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It Could Happen to You was originally released in 1958 and follows the similar style of his previous vocal records in which he updates old standards to a contemporary cool jazz setting. Unlike previous releases by 1958 Baker's voice had reached a stunning maturity and his trumpet playing is also at a near peak in quality. The song selection is impeccable and everything about this record just oozes coolness. One of the finest releases in Chet Baker's storied career.

15 dead, 15 funerals, 16 funeral processions, 1 procession with no dead, 5 churches, 1 cemetery, 1 wake. 15 hours of recorded sounds are condensed into a vivid sound portrait depicting the way funerals and burials are lived in the Caribbean island of Haiti.

Recorded in Port au Prince by sound artist Félix Blume in early December 2016, Death in Haiti plunges the listener into a world of pain, loss and solemn celebration as each funeral comprises of its own live jazz band as well as a plethora of characters like the joker (le blaguer) who cracks jokes and tales about the recently deceased.

A beautiful document of a thriving tradition, a counterpart or updated version of those famous Dirge Jazz records such as the New Orleans' Eureka Brass Band on Folkways.

* 180 gram audiophile vinyl
* Insert
* Printed inner sleeves
* Gatefold sleeve
* Remastered audio

Travelling Without Moving (1996) intentionally offers more of what Jamiroquai does best: highly addictive funky grooves with a social consciousness that is matched by front man Jay Kay's charisma. The third effort of Jamiroquai was carried by an inventive video for "Virtual Insanity", the album's flagship song.

Pressed on two heavy weight champions packed in a gatefold sleeve, Travelling Without Moving is finally available on vinyl again, this time with remastered audio for maximum aural pleasure!

Ltd. edition of 500 numbered copies on clear vinyl

The legendary French painter and sculptor Jean Dubuffet exalted naivety and spontaneity in visual art, and his brazenly experimental recordings on Musical Experiences evince the same spirit through sound. He once reflected, "Certain unexpected windfalls ... come of improvising on an instrument one doesn't really know how to use."

Dubuffet, who famously founded the art brut (or outsider art) movement, began making music in the early 1960s with avant-garde figure Asger Jorn. With no training, they played a range of instruments: saxophone, bassoon, detuned piano, hurdy-gurdy, cabrette, bombarde and so on. Soon, Dubuffet reserved a room in his home for making music and bought two tape-recorders in order to manually edit the results. He wrote fondly of the recordings' crudeness and the sense that they "had no beginning and no end but were simply extracts taken haphazardly from a ceaseless and ever-flowing score."

Dubuffet's discography begins in 1961 with the release Expériences Musicales, a six 10-inch record set produced in an edition of fifty with original artwork and lithographed sleeves. Musical Experiences, compiled by composer Ilhan Mimaroglu and released in 1973 on his Finnadar imprint, collects eight of the twenty pieces on the much sought-after Expériences Musicales.

First-time vinyl reissue. Limited edition of 500 numbered copies on clear vinyl.

"It's kind of a double bluff calling it the National Jazz Trio Of Scotland," says Bill Wells of a group that is famously neither a jazz band or a trio. "I was trying to be kind of perverse about it, calling it jazz and then deliberately not having anything that actually related to jazz." On their latest album, Standards Vol. IV, the National Jazz Trio continue their engagement with classic and outsider pop traditions, subtly building on their characteristic blend of beguiling melodies and spare arrangements. There is even, dare we say it, a hint of jazz. "For this record, I've opened it out," explains Wells. "There are drums on it, which I haven't really had before, even though they're sampled drums, and there are bits of improvisation like with the viola on 'Passing By' and 'A Quiet Life'. That's the first time there's ever been anything resembling improvisation on a National Jazz Trio album. I wanted something in there that was improvised and quite out there, very out there as it happened." That latter track also features a sampled irruption of big band jazz, as if Wells is transmitting live from a New Orleans second line, Dictaphone in hand.

These oblique visions of jazz aside, the album's most striking development is its focus on a single lead vocalist in Kate Sudgen. This is the first in a proposed series of albums to feature one singer from the NJTOS, with Gerard Black and Aby Vulliamy to follow. Wells is full of praise for Sudgen's beautifully unaffected voice. "It's just a case of her being a brilliant singer. I feel that she's underrated. She's as good as people like Liz Fraser. It's almost like her voice sounds like it's double tracked without it being double tracked, like Gerry Rafferty or Robert Wyatt. There's a graininess to it."

As Wells notes, Sudgen does not have a conventionally powerful voice, but her understated approach has a real emotional pull. "I suppose I like things to be very plain. I do like people who can hit notes, but I can't stand most jazz singers because they over-sing. I think sometimes the more emotional you are, the less emotion you convey. With Kate, it's very deliberate, it's all very considered, and in a way people like that are the best jazz singers. It might sound quite casual, but there's a lot of thought behind it."

