bessie's Blues'. What is striking is how the Mankunku-penned compositions not only hold their own next to Silver and Coltrane but they are, arguably, the better tracks on the record - a testament to the beautiful writing and playing of Mankunku. 'Yakhal' Inkomo' features the great musicians; Agrippa Magwaza on bass, drummer Early Mabuza, and pianist Lionel Pillay. Pillay was of Indian descent, making this a mixed-race group, thus the very recording of the album was an act of resistance as it broke the apartheid restrictions of the time. The title of 'Yakhal’ Inkomo' means “the bellow of the bull”, the Black audience would have understood this as coded community symbolism and an act of protest but it escaped the attention of the white government. For this edition, we have enlisted the services of Abbey Road Studios mastering, and lacquer-cutting engineer Miles Showell to cut a special half-speed master from the audio taken off the original master tapes. Miles has previously worked on our Arthur Verocai, Marcos Valle and Ian Carr re-issues, and once again we are blown away by the richness and clarity of Miles' work. We have also presented it as a replica copy using the cover artwork and labels from the primary World Record Co. original version. On the sleeve notes, Ray Nkwe the producer and the President of the Jazz Appreciation Society of South Africa writes "This is the LP that every jazz fan has been waiting for" and Ray was not wrong, it's a stone-cold timeless jazz classic.

Although the name Stan Getz (tenor sax) was initially synonymous with the West Coast cool scene during the mid-to-late 1950s, he likewise became a key component in the Bossa Nova craze of the early 1960s. Getz Au Go Go (1965) is Stan Getz in his prime, recorded with perhaps one of the best quartets of his career, featuring Bossa Nova singer Astrud Gilberto.

180g vinyl.

Charles Lloyd has played the 150-year-old adobe theater in downtown Santa Barbara more often than any other venue, and more often than any other performer. Knowing that Marian Anderson sang there on February 14, 1940 makes it a sacred space for him. In the concert film you can see him bobbing with pleasure beneath his pointy, indigo knit cap, curly white hair, and long goatee. He beams at his neighbors, places the palms of his hands together and pulls them against his black sweater and golden tenor saxophone in the traditional Buddhist greeting. “I always get nervous before I go on,” Lloyd confesses, “but once I get on, Dorothy [Darr] has to come and drag me off. It seems that once I’m on stage I get met by the spirits. I enter the now. Sometimes Prez and Bird will stop by and say, ‘Hi, Charles.’”

A birthday is a door between the past and the future, and this concert reflected that truth. Representing the future were 34-year-old pianist Gerald Clayton, who performs regularly with Lloyd, and 31-year-old guitarist Julian Lage, who had performed with him when he was 12-years-old. Representing the past was 74-year-old organist and fellow Memphis native Booker T. Jones, who had never played with Lloyd at all. This was a one-of-a-kind line-up for a one-of-a-kind ritual.

“I’ve known Julian since he was 12,” Lloyd says. “He’s from the Healdsburg area, and Jessica Felix, who runs the jazz festival there, asked if Julian could play with us during the festival in 2000. Billy Higgins and John Abercrombie were in the group. I knew she wouldn’t ask if he didn’t have something special, so we let him play, and he had something; he had big ears. We’re all seekers in life; we all get the rays of the sun, but some get a stronger dose. A lot of young geniuses flame out and no one remembers their names. But so far, Julian’s balanced: grounded but at the same time ecstatic. Even though he’s the future, he knows the past.”

“Gerald was often back stage when I was touring with the New Quartet. In 2013 when Jason’s other duties became overwhelming, I decided to try out Gerald. His father and uncle are great musicians,” Lloyd says, referring to bassist John and saxophonist Jeff of the Clayton Brothers, “so he comes from something deep. You can hear it when he plays.”

Jones was still in junior high when Lloyd was graduating from high school, so they didn’t know each other when they were both growing up in Memphis. But they both shared the city’s rich cultural heritage, and when they ran into each other at the 2014 Monterey Jazz Festival, they promised to play together at some point. This birthday party was the perfect excuse.

“Memphis was such a rich environment,” Lloyd recalls. “It was like New York City, only with biscuits and gravy. There was an intelligentsia that inspired me to always be a learner. New York was 1300 miles away, and Chicago 450 miles away, but we were on the river, so musicians were always coming through. These out-of-town guys would play the Peabody Hotel and then they’d come over to the joints in our neighborhood to play with us, and we’d put a hurt on them. We didn’t tap dance or do anything for the man. We had our own culture and we knew it was inspired. We knew nothing of the lamb tongues and the gold mines, and I’m so thankful; we were doing it for the music.”

Don Was first made his name as co-leader and bassist of the 1980s funk-rock band Was (Not Was) and went on to produce albums for the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Brian Wilson, Bonnie Raitt, Lucinda Williams, Jason Moran and many more. In 2012, he became president of Blue Note Records and immediately set out to bring his hero Lloyd to the label. By 2015, he had succeeded in his quest and a magnificent series of albums has followed: Wild Man Dance, I Long To See You, Passin’ Thru, and Vanished Gardens.

Harland anchors every project that Lloyd pursues these days—Sangam, the Marvels, the New Quartet—and Rogers is present in every group but the bass-less Sangam. “Eric and Reuben put a magic carpet under me,” Lloyd exclaims, “and I can travel wherever I want to go. They want to be there, and they know that to be there they have to spread their wings in any situation. When we take that journey together; that’s communal living at its highest. Music is not for sleepwalking; it’s for wakefulness. Reuben and Eric understand. My music dances on a lot of shores, and they have the ability to be in the now with all of it.”

The Lobero set list docked at many of those shores. The evening began with the title track from Lloyd’s first album for Atlantic Records, 1966’s Dream Weaver. This infectious reverie begins with breathy exhalations and ends the same way 20 minutes later, but in between, Lloyd’s tenor saxophone attacks the theme with an increasingly edgy fearlessness—and Lage and Clayton follow his example.

“‘Dream Weaver’ is sacred ground to me,” Lloyd says. “That record was fresh and crazily beautiful. It has withstood the passage of the ages. I started playing it again and found new ways of expressing the truth. There are some notes on the saxophone I didn’t have as a young man. They aren’t on the horn; they’re in between the cracks. I’m not denying the young Charles, but as my character becomes whole, the music gets better.” If that tune reached back to the beginnings of Lloyd’s career, the next three came from his much-lauded resurgence in the 1990s through the 2010s on ECM. “Requiem,” which first appeared on 1992’s Notes from Big Sur, used patient tempos and pointillist solos by the tenor saxophone, piano, guitar and acoustic bass to create a mood that fits the title.

The Mexican folk song “La Llorona” from 2010’s Mirror (and 2016’s I Long To See You) opens with a piano solo that slowly builds from quiet to majestic and closes with a tenor solo that manages to always reference the melody as it’s sprinting through the octaves. That segues into “Part 5, Ruminations” from 2017’s Passin’ Thru, which begins with a meditative, free-floating consideration of the harmony before cohering into a more definite theme that inspires a stabbing guitar solo, a classically flavored piano solo, a rumbling drum solo and a low-register tenor saxophone solo.

