Jazz

'Esoteric, modal and deep jazz from Prestige Records, 1961-73'The tenth edition of our Spiritual Jazz series takes a closer look at the music Prestige was recording at the start of the 1960s. This was the period when the modal jazz sound pioneered by Miles and Coltrane was starting to percolate through the jazz underground.In its heyday, Prestige was the only jazz label that could hold a candle to Blue Note. Prestige was always quick off the mark to record new artists, and in the years after Kind of Blue the label was quick to release some of the most innovative early explorers of the new style.Founded as New Jazz in 1949 by 20-year old jazz fan and entrepreneur Bob Weinstock, Prestige was the only other imprint besides Blue Note to capture the iconic jazz sounds of the 1950s, and like its rival it grew to be an icon itself.If Blue Note documented the sound of hard bop in its most carefully crafted and beautifully presented form, the low-key, jam-session approach that Weinstock preferred meant that the music captured by Prestige has a tough, unfiltered energy that was a lot closer to way it was being played live, night after night, by New York's most prominent jazz musicians.Featuring Afro-Eastern visions from Yusef Lateef and Ahmed Abdul-Malik, deep modal excursions from Mal Waldron and Walt Dickerson, and essential spiritual jazz grooves from Gary Bartz and Idris Muhammed, Spiritual Jazz vol. 10 documents the sound of modal jazz in full flight, unabashed and authentic from the pioneers!2LP gatefold with comprehensive liner notes & pics

Limited to 1000 copies 180 Gram Vinyl with Obi. Comes in Japanese Paste On Sleeve

Lyon-based psychedelic jazz outfit Palm Unit follow up their recent tribute to Jef Gilson on the Supersonic Jazz label by highlighting the revolutionary side of French Jazz figurehead Henri Texier and his fascination with different folkloric traditions from around the world. The session stands as something of an ecological manifesto, recycling Henri’s original com- positions with new settings and arrangements, preserving Henri’s worldview but adding a dense textural base that pushes the session into more cosmic territory.Don’t Buy Ivory Anymore!

60s Jazz Holy Grail LP outta California - Mythical album on many Jazz collectors want-lists!180 gram Deluxe Heavy Cardboard Sleeve with OBIThis LP is on the extremely limited and sought after private press label HME. It's a deep, Latin, Afro/Cuban-influenced, primarily acoustic jazz piece. Influences range from the cerebral to the soulful, but it defies any one-dimensional tag like "spiritual jazz" or "soul-jazz" or "jazz-funk." Heralding from L.A. and led by pianist Reggie Andrews, it doesn't sound particularly "west coast".It's a beautiful session all around, really something special and profound. In recent years, Reggie Andrews has taught, mentored, and produced many talented musicians including Patrice Rushen, Terrace Martin, Ndugu Chancler, and the Dazz Band who wrote "Let it Whip" along with his close friend Leon Ndugu Chancler. He is the founder of the jazz-fusion group Karma He worked with Earth, Wind & Fire, produced Moacir Santos for Blue Note Records and served as "Electronics Consultant" for Donald Byrd, and mentoring The Pharcyde to J.Dilla

Hard-to-find Detroit Jazz-Funk ! 180 gram Deluxe Heavy Cardboard Sleeve with OBIAn extremely rare album left by Detroit-based jazz keyboard player Johnny Griffith known for the album "Together, Togetherness" on RCA. An album covering "From The Music Connection" with Freddie Redd Quartet and Jackie McLean. The Music From "The Connection" was composed by jazz pianist Freddie Redd for Jack Gelber's 1959 play The Connection. This first recording of the music was released on the Blue Note label in 1960. It features performances by Redd and Jackie McLean Jack Gelber originally planned for the play to feature improvised music performed by jazz musicians who would also play small roles in the production. Freddie Redd, however, persuaded Gelber to include his original score. Redd re-recorded the score later in 1960 as Music from the Connection.In 1974 The pianist Johnny Griffith, who was a member of the prestigious Motown rhythm section "Funk Brothers", covered the album "The Connection" by Freddie Red as a whole album, playing electric piano here, which really changes the vibe of the music - and the players are supposedly a host of Motown studio musicians - playing jazz here, but with a nice funky soul undercurrent. Originally released on Detroit Geneva Label.Pianist Johnny Griffith can be heard on classic Motown sides, as well as on recordings from other Detroit-area labels. Like Motown's other pianists, Joe Hunter and Earl Van Dyke, Griffith's had an extensive musical background.Signed to Motown's Jazz Workshop label, he recorded the albums "Detroit Jazz" and "The Right Side" of Lefty Edwards. When the march of the Motown hits began, Griffith started playing on sessions for their R&B/Pop acts. But rather than signing a work-for-hire contract with Motown like other musicians, Griffith remained a freelancer, doing other dates and sessions in New York and nearby Chicago.The Motown hits that Griffith played on include: Marvin Gaye's "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)", his celeste trills are heard on "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)", adding Wurlitzer electric piano on both Gaye's "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" and the Temptations' "Ain't Too Proud to Beg", organ on the Supremes' "Stop in the Name of Love and organ and shotgun effects on Junior Walker and the All Stars' "Shotgun.Griffith's non-Motown hits are with Edwin Starr, Jackie Wilson, The Chi-Lites, and Young-Holt Unlimited's "Soulful Strut" In the '90s, Griffith was still active on the Detroit club scene.

It was in 1973, on the 14th of October, late in the afternoon; on a pretty Sunday under the Big Top in the heart of the “Parc de la Pépinière”, in Nancy; it was the “premiere”, the world first hearing, and it has so far remained the only one commissioned by composer and trumpet player lvan Jullien, for the first international Nancy Jazz Pulsations festivalIn order to complete this work of composition and orchestration, Ivan asked the great Eddie Louiss on organ, and chose to do without a double bassist who would have been drowned in a telluric outburst, for the best drummers in Europe and beyond had accepted out of sympathy to offer their contribution to such a festival. The only melodist with Louiss was the English John Surman (born in 1944) here on soprano saxophone, discharging torrents of incandescent lava.Conversing with drums, cymbals, xylophones, kettledrums, vibraphones, tumbas, djembes and all other percussive things that you’ll like to imagine – a bunch of talents such as those of the French André Ceccarelli, Daniel Humair or Bernard Lubat, the New Yorker Stu Martin, who reminds of Paul Motian in his “breaks”, South African Louis Mo-Holo, young Lamont Hampton, the great trombonist “Slide” Hampton’s son and the Malagasy Franck Raholison, the Senegalese Lamine Konte.And we will scrupulously refrain from omitting the four musketeers, here representing percussion in classical music, namely the Percussion Quartet of Paris under the leadership of Mr. Lucien Lemaire.