This decade has seen a flurry activity from Wells. In 2012, he won the inaugural Scottish Album Of The Year award for Everything's Getting Older, a collaboration with Arab Strap's Aidan Moffat. In 2011 he released Lemondale, recorded with Japan-based musicians including Jim O'Rourke and Saya of Tenniscoats. Four years later, he assembled a stellar cast of musicians including Annette Peacock and Yo La Tengo for Nursery Rhymes, an exploration of the darker side of childrens' songs.

Wells' penchant for détournement and bittersweet irony crops up throughout Standards Vol. IV. Take "Tinnitus Lullaby", where Sudgen softly sings of "a never ending ringing" to "save your soul from sleep" over the melancholy twinkling of a music box like synth. The song is accompanied by an animated video from artist and singer-songwriter Marry Waterson, which for Wells recalls the DIY weirdness of 1970s British childrens' television. "She's got quite a dark sense of humour," says Wells. "I actually laughed out loud when I saw it because it so captured the mood. She's just one of these people who's so supremely talented."

'Anticipated Sentence' makes a wry reference to the Sinatra standard 'I've Got The World On A String', a song Wells dislikes intensely. "It's by Harold Arlen (and Ted Kohler) who is one of the great songwriters, but it's this relentlessly happy thing and I just think 'Shut up!'" As Wells explains, some of his greatest influences are things he hates. "I think a lot of people are the same, you know, 'that annoys me so much I have to react.' I quite like the idea of taking the piss out of it in a relatively subtle way." In Wells' song Kohler's cheerful refrain of "What a world, what a life!" is twisted into something altogether darker, with the string around the protagonist's finger becoming a noose around their neck.

Such juxtapositions can also serve to bring light to darkness. 'Move' is a vivid portrait of depression, where the protagonist spends all day in bed, listening to the sounds of helicopters buzzing overhead. Yet Wells animates the song with bossa nova guitar and clave rhythms, creating an effect that is, depending how you read it, ironic or uplifting. "It appears as a bit of a joke, but in fact it's what actually made the song work for me, because I'd been working on it for a while and I couldn't quite get the chorus to come out. And then I realised that if I put that kind of Latin rhythm on it, which is obviously in complete contradiction to the lyric, it actually made it work."

In addition to the ten Wells originals and a new version of the Aidan Moffat collaboration 'Far From You', Standards Vol. IV features a cover of Richard Youngs' 'Summer "Summer's Edge" from the latters's 2005 masterpiece Summer Wanderer. Wells has known Youngs since the 1990s, when they worked together with Future Pilot AKA. "There's a few people for whom you can justifiably use the word genius and I think Richard is one," he declares. "Again it was to do with Kate's voice and that song suited her voice so well. It's actually quite a radical reinterpretation. The original is a capella, so it gave me that space in which I could do something that was very much my own." The National Jazz Trio's version taps into the uncanny pastoralism of the original, with Sudgen's clear reading of the melody set against Wells' glistening keyboard samples. "It's one of my signature sounds," Wells adds. It comes from a sample library he and Vulliamy recorded with Teenage Fanclub's Norman Blake a few years ago. "They're all natural sounds, but they've been mutated. We've been using them on all the albums. I want something to sound like it's my own, so that's as close to making my own instrument as I can get. I like the fact that even though it's on a computer it's not going to be too precise." That human quality shines through Standards Vol. IV, an album characterised by its gorgeous blend of sophistication and vulnerability.

Stewart Smith

For Gérard Marais, guitarist with Dharma (the quintet), from this third album (in fact he replaced Gérard Coppéré, one of the two saxophonists present on the first album), Albert Ayler's instruction to play your own music was the detonator. This did not fall on deaf ears, and was particularly appropriate as it would have been difficult, even for a musician attracted to free jazz, to make something of his own from the esthetic and political direction taken by Cecil Taylor, Archie Shepp or Sun Ra. What could be summarised as ethnic differences. The quest was to find one's own music, whatever the more or less apparent roots.
For, at the beginning of the 1970s, Gérard Marais and his comrades in the Dharma Quintet were overwhelmed by electric period Miles Davis. Not the band with Pete Cosey, which was still gestating, but the one fascinated by electronic keyboards and the famous Fender Rhodes which added so much to the atmosphere of In A Silent Way.
From the beginning of Dharma, but without ever copying anyone, Patricio Villarroel played the role of Chick Corea with Miles Davis. While Gérard Marais whose fulgurant playing dynamised the group, was at the level of John McLaughlin, or Sonny Sharrock at the same period. Another important soloist, alto saxophonist Jeff Sicard was as inventive as Byard Lancaster, Noah Howard, Gary Bartz, Marion Brown or Sonny Simmons. It's difficult to do any better!
Questioned by a critic, years after the group split, Gérard Marais insisted on it being an idea born of the seventies, which seemed the only creative way to enable written music and improvisation to co-exist. This was a philosophy that he would continue to develop within Michel Portal's group, on Splendid Yzlment, but also in a great duo with Joseph Dejean (of Full Moon Ensemble), and yet again in a trio led by drummer Stu Martin, with two guitars the other being Claude Barthélemy.
The Dharma Quintet, made their mark, appearing under the letter D, between Dedalus and Dies Irae, on the list of major influences created in 1979 by Nurse With Wound.