The second set found Clayton sitting out until the encores. Rogers switched from acoustic to electric bass, and Was sat in for two numbers on acoustic bass. Jones contributed two compositions: the premiere of his birthday card “Song for Charles,” and his 1962 hit as leader of Booker T. & the MGs, “Green Onions.” Two Lloyd compositions from the 1960s, “Island Blues” and “Sombrero Sam,” joined the old hymn “Abide with Me” and the American folk tune “Shenandoah.” For the encore, Clayton rejoined the band to play Lloyd’s “Forest Flower” and Billy Preston’s 1974 hit single, “You Are So Beautiful.”

There's something extraordinary happening when musical cultures and genres merge to create new atmospheres, as displayed by the fascinating Anglo-Egyptian partnership of vocalist Natacha Atlas and violinist, composer/arranger and producer Samy Bishai.Atlas's discography speaks of a solo artist who continually explores and develops her route through music, also collaborating with names including Jean-Michel Jarre and Peter Gabriel; and her arrival at large-scale project and album 'Strange Days' marks a significant, visionary shift.A broad personnel is wholly attuned to their concept - at its core, pianist Alcyona Mick, bassist Andy Hamill, drummers Laurie Lowe and Asaf Sirkis, trumpeter Hayden Powell and trombonist Robinson Khoury. Alongside the strings and Oli Savill's percussion that are central to this unique, balanced fusion of jazz and Arabic music come guest appearances from reedsman Idris Rahman, guitarist Paulo Vinícius and vocalists Joss Stone, Tanya Wells and Sofiane Saidi.

For years, Benjamin Herman has formed a frighteningly tight trio with Ernst Glerum and Joost Patočka. Whether its compositions from Misha Mengelberg, jazz evergreens or original works, these are all interpreted with vision and “rollicking virtuosity’’ (Volkskrant). Erupting from Herman's creative spirit and the two worlds of Glerum (icp Orchestra) and Patočka (Rita Reys), the formation’s work is always of the highest class.

The new album Trouble with the young and exceptionally talented singer/pianist Daniel von Piekartz adds a new chapter to their collaboration. Songs from Fats Waller, Henry Mancini and Sly Stone get a postmodern make-over that will inspire many concert-goers to willingly miss that last tram home. And naturally, the musical fireworks that we’ve come accustomed are still

Exclusively to Record Store Day 2024 comes The Charlie Watts Orchestra, Live from Fulham Town Hall. Charlie Watts, the Rolling Stones’ drummer always had a passion for jazz and in 1986 he financed a world tour of an orchestra he hand selected, which included some household jazz names such as Peter King and Courtney Pine.

Opportunity: In April 2013 the pre-eminent free-jazz saxophone player of our times, Ivo Perelman, comes down to the Stone, John Zorn's experimental music club on Manhattan's Lower East Side, to hear the drummer play with Slobber Pup, a thunderously intense band featuring Morris on distortion-laced guitar, Trevor Dunn on electric bass and Jamie Saft on keyboards.

Their masterpiece? With breaks for dayyyyyys and an almost ambient, heavy jazz atmosphere throughout, *this* is the apex of British jazz-rock fusion. We'll Talk About It Later was first released on Vertigo in 1971 and original copies are now very tricky to score. Like all the Nucleus records, it’s aged ridiculously well and 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”.

We'll Talk About It Later is arguably Nucleus's best album. Not only that, it's in the top 5 of all fusion albums. By the time Nucleus entered Trident Studios in September 1970 to record Elastic Rock's successor, they had already won a best group award at the Montreux Jazz Festival. Once again presented in a Roger Dean designed die-cut gatefold sleeve it continued to demonstrate the chemistry and interplay that worked so brilliantly on Elastic Rock; Carr's sumptuous trumpet and flügelhorn lines, Karl Jenkins's funk-filled electric keyboards, Chris Spedding's wah-wah guitar, Brian Smith's sax and the rhythmic foundation of drummer John Marshall and bassist Jeff Clyne.

The group work and insane musicianship Nucleus were famed for is in evidence from the off. The intensely funky "Song for the Bearded Lady" is absolute FIRE, blasting out the speakers to leave listeners floored. Counterpoint riffing segues into a spacious groove and a Carr trumpet solo demonstrating the influence of electric Miles from the period. The stop-start funk of "Sun Child" would appeal to Soft Machine devotees whilst the genuinely touching "Lullaby for a Lonely Child" is a lovely downtempo ballad. Featuring an understated, reflective horn line from Carr and Smith and atmospheric, shimmering bouzouki from Spedding, there's an exotic flavour which contributes to the bliss. The ominous, sleazy title track retains a swaggering menace and is not the only track to lend a sort of heavy stoner rock atmosphere. The guitars and bass are deep and low throughout, conjuring heavy psych moments to go with the actual jazz and even funk. To say this album was in conversation with Bitches Brew would not be overstating the sheer brain-frying brilliance.

The Weather Report-adjacent "Oasis" opens Side B, a colossal track featuring nearly 10 minutes of steadily building melodic horns, keys and choppy guitar riffs. So ace, it could easily go on for another 10. Mesmeric. Spedding adds unique vocals to the undeniable groove of "Ballad of Joe Pimp" whilst saxophonist Smith's duet with drummer Marshall at the conclusion of "Easter 1916" - inspired by the Yeats poem about the Irish nationalist uprising in Dublin - adopts the wildness of the most incendiary free jazz.

This Be With edition of We'll Talk About It Later 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 sleeve has been restored with the original gatefold window pane depicting the Irish uprising in 1916. Incredible, timeless, guaranteed spine-chills.

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.

The White Stripes' Elephant Analogue Productions' Uhqr, the pinnacle of high-quality vinyl! 200-gram 45 RPM double LP limited to 10,000 copies! Mastered from the original analogue master tapes by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound Pressed at Quality Record Pressings using Clarity Vinyl® Includes a 12-page booklet featuring liner notes from Ben Blackwell (co-founder and minority owner at Third Man Records and the official archivist of The White Stripes) and never-before-seen session photos by David Swanson Purest possible pressing and most visually stunning presentation and packaging!

The fourth studio album by the American rock duo the White Stripes was an extraordinary success. It peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard charts and topped the U.K. Albums Charts. To date it's sold 4 million copies worldwide, achieving platinum-sales certification from the Recording Industry Association of America and 3x platinum from the British Phonographic Industry. It spawned the hit single "Seven Nation Army," the band's signature track that's become a sports anthem, plus the hits "I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself," "The Hardest Button to Button" and "There's No Home for You Here." Elephant has received critical acclaim and it's often cited as the White Stripe's best work, including receiving a nomination for Album of the Year and a win for Best Alternative Music Album at the 46th Grammy Awards in 2004.

Rolling Stone ranked the album No. 449 on its 2020 list of the 500 Best Albums of All Time. The Stripes, it said, exploded out of Detroit with a minimalist garage-blues attack: just Jack White on guitar and Meg White on drums, taking on the world.

To give Elephant the sonic perfection and signature packaging it deserves, Analogue Productions and Third Man Records have teamed up for the ultimate reissue edition. We present in Uhqr format on Clarity Vinyl this rock masterpiece, limited to 10,000 copies. It comes with gold foil numbered jackets, housed in a premium slipcase with a wooden dowel spine.

Jack and Meg insisted they were a brother and sister, even after people learned they were secretly a divorced couple. But against all odds, the low-budget duo became a global sensation for their sheer rock power. Rolling Stone says Elephant "seethes with raw desperation and lust" in "Seven Nation Army," "Hypnotize," and "The Hardest Button to Button." Jack plays guitar hero in the seven-minute jam "Ball and Biscuit."

More About Clarity Vinyl

The off-white color of the record you are receiving is the color of raw vinyl in its purest form (un-tinted vinyl). To make the ultimate record, we decided to enhance sound quality by removing potential sources of noise contamination or sonic interference. By not adding traditional carbon black colorant, we eliminate that potential due to carbon black particles, instead allowing your stylus to effortlessly slide down a silky smooth groove wall.

Red Translucent Vinyl.

When Charlie Byrd toured South America in 1961, Bossa Nova—a melding of Brazilian samba rhythms with the harmonic structures and cool sound of West Coast jazz—was booming. He brought back records for Stan Getz to hear and they planned a session. The result was Jazz Samba—the first album of Bossa Nova music by jazz artists and the one that created the Bossa Nova wave.



VERVE ACOUSTIC SOUNDS SERIES: Stereo, mastered fully analogue from the original tapes by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound, QPR pressing (180 g), firm tip-on gatefold (Stoughton Printing), padded inner sleeve.

This album was inspired by the music coming out of Jamaica in the mid 1970s, in particular the use of drum machines by Lee Perry and Aston Family Man Barrett (and Sly Stone in the USA) but also the instrumentals and dubs by Keith Hudson and Im & Count Ossie etc. Searching out, buying and listening to those records had a deep and profound effect on me and became a big influence on me as a musician, which continues to this day.
All instruments, recording and mixing by Nat Birchall

"The Remedy," is I G Culture's latest album under Likwid Continutal Space Motion, Culture draws parallels between the complex world of fungi and London's Underground dance music scene. Both are intricate networks that thrive beneath the surface, connecting diverse elements and influencing one another. The London dance music scene, like fungi, encompasses a variety of styles and genres, from drum and bass to Garage Dance Subcultures may go unnoticed to the casual observer but are musical corner stones in our society. Dance floors and clubs serve as spaces for communal healing, allowing people to let go of daily stresses and connect through music and dance. I G Culture's "The Remedy" celebrates this vibrant underground culture and highlights the interconnectedness of all musical styles. Through his innovative production and thematic depth, he underscores the transformative power of dance music, emphasizing its role in promoting well-being and unity. The idea of Fungi also is expressed in the artwork by Amsterdams 'Machine' with IG's direction, who used fungi in an original collage revealing a secret world.

limited remastered edition 180 gram vinyl

The White Stripes' Elephant Analogue Productions' Uhqr, the pinnacle of high-quality vinyl! 200-gram 45 RPM double LP limited to 10,000 copies! Mastered from the original analogue master tapes by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound Pressed at Quality Record Pressings using Clarity Vinyl® Includes a 12-page booklet featuring liner notes from Ben Blackwell (co-founder and minority owner at Third Man Records and the official archivist of The White Stripes) and never-before-seen session photos by David Swanson Purest possible pressing and most visually stunning presentation and packaging!

The fourth studio album by the American rock duo the White Stripes was an extraordinary success. It peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard charts and topped the U.K. Albums Charts. To date it's sold 4 million copies worldwide, achieving platinum-sales certification from the Recording Industry Association of America and 3x platinum from the British Phonographic Industry. It spawned the hit single "Seven Nation Army," the band's signature track that's become a sports anthem, plus the hits "I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself," "The Hardest Button to Button" and "There's No Home for You Here." Elephant has received critical acclaim and it's often cited as the White Stripe's best work, including receiving a nomination for Album of the Year and a win for Best Alternative Music Album at the 46th Grammy Awards in 2004.

Rolling Stone ranked the album No. 449 on its 2020 list of the 500 Best Albums of All Time. The Stripes, it said, exploded out of Detroit with a minimalist garage-blues attack: just Jack White on guitar and Meg White on drums, taking on the world.

Hybrid Stereo Sacd release from Analogue Productions! Mastered direct to DSD by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound Plays in all CD and Sacd players Includes 12-page booklet featuring song lyrics and credits

Jack and Meg insisted they were a brother and sister, even after people learned they were secretly a divorced couple. But against all odds, the low-budget duo became a global sensation for their sheer rock power. Rolling Stone says Elephant "seethes with raw desperation and lust" in "Seven Nation Army," "Hypnotize," and "The Hardest Button to Button." Jack plays guitar hero in the seven-minute jam "Ball and Biscuit."

Genki Desu Ka (How Have You Been)

Lily’s early life runs parallel to an untold story of post-war Japan, that of the marginalised hafu - children of half Japanese / half foreign parents. Likely to be a target, a vessel for the bitterness, from the humiliation of the American Occupation, to the buried guilt of Japan’s own atrocities, enacted on their Asian neighbours. Her troubled formative years - an absent father, and losing her mother in her teens - possibly contributed to the development of the bluesy edge of her vocal style, or maybe it was the smoke from the jazz bar her mother ran.

As with many outsiders of the 60s and early 70s, she turned up in Tokyo’s Shinjuku, a famed spot for many a writer, actor, artist and musician. It was here her songs first aired, and she was swiftly booked to record her music.

With a groove set in stone with her Bye-Bye Session Band - later including Ryuichi Sakamoto and jazz keyboardist Hiroshi Sato - this selection covers her 70s period, with strong seams of soul, funk, touches of folk- and space-rock, and her signature (in Japan) heartbreaking ballads.

Vibrations from the other side of the globe, in the same period as classic Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder, Cymande, Sly & The Family Stone, and the rest, all with Lily's voice make this music utterly unique.

Compiled by Howard Williams, whose Japanese music show Japan Blues has been a mainstay on NTS Radio since 2014. He has released several retrospectives of Japanese music for various record labels, covering traditional folk (Nippon Folk, Japan Blues for The Trilogy Tapes); kayoukyoku & Nihon Indigo (also Ttt); 70s female gangster soundtracks (Killing Melody, Ethbo); 50s rockabilly (Nippon Rock’n’Roll, Big Beat); surf guitar and funk rock (Nippon Guitars, Big Beat); soul, funk and disco (Lovin’ Mighty Fire, Bgp); and the jazz singer Maki Asakawa for Honest Jons, after co-compiling their Moondog retrospective, Viking of Sixth Avenue.