Do your own music!' was Albert Ayler's advice, received loud and clear in France! Cohelmec Ensemble, Workshop de Lyon and the Dharma Quintet, three groups close in spirit, which would each illustrate in their own way a local principle: to get some distance from American free jazz. As far as Dharma is concerned, the community-based approach was put in place to escape (they stated) from any academism (the musicians lived together, rehearsed endlessly together, and collectively purchased the necessary material together). This may draw comparisons with the l'A.A.C.M. with whom the group felt a certain affinity, but they were also influenced by Gong, in spite of a deep admiration for Anthony Braxton who they met in Paris at the beginning of the 1970s! The events of May 68 were fresh, and protest was still in the air: no leadership structure was possible, and personnel could change with each recording (on Archipel, a new drummer makes an appearance, however, there is no recorded trace of the group with Jean Querlier and François Méchali).
Like its predecessor End Starting, Archipel is a constructed album, mixing free rock and European free jazz in a series of collective explosions based on abrupt and contrasting improvisations. For much of the time, piano, guitar and saxophone intertwine over intense rhythms, with everything and anything being electrified. Retrospectively, such remarkable timbral combinations, evoking sometimes the freer passages of Cinemascope by Joachim Kühn with Toto Blanke, make the demise of Dharma in 1974, even more regrettable. Their modernity has nothing to envy of the later advances of Paul Bley with guitar (Pat Metheny, John Scofield), or of Om on Rautionaha (for the alliance of Urs Leimgruber/Christy Doran), Patricio Villarroel's electric piano adding a nonetheless surprisingly singular touch to Dharma, inherited of course from Chick Corea's work with Miles Davis. This is without mentioning a kind of incisive violence when things speeded up, which was unique to the Dharma Quintet, or a sound as dense as that of On The Corner by Miles Davis, or Stark Reality, John Abercrombie's group from around the same period. Who else could seem approximately close to the Dharma Quintet at the same time Emergency, a quintet which had played and recorded in France, including, among others, Glenn Spearman on saxophone, Boulou Ferré on guitar and Takashi Kako on electric piano. Masabumi Kikuchi in Japan also deserves a mention.
Along with the Cohelmec Ensemble, the Workshop de Lyon, the Full Moon Ensemble, Perception, Armonicord or the Michel Portal Unit, the Dharma Quintet stand out as one of the most important examples of free jazz as it was played in France at the beginning of the 1970s.

Disk Union Japan and 180g team up for an exceptional release with Brazilian legend Hermeto Pascoal's 2017 album No Mundo Dos Sons, his first recording with his band in 15 years, now available for the first time in gatefold double vinyl edition!

Wide ranging and eclectic, Pascoal is known as "The Wizard" because he can extract a sound from anything. While one cannot always be sure exactly what instrument in his arsenal he is deploying at any particular point in time, the results are marvelous, defying easy (or any) categorization. The 18 tracks, each of which have their own distinct personality and character, include elements of traditional jazz, Brazilian jazz, traditional Brazilian music, pop, African, symphonic element, as well as music from Pascoal's cerebrum. All are imbued with Pascoal's tools of the trade - whistles, screams, scales, keyboard, kettles, spoons, squeeze toys, children's voices, prepared piano and geese calls.

Band members - whose ranks include such standouts as João Paulo Ramos Barbosa ("Jota P") and Itiberê Zwarg - add Brazil's pandeiro, surdo, caixa, apitos, bonecos and agogos, as well as more conventional Western instruments such as soprano and tenor saxophones, flute, electric piano, electric bass and other instruments. Musicians and genres such as Terry Riley, Frank Zappa, Weather Report, Javanese gamelan and Indonesian kulintang, Philip Glass and others come to mind, but there is no real overlap: Pascoal has his own special brew.

No Mundo Dos Sons (released in 2017 on 2xCD format in Brazil, on Selo Sesc) is Pascoal's first recording with his band in 15 years. He recently told Brazil's Anoticia that "My music is not commercial, it's not like selling bananas or soap. I'm not in a hurry to record. My whole life is to do shows... I have a frightening amount of music, almost 9,000 compositions on paper. But do not confuse quantity with quality, see I always worry about quality."