With liner notes written by Lily’s original producer, Yukiji Teramoto translated by Alan Cummings, and the photography of Jin Tamura

Elvin Jones is one of the most influential drummers in jazz, not least because of his longstanding collaboration with John Coltrane. A few years ago, Rolling Stone ranked Jones 23rd on their list of the 100 Greatest Drummers of All Time. The previously unreleased recordings now released as “Revival: Live at Pookie's Pub” document Jones' debut as a leader, two weeks after Coltrane's death, recorded live in July 1967 in New York City with saxophonist Joe Farrell, pianist Billy Greene and bassist Wilbur Little. The deluxe 180g 3LP set includes a booklet with photos by Francis Wolff and others, as well as essays by GRAMMY-winning author Ashley Kahn, producers Zev Feldman and Don Was, sound engineer Bob Falesch and many more.

It was John Lewis, pianist of the Modern Jazz Quartet, who brought Ornette Coleman to the renowned Atlantic label, having heard him play in Los Angeles. »Ornette Coleman is doing the only really new thing in jazz …« he reportedly said. The present initial Atlantic album was released just in time to coincide with the New York debut of the Coleman Quartet in November 1959. Lewis was sure that Coleman would open up new paths for jazz, and his opinion is reflected in the title of the album – "The Shape Of Jazz To Come". After the rather worn-out hard bop routine of the past years, this music was like a breath of fresh air. The fast numbers ("Eventuality", "Chronology") remind one of wildly hyped-up bebop. Other numbers ("Congeniality", "Focus On Sanity") juggle with catchy, almost folk like short motifs. This album contains two of Coleman’s most beautiful compositions: "Peace" and "Lonely Woman", which was later given lyrics and often heard in its vocal version. The Mulligan-Baker Quartet provided the model for the pianoless quartet – and when the band swings along once in a while with a moderato tempo, it is truly reminiscent of cool jazz. Be that as it may, the two wind instrumentalists just love the frenetic 'cry' and the intentionally 'imprecise' interplay. Clearly defined stanzas or traditional harmonic forms were not for them. The jazz musicologist Peter N. Wilson wrote: »A record, which is not unjustifiably so entitled« about this LP which was given 5 stars by the magazine Rolling Stone.

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 1959 at Radio Recorders, Hollywood, CA, by Bones Howe Production: Nesuhi Ertegun

Four-and-a-half decades after the event, saxophonist Charles Lloyd's "Love-In", recorded live at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium in 1967, the counterculture's West Coast music hub, endures as much as an archaeological artifact as a musical document. From sleeve designer Stanislaw Zagorski's treatment of Rolling Stone photographer Jim Marshall's cover shot, through the album title and some of the track titles ("Tribal Dance", "Temple Bells"), and the inclusion of John Lennon and Paul McCartney's "Here There And Everywhere", "Love-In's" semiology reeks of the acid-drenched zeitgeist of the mid 1960s, a time when creative music flourished, and rock fans were prepared to embrace jazz, provided the musicians did not come on like their parents: juicers dressed in sharp suits exuding cynicism.
It is likely that more joints were rolled on "Love-In's" cover than that of any other jazz LP of the era, with the possible exception of saxophonists John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" (Impulse!, 1965) and Pharoah Sanders's "Tauhid" (Impulse!, 1967). Chet Helms, a key mover and shaker in the West Coast counterculture, spoke for many when he hailed the Lloyd quartet as »the first psychedelic jazz group«.
It is to Lloyd's credit that, at least in the early stages of his adoption by the counterculture, he resisted dumbing down his music. The adoption stemmed from Lloyd's espoused attitude to society, his media savvy, his sartorial style and his sheer nerve in playing jazz in the temples of rock culture. He took the quartet into the Fillmore West three years before trumpeter Miles Davis took his into the Fillmore East.
So "Love-In" comes with a load of baggage, some of it less than fragrant. But as 45 minutes of music, it still has legs. Lloyd's vocalized tenor (and flute on two tracks) has Coltrane-derived muscle; the young Jarrett's lyrical and funky solos, particularly on his 07:55 showcase, the gospel-ish "Sunday Morning", his two featured originals ("Sunday Morning" and the soul jazz-ish "Is It Really the Same?"), and his playing the strings of the piano directly with his hands, all remain compelling; McClure and DeJohnette are solid and inventive.

The famous critic and jazz expert Ralph J. Gleason quite rightly mentioned two highly distinctive men in his liner notes – John Donne and Pablo Picasso. Almost four hundred years and a great deal of seawater separate the two exceptional artists from England and Spain. Nevertheless the four black US-Americans who make up the Modern Jazz Quartet bridge the gap between time and continents effortlessly.
And what’s more, blues is also to be heard – and bebop! And evergreens from the Broadway shows of the Thirties too!
In contrast to some of the other rather more dawdling and laid-back MJQ LPs, "Fontessa" offers diversified and intense music. Nothing is routine, perhaps because the drummer Connie Kay had replaced Kenny Clark just one year previously. But maybe too because Milt Jackson’s blues influence inspired John Lewis perceptibly to forget all about discipline. All seven numbers are true gems. But if you want a special hint, just listen to "Bluesology". Well, perhaps the present author is too much of a Milt Jackson fan. Be that as it may, the music magazine "Rolling Stone" gave this LP a five-star rating!

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

P-vine is proudly reissuing a classic album of rare groove released by West Coast-born funky drummer Les Demarle at the height of his career in the 1970s, "Transfusion" with a Japanese OBI strip!

This is a studio recording in 1977 on the jazz label called "Dobre Records", which was run by Ray Lawrence. The introductory drum break to 'Moondial' has been sampled by many artists including Jurassic 5's 'Lesson 1', De La Soul's 'Stone Age', DJ Shadow and Greyboy. Other jazz funk tracks such as 'Canned Heat Suite' and 'Kaballa', and the bewitching Afro-latin funk of 'Bacchanal', this is a funky fusion full of groovy tracks throughout the album.

Why you'll love it...
Ray Barretto’s songs are cinematic. Artfully composed, richly orchestrated, each one feels like something deserving of big-screen wonderment. And, indeed, from Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets (''Ritmo Sabroso'') and Oliver Stone’s JFK (''El Watusi'') to Lee Daniels’ Precious (''Teacher of Love'') to Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight (''Cocinando Suave''), his music as a bandleader made it into movies of major importance across the decades. Of course, you don’t need to be a card-carrying cinephile to appreciate the moods and magnitudes expressed by his work, especially his seminal 1968 album Acid for Fania Records.

It takes more than a minute into ‘’Acid'' before Barretto begins showing off on the congas, leading into a nearly three-minute solo marked by fabulous flourishes that culminates with the full band, including pianist Cruz, showing their united might. Elsewhere on Acid, the group would have dutifully jumped headfirst into this mode, but here it is just a spectacular finish to a rhythmic story — Barretto’s story — told like the best film you’ve never seen.

A few words for the album Moment’s Aeternity: a 12/8 composition celebrating the raw power of the “moment”, marked by whirling improvised moments between drums, bass clarinet and Harris P’s Armenian duduk.

Pajko, fire in the forest on the mountain: in Sokratis own words: “I have a really vivid memory as a child. I was staring at the Djena mountain from my window in Archangellos which sits on the Pajko mountain. A little beam of light shone far in the horizon; it was a fire that in my little eyes looked as if the giants of Almopia were trying to communicate with each other using phryktoria (a way of contacting through fire in Ancient Greece).”

Footprints of some Giant Steps: While the classic compositions of two true Jazz Giants- Wayne Shorter and John Coltrane- are certainly different, they do both connect in a mystical way. Rearranged in 5/8 combining half of each melody and half of each one’s chord progression, keeping the form of the piece for improvisation, still in 5.

Oson Zeis Fainou (Seikilo’s Epitaph): found in a tomb stone in the Northeast of Greece, this is the only melody saved from the ancient times. It is accompanied by lyrics contemplating the meaning of life: Ὅσον ζῇς φαίνου μηδὲν ὅλως σὺ λυποῦ πρὸς ὀλίγον ἐστὶ τὸ ζῆν τὸ τέλος ὁ xρόνος ἀπαιτεῖ. ‘’While you live, shine don’t feel blue for anything because our life is short and time demands an end.’’

Here is to Oghene K: ’’Hey man, where is the groove?’’, he would say, just to trigger another wave of inspiration for Sokratis. Oghene was a true force of nature, a well of kindness, a masterful artist that left this world too early. This one is for him.

Balkan Riff (for Milcho Leviev): Milcho Leviev (1936-2019), was a long-time friend and collaborator and a true inspiration for expression, creativity and colorfulness. Expressing the deep sentiments evoked by the Balkan sound and history, this is a sorrowful dialogue between bass clarinet and contrabass.

Spirits of Djena: one of the most esoteric and personal moments of the album. Composed and recorded during the challenging times of the COVID-era, you can hear the baritone and tenor saxophone firmly grounded on a crispy, hypnotizing contrabass groove.

Sokratis Votskos Quartet Kostas Anastasiadis / Giorgos Klountzos - Chrysidis: Drums Leandros Pasias: Piano Vaggelis Vrachnos: Contrabass Sokratis Votskos: Soprano Saxophone, Bass Clarinet and Compositions

Sokratis Votskos is a jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, composer, educator, and bandleader from Greece. Deeply invested in unearthing the folk sounds and heritage music of Greece and Eastern Europe, he weaves these into modern jazz compositions though the use of melodies, polyrhythms, and his reedy, timeless tone. He leads the Sokratis Votskos Quartet, he is one half of Kolida Babo and member of the Reggetiko Project. A highly regarded sideman and ensemble player, he has worked extensively with renowned jazz musicians with several highly acclaimed releases (MiC, Jazzman, Walt Disney and now Fair Weather Friends Records).

He has performed his music in numerous venues and festivals worldwide from Vinterjazz in Copenhagen, to the EFG London Jazz Festival where he performed at the legendary Ronnie Scott’s alongside Greg Foat.

He is also an archaeoacoustics researcher and enthusiast, having completed his Master studies on the field of ancient ritualistic caves of Greece research.

Leandros Pasias was born in Thessaloniki, Greece. At age 10 was introduced to piano, continuing his studies at the Modern Conservatory of Thessaloniki and later at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam in the department of jazz piano.Ηe holds a classical harmony diploma and a BA at the Department of Music Studies at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. In 2020 he received jazz improvisation lessons from Aaron Parks.

With a series of appearances in multiple international jazz festivals, Leandros has collaborated with a wide range of musicians from Nicolas Masson and James Wylie to Marina Osk, Ivo Papasov and Haris Lambrakis, among others.

A member of the Yako Trio, he released “OdesSea” on Fair Weather Friends Records (2021).

Vangelis Vrachnos was born in Thessaloniki, Greece, in 1989. While he started playing the bass at the age of 12, alongside his brother, his studies would commence a few years later. Introduced to double bass at the age of 23, he undertook jazz double bass studies at the Codarts Αcademy of Rotterdam. He has participated in several festivals such as the Technopolis and Odessa international jazz festivals. Since returning to his hometown, in 2015, he has been a founding member of Mordana and Yako Trio and has collaborated with a series of musicians like James Wyllie, Sokrates Votskos and Dimitis Agelakis, among others.

Kostas Anastasiadis is a tireless researcher, that has been diligently studying Tradition and its evolution, creating a fresh amalgam of sound moods. His mature improvisational virtuosity highlights a uniquely individual artistic expression and was recognized with the ̈Unique Individual Stylist" award by the PIT (Percussion Institute of Technology) in Los Angeles, California. He has been associated with various ensembles that have garnered significant interest in the global music scene. As an educator, he is the founder of "The Harmony of Rhythm" musical method, which aims to explore and establish the elements that constitute the concept of rhythm.

Giorgos Klountzos-Chrysidis was born in Thessaloniki in 1991. Following studies at the Modern Conservatory of Thessaloniki, he moved to France and the Conservatoire de Nice. With performances at well-known festivals like Nice Jazz Festival, Nuits du Sud and Jazz à Vienne, he had the opportunity to meet the American drummer Leon Parker, who encouraged him to move to Paris, where he spent the next two years under his tutoring and guidance.

In 2016, came a defining moment in his career as he traveled to New York for the first time. He participated in the quartet of saxophonist Diego Rivera for a series of performances and attended lessons by Rodney Whitaker and Randy "Uncle G" Gelispie at Michigan's State University.

Collaborations include Xavier Davis, Ricky Ford, Nicolas Masson, Diego Rivera, Craig Bailey, Baptiste Herbin, Marc Abrams, Pantelis Stoikos, Antonis Anissegos, David Lynch, Ziad Rajab and Ivo Papasov, among others

RSD Exclusive. Limitation: 2000. Indent, a live solo album by Cecil Taylor, was recorded in Ohio in March 1973. It was originally released on Taylor's own Unit Core label, subsequently more widely released on the Freedom label, and has received critical praise, including a 4/5 star review from the Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide. Previously out of print for decades, the phenomenal work is finally coming back to vinyl with an audiophile-grade pressing from Pallas Group. The album was remastered for vinyl at Infrasonic Mastering. This white color vinyl pressing is exclusively available for RSD Black Friday.

The Norwegian Jazz trio Bushman’s Revenge mixes the energy of Rock with the freedom of Jazz in an exciting and exhilarating way. Formed in 2003, the trio (consisting of Even Helte Hermansen on Guitar, Rune Nergaard on Bass and Gard Nilssen on Drums) has had two decades in which to explore different paths and sounds, and in doing so, succeeding in creating a genre all of their own. With 10 critically acclaimed albums under their belts, and over 300 live appearances throughout the world, Bushman’s Revenge has earned a fearsome reputation, with Jazzwise commenting that they are “Insanely good! As if Jeff Beck was backed by Elvin Jones“, whilst David Fricke of Rolling Stone said that they were “Like a Marshall amp version of John Coltrane’s “Interstellar Space“. All the Better for Seeing You is their 11th album, and 2023 marks their 20th anniversary as a band.