Harry S. Pariser - All About Jazz, October 12, 2017.

Personnel: Hermeto Pascoal: percussion, piano, Ajurinhã Zwarg: drums, Itiberê Zwarg: bass, Fabio Pascoal: percussion, Jota P.: woodwinds, André Marques: piano.

About 180g:

180g is a music agency providing vinyl pressing, distribution and licensing services specialised in the Japanese market. Its strong knowledge of the Japanese music scene and industry allows 180g to bring top quality solutions to the various international labels it is working with, for their development in Japan, and to Japanese labels for their development outside of the country. In addition, 180g runs its own record label.


About Disk Union:

Disk Union Japan is a retailer and music label who specializes in the distribution of vinyl, CD, and music DVD to Japanese listeners. Disk Union Tokyo has been founded in 1969 and is one of the finest music and audio dealers and distributors in Japan. Its strong position allows Disk Union to successfully market the independent labels in the country. Its A&R department takes pride in providing Japanese music lovers with the freshest independent sound from all over the world.

Named after the tenor saxophone, actually, Jimi Tenor is not just Jimi Tenor - he's as well Jimi Keys, Jimi Flute, Jimi Vox and Jimi Composer. Yeah, he is, as a multi-instrumentalist and music master in general, all of this! But wait: Active since the mid-80's he's also Jimi Legend. And if you overlook his whole oeuvre then finally you will find out that on top of all of this he's Jimi Genius.


Quantum Connection is Jimi's contribution to the recent Kraut-Life craze of the Berlin underground. Kraut-Life is the brand-new hybrid of Ghanaian Highlife and German - here extended to Northern Europe, as Finnish kitchen is also kraut-based - romantic melancholy. A heavy and driving Highlife beat (yeah, it's not Afro-Beat), screaming psychedelic sound-fragments and a sung desire for a subatomic love affair makes the song another undoubted original by Jimi.

My Mind Will Travel (Teen Party Edit) is a heavily danceable edit of the epic eight minutes version of that piece, which you can hear on Jimi's upcoming full-length album Order Of Nothingness, released on Philophon this June. For Jimi, the physical world seems to be limited: but he is confident that his mind can dive deeply and boarder less in the mystery of our micro- and macro-cosmo.

Quartetto Moderno is going through Italian jazz scene foregoing a new feeling which implies a cool aesthetic so much connected with European culture. Italian jazz music issued between the late '50s throughout the '60s is gaining attention elsewhere but in Italy. Numbers and numbers of excellent recordings - from Basso Valdambrini's to Quartetto di Lucca's, from Giorgio Azzolini's to Eraldo Volontè's - are now in great demand! They are the fruit of a musical research sustained by stylistic choices showing undoubtedly Italian roots, which is the right humus for Quartetto Moderno. Refined sounds, modal impulses combined with elaborate harmonic series and romantic melodies represent the natural, modern continuation of that artistic period and mood.

New edition of this very rare deep spiritual jazz album first released as a private-press album in 1969 on flautist Lloyd McNeill's own Asha Record label in Washington, DC. First reissued on Soul Jazz Records' Universal Sound sub-label in 2011 (long deleted) and now available newly digitally remastered on Soul Jazz Records main label in a limited edition of 1000 copies worldwide.

Lloyd McNeill is an African-American flautist, painter, poet, and photographer born in Washington, D.C., in 1935. His multi-disciplinary creative life led to encounters and friendships with Nina Simone, Picasso, Eric Dolphy, Nana Vasconceles and other legendary cultural figures.

McNeill grew up through the era of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s and his life and work is a reflection of those ideals. 'Asha' was the debut album by the Lloyd McNeill Quartet released on his own private-press record label, echoing the Civil Rights and African-American themes of the era - black economic empowerment and self-sufficiency - as well as a beautiful spirituality to the music. In the mid-1960s he moved to France where he became friends with Picasso, working with a number of émigré-jazz musicians whilst living in Paris.

In the late 1960s he taught jazz and painting workshops at the New Thing Art and Architecture Center in Washington. In the 1970s he travelled throughout Brazil and West Africa studying music and taught music anthropology in the US.

This album is released as a limited-edition 1000-copies worldwide LP (+ download code), and limited-edition 1000-copies worldwide CD edition and also as a digital album on Soul Jazz Records.

This album is released in conjunction with the album Lloyd McNeill - Washington Suite (1970) which was released last month also on Soul Jazz Records.

Strange Valleys, the 2018 full-length from Starving Daughters, is a progression as well as a shift in sound from the LA band's already-stellar previous releases.

Make no doubt about it that the sound of Progressive Rock and Psychedelia still play a big role here but there's certainly a greater influence from Library Music on the new LP.