The amazing, unpredictable, one and only Sly Stone has never made a secret of his beginnings as a teenaged hopeful in Vallejo, California in the early 1960s. A trio of singles with his interracial high school vocal group The Viscaynes, followed by two more releases as a solo, recorded in Los Angeles with producer George Motola, comprise the fascinating apprenticeship Sly needed to undergo on the road to fame. For decades, Sly’s earliest works have been spread around on a parade of unauthorized collections, most with low-fidelity sound, artificially extended versions, and tracks by unrelated artists. Yellow Moon: The Complete Recordings 1961-1962 corrects this injustice by offering up Sly and the Viscaynes entire output from the correct master sources. This special 2 LP set complements the recent Ace Records CD of the same title and adds a brace of additional, exceedingly rare Sly-related material. Along with the original singles by The Viscaynes, and Sly’s first solo releases as Danny (Sly) Stewart and Sylvester Stewart, there are also several unissued demo tracks produced by teen idol and Viscaynes mentor Gary Stites, plus the sought-after Jasper Woods 45, featuring an incognito Richard Berry with the Viscaynes on vocal support. Exclusive to this vinyl edition are a rare High School recording by an early incarnation of the Viscaynes, both sides of the 1961 Royal Aces single on which Sly plays guitar, and as a special bonus, the Stewart Four gospel release from 1956, featuring a teenaged Sly on lead vocals – his very first appearance on disc. The deluxe package comes with an authoritative and heavily illustrated booklet with much heretofore unpublished information and fresh interview material from the group and associates, as well as commentary from Sly himself. Yellow Moon: The Complete Recordings 1961-1962 is the last word on Sly Stone’s very first phase, and this vinyl edition is a must for any fan of his work.

Robert Glasper is a premiere example of musical aptitude and a proven champion of Black music - boasting nine Grammy nominations and four wins for Best R&B Album, Best R&B Song, Best Traditional R&B Performance, and Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media, and an Emmy Award for his song for Ava Duvernay’s critically hailed documentary “13th” with Common and Karriem Riggins. The 43-year old Houston native has a rich history contributing his artistry across both music and film, all the while carrying a consistent cultural message. In 2012, Glasper delivered his album Black Radio that hit the scene as the first album in history to debut in the top 10 of 4 different genre charts simultaneously: Hip Hop R&B, Urban Contemporary, Jazz and Contemporary Jazz. The feat was then repeated by Black Radio 2. The ongoing Black Radio series has since become Glasper’s calling card, upholding a place at the heart of a trailblazing community: from long-time sonic brothers Mos Def and Bilal, to legends including Ledisi, Lupe Fiasco, Kanye West, Jill Scott, and Erykah Badu.



"Robert Glasper has established himself as a master of the territory where jazz, hip-hop and R&B overlap" – Rolling Stone



“No one has shaped the resurgence of jazz in black music more than Robert Glasper in the 2000s” – Nate Chinen (NPR)



Black Radio and Black Radio II are landmark albums that have shaped the genres of jazz, hip hop and r&b for the past decade. Direct lines can be drawn to Kamasi Washington, Thundercat, Kendrick Lamar, and black music writ large.

For Black Radio III, 4-time grammy® winner Robert Glasper cements his legacy as producer, curator and cultural icon. These collaborations range from the most powerful voices in contemporary black music (Killer Mike, ty dolla $ign, D Smoke, PJ Morton) to the most important lyricists and performers of the past 30 years (Jennifer Hudson, Ledisi, Common, Gregory Porter, Musiq Soulchild, India.Arie)

Black Radio III is also a statement for these times. It is Glasper’s most direct statement of the frustration and opportunity of a world disrupted by social change.

It is at once beautiful, powerful and innovative.

Robert Glasper is a premiere example of musical aptitude and a proven champion of Black music - boasting nine Grammy nominations and four wins for Best R&B Album, Best R&B Song, Best Traditional R&B Performance, and Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media, and an Emmy Award for his song for Ava Duvernay’s critically hailed documentary “13th” with Common and Karriem Riggins. The 43-year old Houston native has a rich history contributing his artistry across both music and film, all the while carrying a consistent cultural message. In 2012, Glasper delivered his album Black Radio that hit the scene as the first album in history to debut in the top 10 of 4 different genre charts simultaneously: Hip Hop R&B, Urban Contemporary, Jazz and Contemporary Jazz. The feat was then repeated by Black Radio 2. The ongoing Black Radio series has since become Glasper’s calling card, upholding a place at the heart of a trailblazing community: from long-time sonic brothers Mos Def and Bilal, to legends including Ledisi, Lupe Fiasco, Kanye West, Jill Scott, and Erykah Badu.



"Robert Glasper has established himself as a master of the territory where jazz, hip-hop and R&B overlap" – Rolling Stone



“No one has shaped the resurgence of jazz in black music more than Robert Glasper in the 2000s” – Nate Chinen (NPR)



Black Radio and Black Radio II are landmark albums that have shaped the genres of jazz, hip hop and r&b for the past decade. Direct lines can be drawn to Kamasi Washington, Thundercat, Kendrick Lamar, and black music writ large.

For Black Radio III, 4-time grammy® winner Robert Glasper cements his legacy as producer, curator and cultural icon. These collaborations range from the most powerful voices in contemporary black music (Killer Mike, ty dolla $ign, D Smoke, PJ Morton) to the most important lyricists and performers of the past 30 years (Jennifer Hudson, Ledisi, Common, Gregory Porter, Musiq Soulchild, India.Arie)

Black Radio III is also a statement for these times. It is Glasper’s most direct statement of the frustration and opportunity of a world disrupted by social change.

It is at once beautiful, powerful and innovative.

Noah Howard was born in 1943 in New Orleans and, like many of his contemporaries, first played music in church as a child. In his 2010 book, 'Music in My Soul', Howard reflected upon his childhood in New Orleans and the influence the city had on him: “Growing up in New Orleans was like receiving a steady diet of music, and my taste in music became increasingly more sophisticated. In the neighborhood where I grew up kids around me were listening to Rhythm and Blues and Jazz; Rock came only much later. One of the great moments of my life was when I was around 13 years old and heard Duke Ellington with Paul Gonsalves playing a twenty-some minutes chorus solo on tenor sax at Newport. We had never heard anything like this before; a saxophone player doing so many choruses, this was years before Coltrane opened up. That experience meant there was no turning back; my ears were open and my desire was burning for music.”
He first learned to play the trumpet before moving on to alto, tenor and soprano saxophone. And his musical journey initially took him to Los Angeles where he worked with Dewey Johnson and then later moved to New York to join the Sun Ra Arkestra. Like most forward thinking saxophonists of the time, Howard was influenced by the evolving expressionism of John Coltrane and Albert Ayler and it wasn't long before he became a key member of the mid-60s free jazz movement, a stepping stone to his elevation into one of the world’s most notable saxophonists.
Howard's debut LP as leader, 'Noah Howard Quartet' was recorded in 1965, and the follow up, 'Noah Howard at Judson Hall', in 1966 but not issued until 1968, both for the groundbreaking ESP Records label (incidentally, both albums featured British trumpeter Ric Colbeck). However, Howard's view of ESP was not positive, calling it “ a monster of deception... I am aware of ESP's adventures...they continue to make money off the artists and they refuse to pay any royalties.”