The Starving Daughters Vinyl Impressions blog, led by Chris Tillotson of the band, shared the music of Chris's collection of which many were Library LP's.
These records seemed to have seeped into the mind, body, and souls of the whole band on this Strange Valleys LP.
Everything from the instrumentation, the attention to melody, to the track-length shows the large appreciation they have for Library music.

That being said, this moog-heavy, psychedelic-prog-funk, California-themed record is certainly unique and adventurous.
Winding through the exotic roads of Strange Valleys is certainly a trip well worth taking over and over again.

First re-press since its original release. When The Skatalites splintered after Don Drummond's arrest for murder, McCook led The Supersonics for Duke Reid in the rocksteady and early reggae years, before becoming the pre-eminent horns arranger of the roots era. Having already fallen under the spell of John Coltrane's free jazz, Tommy had found a deeper meditational mood in the percussive rhythms of Count Ossie's Rastafarian drummers, and he brought this spiritual dimension into the militant rockers sound of the late 1970s.

McCook recorded extensively for Bunny Lee, and 'Super Star Disco Rockers', released in 1977, is a strong showcase for his meditational style of playing. The track 'Lamb's Bread Herb', a reworked version of Yabby You's 'Death Trap' with an overdubbed 'steppers' drum pattern, is a mystical highlight.

Bunny Lee: When Tommy join up with Bobby Ellis on trumpet, that is when he develop what we call his 'far east' sound. And especially when he play flute like on 'Death Trap' it give it that 'far east' sound. Or sometimes Tommy play clarinet for a different flavour. But mostly he play the tenor sax with that deeper, lower tone, like on 'Tommy's Rocking Vibration' - hear that big horn there!'

Other tracks include two cuts of Frankie Jones tunes, ('African Jumpers' and 'The Night Rose Of Sherron', both popular cuts with Fatman's sound system) and instrumental versions of Johnny Clarke and Cornell Campbell songs. Several tunes feature the higher alto sax of Lennox Brown alongside Tommy's tenor, and two tracks actually feature Lennox Brown alone.

'Super Star Disco Rockers', originally released on Dynamic Sounds' Weed Beat label, was overdubbed and mixed at King Tubby's Studio, where Bunny would line up the horns players in a spirit of healthy competition.

Featuring, among others: Sly & Robbie, Earl "Chinna" Smith, Tony Chin, Ansell Collins, Ossie Hibbert, Bobby Ellis & Lennox Brown.

'Sassy' Sarah Vaughan was a singer whose respect from fellow artistes was as great as her popularity with fans.
No less a personage than Frank Sinatra once said, with tongue firmly in famous cheek, that 'Sassy is so good that when I listen to her I want to cut my wrists with a dull razor.' Vaughan certainly had the smoothest voice of her generation. She could swoop from the highest of notes down to the depths and could easily have trained as an opera singer.

A true funk-soul masterpiece. Sampled by Madlib, Homeboy Sandman, Ghostface Killah, Black Milk, Roc Marciano, 9th Wonder, and more.

Beautiful, golden-era soul written by Leon Sylvers III, produced by Jerry Butler and Keg Johnson.

The Sylvers were a family from Los Angeles who were very successful during the 70's and into the early 80's, with chart hits - deep into pop-disco territory - including 'Boogie Fever', 'Hot Line' and 'High School Dance'. This is the group's second album, from 1973, and is one of their strongest.

Opening with the awesome mid-tempo 'We Can Make It If We Try' the record moves through funk, boogie and deep soul moods, finishing on a hazy, acapella version of The Beatles 'Yesterday'.

Official reissue in replica of original artwork.

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

In this stunning LP, Carmen McRae pays homage to her friend and idol, Billie Holiday.

With her strong alto, huge range, and ability to change moods, McRae varies her sound throughout, sometimes sounding deliberately gravelly, then switching to softly sweet and romantic, matching the timbre of the instruments accompanying her. She alternates her tempo from slow and dramatic to lively, jazzy, flirty, or intimate. Always, she and the musicians accompanying her are in perfect sync, both in interpreting the lyrics and improvising with the melodies.

Every song is a winner. "Them There Eyes," begins with McRae singing off-rhythm, accompanied by a simple bass (Bob Cranshaw) and drums (Walter Perkins) before the sax (Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis) enters. "I'm Gonna Lock My Heart," is the happiest, with McRae hitting some surprising high notes. "Miss Brown to You," swings in a loose, flirty manner, and "I Cried for You" features McRae sounding like a muted trumpet and wailing. "Lover Man" is wonderfully bluesy, with a toe-tapping rhythm and improvisation, while "A Little Moonlight," with great piano (Norman Simmons), sax (Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis) and trumpet (Nat Adderley) solos, is wild and impassioned.

"Yesterdays," my favorite, begins as a slow, harshly melancholy song with sensitive piano background, then suddenly pauses slightly in the middle, and shifts to a faster, jazzier, more rhythmic line in which McRae is up and down and all over the scale. "Strange Fruit," one of Holiday's signature songs, is finely articulated, and McRae's phrasing and ironically sweet tones give even more emphasis to the horrifying lyrics as Mundell Lowe's guitar provides the mournful accompaniment. "God Bless the Child," written by Holiday, is slow and intimate, and as McRae phrases the story, her wailing adds poignancy to the lyrics.

Blessed with a voice and style that naturally adapts to any kind of jazz, along with the ability to articulate lyrics with perfect enunciation and phrasing, McRae is the consummate musician here. Singing some of Billie Holiday's best songs, and accompanied by world class artists with whom she is totally in sync, McRae in this LP is as good as it gets.
By Mary Whipple

Hailing from Indianapolis, Caesar Frazier (spelled 'Ceasar' from time to time) was a funky soul-jazz organist who recorded several albums for the Eastbound/Westbound label family during the '70s. In addition to recording on his own, Frazier also played keyboards in Marvin Gaye's backing band.

Collaborations with contemporaries were numerous and to this day Frazier's legacy is still alive through samples & remixes from outfits such as 'Gang Starr' and 'Arrested Development'.

In 1972 Frazier cut his first album 'Hail Ceasar', which featured musicians commonly associated with the Prestige label's jazz-funk outings -- Melvin Sparks (guitar), Houston Person (tenor), and Idris
Muhammad (drums). Those names alone should give you a clear idea what's going down on this album: slick wa wa guitar lines, the crisp ultra bumpin' conga rhythms, Idris's slick funk beats, screaming sax solos and last but not least Caesar's trademark Hammond organ sound.

Next to his own material you can also find a few cover tunes on here (by Quincy Jones, Isaac Hayes, Bob Porter (responsible for many superb jazz productions for Prestige and Atlantic) and to top it all off, recording duties were handled by Rudy Van Gelder (known for recording Miles Davis in the early 1950's and the countless work he did for Blue Note, Prestige, Verve .. and many others). This record is a delight for anyone who likes that 1970s organ groove sound and is right up there with some of the best of the Soul Jazz coming out of the early seventies. Hail Ceasar! Is a monster album that could

Originally released in 1972 on Eastbound Records, super rare and fetching large sums on the collectors market, now finally back available as a limited deluxe vinyl edition featuring the original artwork by Tom Curry.

Sterns Edits is a new collaboration between legendary African & Brazilian label and distributor Sterns Music and London producer and label owner Ben Gomori.

Sterns Music began life as pop-up style record shop housed in the back room of an electrical shop near Warren Street and grew to become the second biggest distributor of music from Africa outside of the continent itself. Over the years they released and distributed hundreds of artists, including household names like Salif Keita, Youssou N'Dour, Baaba Maal, Oumou Dioubate and Orchestre Baobab, building a comprehensive catalogue of music from across the region that spans some six decades. Now located inside a former bank vault underneath Warren Street station, they continue to work with a plethora of African labels, in some cases transferring master tapes to make them available digitally for the first time.

Gomori stumbled across this treasure trove of material when he discovered contemporary Gambian-born, Danish-residing singer and kora player Dawd Jobarteh's propulsive 'Sama Kebbalu' and decided he wanted to create an edit of it for his sets. He decided to see if he could license the track to make for an official release on his label Monologues Records, but soon recognised the bigger opportunity: "I was blown away when I met Robert from Sterns for the first time and he took me down into his vault. Original master reels stuffed into banana boxes, decades of vinyl, cassette tape and CD releases... history everywhere you looked. After exploring their vast catalogue and talking to Robert more, I felt like something could be done to bring some of their music and history into a new context and introduce it to new generations in the process."

Each Sterns Edits release will see Gomori - who has created dozens of much-loved edits of the likes of Marvin Gaye, Leonard Cohen, Sampha and DJ Shadow over the years - rework two tracks from the vast Sterns catalogue, melding these various styles of African music with his own house grooves to make for dancefloor ready weapons.

The intricate kora playing of Dawda Jobarteh makes for a mesmeric trip on this debut release, with 'Sama Kebbalu' ('tomorrow's elders') given a peak-time workout that makes fine use of the rousing, chanted chorus and rolling rhythm, and 'Bright Sky Over Monrovia' cut into a dub that focuses on the stunning finger-picking and passes it through heady delays.(A) A1. Sama Kebbalu (Ben Gomori's Lead By Example Edit)

The mid-1980s were a pivotal period for Don Cherry. Much of his energies had been devoted to co-op projects like Codona and Old and New Dreams and he also helped jumpstart the Leaders. The time being ripe to form his own ensemble, Cherry created Nu, a quintet with saxophonist/flutist Carlos Ward, bassist Mark Helias, percussionist Nana Vasconcelos and drummer Ed Blackwell. Live at the Bracknell Jazz Festival, 1986 confirms Nu to be an ensemble that vigorously and cogently articulated the various aspects of the multi-instrumentalist's multicultural aesthetic. This exceptional concert recording fills a significant gap in Cherry's discography.
(from liner notes by Bill Shoemaker, taken from JAZZ TIMES)

Limited edition of 500 copies.