Like many of the black jazz musicians of the 60s, Howard left the USA and settled in Europe (making the permanent move to Paris in 1972). In an interview in 2005, Howard explained his move: “When I first came to Europe it was 1969 and I came to play in a big festival and after that we had a lot of concerts, recalls Howard. "Then we left and we came back to the States, I was based in New York at that time. About six months later, we had some more concerts, we came back and this went on for years, going back and forth and back and forth and back and forth... I decided that instead of going back and forth all the time, it was more advantageous for me to stay over here and live and work.”
It was in Paris that Howard took part in sessions for the Frank Wright albums 'One For John', cut for the leading French free jazz label BYG Actuel and another Wight session, 'Uhuru Na Umoja', for the America label. Another album on America that featured Howard was Archie Shepp's 'Black Gipsy'. This session also featured , among others, Sunny Murray on drums and Clifford Thornton on trumpet.
America Records was to be home to Howard's third album, 'Space Dimension'. On this album, Frank Wright was reunited with Howard once more, and Wright also composed one track, 'Church Number Nine' (Wright would also do his own version as the title track on his 1970 album, initially only released in Japan. That album would also feature Howard.) 'Space Dimension' also features bop drummer Art Taylor on three tracks, with Muhammed Ali (brother of Rashid), on one. They're joined by alongside pianist Bobby Few, longtime member of Frank Wright's group and an alumnus of Archie Shepp's band.
'Space Dimension' has never seen an official reissue since its original release in 1970 and remains, among a few aficionados, one of the most in demand - and little known - albums in Howard's discography. The blend of free improvisation with a tough rhythmic foundation make for an edifying listening experience. The spectral disjointed afro-blues of the title track, with Howard's soaring, searing horn, introduces an exceptional album of weight and significance, a real statement piece. 'Viva Black' starts as a lush groove, rich with texture and tone. Bobby Few's piano is sparse and disciplined, allowing space for the interweaving angles of the horns and drums to cross and jostle and build in intensity, with Muhammad Ali's drum solo acting as a cathartic release.
'Song for Poets' is blistering in its attack, an intense assault from the whole group – urgent and imperative, a call to action that seemed to resonate with the tumult of the late 60s and early 70s and, perhaps, still resonates now. The album closes with the extended piece 'Blues for Thelma'. It starts like a sort of angular, shattered New Orleans first line march band; Howard visceral horn and Few's piano joust and punch like fighters in a ring; Ali's drums hammer a solid undertow of power and energy, relentless in its fire.
All in all, 'Space Dimension' announced Howard's arrival into a new decade, a decade that was to see not just jazz but music and wider society undergo profound change.
Howard's third record was the widely acclaimed 'Black Ark', which featured Arthur Doyle on his first recording. 'Black Ark' soon became a landmark free jazz recording and elevated Howard into the first division of globally renowned free jazz players.

He spent much of the next decade or so exploring new ideas and places to work, including Europe and Africa, moving to Nairobi in 1982 and finally Brussels, where he had a studio and ran a jazz club.
In his autobiography, Howard described going to Africa: “It was a Sunday morning with bright blue skies and I reached down and grabbed a handful of earth, holding it in my hands. It was red earth. As the first of my family to make this voyage back to my community, I was filled with emotion and started to cry – thinking about all those before me who didn’t survive the middle passage and slave trade. I thanked the few strong survivors of which I’m a descendant and was grateful to be a live and to make it back to Africa in my lifetime. The feeling of coming back home, after generations had gone through abuse and suffering, was upon me. I would put some of this into music later on when recording with James Emmanuel, the poet on 'Middle Passage'”
He recorded steadily through the 1970s and 1980s, mostly with his own label AltSax and continued to expand his repertoire, exploring a range of sounds from ethno-funk to world music in his latter decade. He returned to his free jazz roots in the 90s, mixing the myriad of influences and styles he had encountered throughout his journey.
Noah Howard recorded 35 albums, and their styles reflect the ceaseless musical searcher he was: blues, free jazz, world music. He covered it all.
Noah Howard died on September 3rd, 2010 while on holiday in the South of France. He died a day before finishing the first draft of his autobiography.

After Motown left Detroit for Los Angeles in 1972, trombonist Phil Ranelin was largely left without work or direction, until he co-founded Tribe with Wendell Harrison later that same year. Two years after forming Tribe, Phil Ranelin would release his first album as a solo leader, The Time Is Now! The record contains all of the hallmarks of the best Tribe recordings: spiritual-leaning improvisations, soulful grooves, and appearances from Tribe regulars: Wendell Harrison, Marcus Belgrave, Reggie Fields, and more! The album opens with a 13 minute improvisation titled “The Time Is Now For Change”. As Ranelin , Belgrave, and Harrison exchange flurries of notes and squeaks over improvised chaos from the rhythm section, the group builds to a spiritual high that calls to mind the best Albert Ayler recordings. Bebop lines and unison phrases occasionally rise to the surface, offering a glimmer of familiarity in what is largely a harsh soundscape. Yet what sets Ranelin (and indeed, all of his Tribe contemporaries) apart from the larger free and spiritual jazz scene at the time is their sense of rhythm. Even as Harrison evokes sounds that would make a Meditations era Coltrane blush, the drums stay in time, and the looping bass and piano riffs take on an almost hypnotic quality, repeating quietly under a whirlwind of sound. Later tracks see the ensemble veer into soul jazz, and jazz-funk, with “Black Destiny” perfectly highlighting the group’s ability to meld the avant-garde with grooves that you won’t be able to stop yourself from tapping your foot to. Members of the Tribe were well known for their appreciation of African American popular music, and the influence of groups such as Sly And The Family Stone is clear in the song’s edgy rhythms and dense sound. This double LP reissue also contains alternate versions and outtakes that are so good you’ll be wondering why they were originally left out! With modern remastering, three bonus tracks, and an obi-strip, you don’t want to miss the definitive version of Phil Ranelin’s The Time Is Now!

Muntu is the first solo album performed and composed by pianist Guillaume Lavergne. It contains seven pieces of improvised music for piano and analog keyboards and an adaptation of a Charles Mingus' composition.Muntu means man and woman,Kintu means dog and stone,Hantu means East and yesterday,Kuntu means beauty and laugh.This 2 LP vinyl album is published in 150 numbered and stamped copies.