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

For a label that wasn't around long, Strata East achieved the same sort of label recognition that Impulse! or Blue Note managed to build. In other words, you knew what you were getting when you bought a record on the label, even if you didn't know the names on the outside of the cover.

"Don't Look Back" is an album led by American saxophonist Harold Vick recorded in 1974 and released in the wake of Harold Vick's recovery from a heart attack, which may partially explain the passion with which he approaches his playing throughout.

One of the best-ever Strata East sessions! The album's a masterfully conceived session by reed player Harold Vick - best known to the world as the funky tenorist from albums by John Patton and Jack McDuff in the 60s, but emerging here as an incredibly sensitive soul jazz player, capable of turning out some incredibly sophisticated and emotional compositions. Vick produced and wrote all the material on the album. A treasure all the way through. (Dusty Groove, Inc.)

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

This jazz recording is considered as the 'magnum opus' of master "drummer extraordinaire'', composer, arranger, producer, and leader Norman Connor's in a career that has spanned 4 decades. This recording is what many will consider the debut of the legendary vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater who has since gone on to a brilliant career. Connor's put together an all-star group with Herbie Hancock and Onaje Allan Gumbs on piano and Fender Rhodes, Dr. Eddie Henderson on trumpet/flugelhorn, Carlos Garnett on tenor/soprano saxes, Gary Bartz on alto/soprano saxes, Buster Williams on bass, drummer/vocalist Bill Summers and Kenneth Nash on percussion, and effective, crucial cameos by master flautist Hubert Laws. On the song, "Love From the Sun'", Connors added Nathan Rubin on violin and Terry Adams on cello.

The 'best of the best' begins with the exotic theme of Hancock's "Revelation", doubled wordlessly and beautifully by Ms. Bridgewater over Williams bouncing ostinato bass pattern with flights of fancy from Hubert Laws on flute, and superb, luminous solos from Henderson's exotic trumpet, Garnett on soprano, and Hancock on Fender Rhodes. Garnett's "Carlos II" is another great composition with remarkable solos. Connors' own "Drums Around The Worlds'" is influenced by African and latin rhythms with emotional vocals from Summers and a drum-only section that builds in intensity. One of the high points of the album is Dee Dee Bridgewater's awesome, glorious vocalizing on Richard Clay's lovely "Love From The Sun", in one of the greatest performances in her career, arranged by Gumbs. Elmer Gibson's "Kumakucha" (The Sun Has Risen) is a blazing display of uptempo musicianship by Connor's driving drums, the propulsive congas of Summers and Nash, and exciting solos from Bartz, Henderson on trumpet, and Hancock's furious piano solo. The set ends with a marvelous "Holy Waters" composed and arranged by Garnett in a scorching performance by Bridgewater on vocals, Garnett unleashing one of the greatest solos in his storied career, followed by Gumbs' astute solo.

My Highest Recommendation.

By John Braswell

MARA is the debutalbum of Munich-based jazz group FAZER. The young musicians combine African and Latin rhythms with dubby basslines and melancholic melodies. The unusual lineup with two drummers (Simon Popp, Sebastian Wolfgruber), bass (Martin Brugger), guitar (Paul Brändle) and trumpet (Matthias Lindermayr) leaves an open space for unfettered improvisation. Through the concept of repetition and finely measured dynamics, Fazer create a drawing energy that can be felt directly at their live shows and has been captured perfecty on this record.

- 180 GRAM AUDIOPHILE VINYL
- 6MM SLEEVE
- INCLUDES TWO PRINTED INNER SLEEVES
- 30TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION FEATURING NEW LIVE VERSIONS OF IS SHE REALLY GOING OUT WITH HIM' AND MANY MORE HITS

Joe Jackson is an English musician, singer-songwriter who scored a major hit in 1979 with his first release Is She Really Going Out With Him'.

Live 1980/86 is a double live LP which was recorded during the 1980 Beat Crazy tour, the 1982-83 Night and Day Tour, the 1984 Body and Soul tour and the 1986 Big World tour. These performances took place in Manchester, Utrecht, Sydney, Melbourne, Vancouver and Tokyo. During the four tours Jackson goes through different periods in his songwriter's career, each time using a new backing band. Live 1980/86 charted in the United Kingdom, USA, The Netherlands, Australia and contains the live acoustic and a cappella versions of Is She Really Going Out With Him', It's Different For Girls', Steppin' Out' and features new interpretations of classic hits from Joe Jackson's vast repertoire.