SOURCED FROM THE ORIGINAL MASTER TAPES: MOBILE FIDELITY 180G 33RPM SUPERVINYL LP
REVEALS MULTIPLE LAYERS OF RHYTHM, VISCERAL BASS, AND PIONEERING PRODUCTION TECHNIQUES
1/4" / 15 IPS analogue master to DSD 256 to analogue console to lathe

Miles Davis' boundlessly influential On the Corner was so far ahead of its time upon release in 1972, the jazz cognoscenti rejected its groundbreaking concoction as middling in nature. Yet time has a way of righting wrongs and shifting views by adding needed context and perspective to visionary ideas, music, and approaches — the likes of which fill Davis' boldest and most controversial — undertaking. Designed to bring the focus back on the groove and bottom-end frequencies, the funk-loaded On the Corner revolutionized jazz. It also set new standards for record production, presaging remixing and electronica by more than a decade. And the work has never sounded more thrilling thanks to this very special pressing.

Sourced from the original master tapes and pressed on MoFi SuperVinyl, Mobile Fidelity's numbered-edition 180g 33RPM SuperVinyl LP of On the Corner exposes the internal mechanisms, free-associated playing, and then-unmatched studio techniques in vivid fashion. The low end, crucial to every composition here, is both heard and felt, with locked-in bass lines and low-range percussion conveyed as taut, solid, and visceral passages. You can discern the multiple layers of rhythm Davis employed on complex tracks such as "Black Satin," as On the Corner stands as his first effort to use overdubbing and multiple tape machines. As a pioneer, Davis likely would’ve loved MoFi’s groundbreaking SuperVinyl profile that features the lowest-possible analogue noise floor as well as pristine transparency, dead-quiet surfaces, and superb groove definition.

New degrees of spaciousness and airiness — equally important to the musique concrete arrangements — give the impression Davis and Co.'s creations float in space. Instruments are portrayed in three-dimensional manners, rhythmic loops retain tonal purity, and horn solos skitter across an extra-wide soundstage that takes listeners into Columbia's Studio E. Mobile Fidelity's SuperVinyl LP captures Teo Macero's innovative production — and the trumpeter's cutting-edge aural collages — in definitive fashion.

Heavily inspired by Sly and the Family Stone, On the Corner portrays street vibes and remains Davis' Blackest-sounding record. The conscious attempt to connect with youthful audiences tapped into rock and funk is evident not only on the colorful cartoon cover art depicting hot-pants and zoot-suit revelers, but in the music's emphasis of recurring drum and bass grooves. Distinct from Davis' earlier fusion experiments, the record's long-misunderstood set dials back improvisation in favor of beats, loops, and atmospherics that generate trance-like effects. While Davis utilizes his band for core duties — Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock prominently figure — he also relies on an all-star cast of side-men for concentrated soloing and additional support.

With rhythm providing the basic foundation, other notes fall into place, with their positioning steered by Macero and Davis' editing-room techniques. Looking to the manipulation-based work of Karlheinze Stockhausen and teaming with Stockhausen disciple Paul Buckmaster, Davis re-imagines what grooves constituted and could accomplish throughout On the Corner. The shapes of the songs become completely transformed as they progress. Faint melodies, spacey chords, chunky riffs, wah-wah fills, and repeated motifs bounce in and out of a sonic funhouse that wouldn't be out of place at a Harlem block party.

Exotic, intrepid, and filled with Davis' "jungle sound," On the Corner remains daringly hip more than four decades later.

MoFi SuperVinyl

Developed by NEOTECH and RTI, MoFi SuperVinyl is the most exacting-to-specification vinyl compound ever devised. Analogue lovers have never seen (or heard) anything like it. Extraordinarily expensive and extremely painstaking to produce, the special proprietary compound addresses two specific areas of improvement: noise floor reduction and enhanced groove definition. The vinyl composition features a new carbonless dye (hold the disc up to the light and see) and produces the world's quietest surfaces. This high-definition formula also allows for the creation of cleaner grooves that are virtually indistinguishable from the original lacquer. MoFi SuperVinyl provides the closest approximation of what the label's engineers hear in the mastering lab.

180g 2LP 45rpm. Analogue Productions (Atlantic 75 Series)
Celebrating the 75th Anniversary of Atlantic Records!
John Coltrane's watershed 1960 release featuring the iconic title track and "Naima"
One of the most influential jazz albums of all time!
180-gram 45 RPM double LP
Mastered directly from the original master tape by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound
Pressed at Quality Record Pressings
Tip-on old style gatefold double pocket jackets with film lamination by Stoughton Printing

Released in 1960, Giant Steps was a watershed album for John Coltrane, solidifying the saxophone legend's reputation as one of the most influential and innovative musicians in jazz history, as well as delivering jazz to an increasingly mainstream audience, while garnering significant critical acclaim.

Although this was John Coltrane's debut for Atlantic, he was concurrently performing and recording with Miles Davis. Within the space of less than three weeks, Coltrane would complete his work with Davis and company on another genre-defining disc, Kind of Blue, before commencing his efforts on this one.

Coltrane (tenor sax) is flanked here by essentially two different trios. Recording commenced in early May of 1959 with a pair of sessions that featured Tommy Flanagan (piano) and Art Taylor (drums), as well as Paul Chambers — who was the only bandmember other than Coltrane to have performed on every date. When recording resumed in December of that year, Wynton Kelly (piano) and Jimmy Cobb (drums) were instated — replicating the alternate non-Bill Evans lineup featured on "Freddie the Freeloader" on Kind of Blue, sans Miles Davis of course. At the heart of these recordings, however, is the laser-beam focus of Coltrane's tenor solos.

All seven pieces issued on the original Giant Steps are Coltrane compositions. He was, in essence, beginning to rewrite the jazz canon with material that would be centered on solos — enabling the solo to become infinitely more compelling. This would culminate in a frenetic performance style using melodic phrasing that noted jazz journalist Ira Gitler accurately dubbed "sheets of sound."

The Giant Steps chord progression consists of a distinctive set of chords that create key centers a major third apart. Jazz musicians ever since have used it as a practice piece, its difficult chord changes presenting a "kind of ultimate harmonic challenge", and serving as a gateway into modern jazz improvisation. Several pieces on this album went on to become jazz standards, most prominently "Naima" and "Giant Steps."

The Penguin Guide to Jazz selected this album as part of its suggested "Core Collection" calling it "Trane's first genuinely iconic record." In 2003, the album was ranked No. 102 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, 103 in a 2012 revised list, and 232 in a 2020 revised list.

Undeniable music perfection deserves definitive sound and top-notch packaging. This reissue was mastered directly from the original master tape by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound and cut at 45 RPM. Pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Quality Record Pressings, and housed in tip-on old style gatefold double pocket jackets with film lamination by Stoughton Printing.

Overall, Giant Steps is not only a critical triumph but also a defining moment in John Coltrane's career. Its innovative compositions, masterful performances, and profound influence on jazz make it an essential entry in Coltrane's discography and a timeless masterpiece in the history of the genre.

An'archives presents three documents, three vinyl records carved by the illuminations of Masayoshi Urabe, six performances engraved like epitaphs in the stone that covers the Living World. These are recordings made in small suburban venues in Japan, where