The Live 1980/86 double album, original released in 1988, celebrates it's 30th Anniversary in 2018 and the 180 gram records are housed in two printed inner sleeves.

Our latest examination of Esoteric, Modal & Progressive Jazz of the 20th Century has taken us to Japan. The liberating force of jazz has been created and felt all around the world, but few nations on earth embraced the jazz message with the passion and intensity of Japan. From the dawn of the jazz age to the present day, Japanese audiences have been renowned tastemakers, enthusiasts and champions of the music - in the 1980s, Japan was the biggest per capita market in the world for jazz records, and it has even been said that Japanese jazz fans kept the jazz record industry alive through the lean years of the 1970s, when the music fell from commercial favour in the land of its birth.

But while the jazz aficionados of Japan are celebrated as sophisticated fans and consumers of the music, comparatively little is known outside Japan of the remarkable and abundant music produced by generations of Japanese jazz musicians. Numerous Japanese jazzers have found enormous success on the international stage - Toshiko Akiyoshi, Sadao Watanabe, Teramasu Hino, and many others are household names among jazz listeners all over the world, and with good reason. But if such global figures are put aside, the stunning heritage of Japanese jazz remains poorly understood outside Japan. As a result, the work of many celebrated Japanese jazumen has remained largely unknown to international audiences, and the extraordinary scope and depth of Japanese jazz has not been widely recognised.

Compiled for the Spiritual Jazz series in collaboration with the celebrated collector and DJ Yusuke Ogawa (Deep Jazz Reality, Tokyo), this 2CD/twin set of double LPs aims to correct that omission by uncovering the uniquely deep sound of esoteric, modal and progressive jazz from Japan - music of the heart, soul and Japanese spirit!

Each 2LP set comes complete with OBI strip and thick, textured sleeve. Our extensive liner notes extend onto printed inners, and are in both Japanese and English.

"Hi again!

It's been a couple years, but I've put together a new record, this time with my neighbor Stu and a few other friends. Stu's been tuning the piano Linda and I were using for our Lejsovka & Freund and Trouble Books recordings, and I've always enjoyed the test scales and vignettes he would run through checking his work.

I floated the idea to collaborate on a sort of 70s/80s ECM kinda vibe, and soon started bringing my laptop and a couple microphones over to his house to collect his improvisations and have him add to pieces I had started. Other friends from the neighborhood dropped by to add parts here and there as well.

The recordings were made primarily in the summers of 2016 & 2017 (with a break in-between to mourn the triumph of neo-fascism as well as the passing of beloved pets). Ultimately I tried to follow the feel of those summer nights and the tranquility they offered. Open air or at least open windows, drifting along, you know"

-KF, Spring 2018.

Aqueduct Ensemble is a collaboration between Ohio based artist Keith Freund - who has previously released music as part of both Lejsovka & Freund and Trouble Books - and his neighbour Stu, who is a piano tuner and professional pianist. Their debut album together, "Improvisations On An Apricot" is the second release from label Last Resort, and follows G.S Schray's "Gabriel" (2017) - the sleeves for which were both designed by Keith, who does does all the art direction for the label. Beginning life in 2013 as an NTS radio show of the same name, Last Resort is run by Tom Cathcart from his home in London.

Dharma as they were simply known, at the time when they were still playing, englobed all the incarnations of the group, trio, quartet (essentially as a live band) and quintet built around the stable core of pianist and bassist Patricio Villarroel and Michel Gladieux. Snoopy's Time is their second album, concentrated on the rhythm section including the ever-faithful Jacques Mahieux on drums, and recorded three months after Mr Robinson, the first album, made as a quintet including Jef Sicard and Gérard Coppéré, both at the time saxophonists with Claude Delcloo's Full Moon Ensemble. It is the most classic album in their discography, marked by the influence on Patricio Villarroel of the electric explorations of Miles Davis' pianists from 1968, that is to say Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Joe Zawinul and Keith Jarrett. Indeed, the use of echo, reverb and saturation by Patricio Villarroel is similar to that of his famous counterparts. It would be a year later in France, but with a sound all his own, that Siegfried Kessler would undertake similar experiments playing with Perception, a group similar in spirit to Dharma. Specialists may also evoke Paul Bley, notably on Scorpio and Sweet Earth Flying, or even Richard Beirach with Dave Liebman on Drum Ode, but these albums came out a few years after the innovative Snoopy's Time surprisingly released in 1970. Even amongst all the instrumental funky music of the time it is rare to find such a communicative energy, magnified all the more by the subtle use of effects and an innate sense of groove.