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8CD BOX
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ESPDISK 5034CD
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$67.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 5/24/2019
Saxophonist/guitarist/composer/music historian/ provocateur Allen Lowe spans the history of jazz in his music in a way that few besides Jaki Byard, Beaver Harris, Steven Bernstein, and Air have ever done, intertwining blues, early jazz, bebop, and the avant-garde. A prolific composer who was incorporating American roots music into his jazz decades before it was hip, he has led project bands featuring a broad array of jazz greats ranging from Doc Cheatham, Randy Sandke, Joe Albany, Don Byron, Ken Peplowski, and Percy France to Matthew Shipp, Julius Hemphill, Marc Ribot, Roswell Rudd, David Murray, Gary Bartz, Nels Cline, Ray Anderson, DJ Logic, Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre, and Hamiet Bluiett. With two notable but out-of-print exceptions, most of his work has been released on his own Constant Sorrow label. ESP-Disk' has long admired his work and is happy to partner with him on the career-spanning An Avant Garde Of Our Own: Disconnected Works 1980-2018, which consists of four CDs (3-6) of previously unreleased material and four thematically arranged CDs (1-2, 7-8) collecting a wide variety of material that was mostly previously -- but not widely -- available.
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ESPDISK 5029CD
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Matthew Shipp has established himself as the premier jazz pianist of his generation over the course of a three-decade career including many acclaimed albums under his own name plus his prominent tenure in the David S. Ware Quartet and a vast array of collaborations with the likes of Spring Heel Jack, Ivo Perelman, Sabir Mateen, Darius Jones, Joe Morris, Jemeel Moondoc, Mat Walerian, and many more. ESP-Disk' in its four-years-and-counting association with him has already presented Shipp in solo, duo, trio, and quartet projects. On the album Signature, ESP-Disk' will finally have an album with him in his primary setting, his piano trio with bassist Michael Bisio and drummer Newman Taylor Baker. Mr. Shipp says, "The piano trio is such a basic configuration in jazz, and it is an honor to take a well-explored area and apply my imagination to it to see where we can go -- it helps that my trio mates are great." Starting in the bebop era, the piano-bass-drums lineup has been the most classic jazz format in which the piano is featured, accumulating the weight of history and critical expectations. In this setting, a non-mainstream player such as Shipp can infiltrate Newport Jazz Festival, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and other establishment bastions in a familiar format and then unleash his ideas on audiences that might not normally be exposed to his style, but thanks to hearing it in the communal language of the piano trio, they can better understand the message the Matthew Shipp Trio has to deliver. Shipp, Bisio, and Baker convened at Shipp's favorite recording venue, engineer Jim Clouse's Park West Studio, on July 9th, 2018 and laid down the album in a series of first takes. It is a worthy successor both to the group's much-praised previous releases and to the iconic piano trios throughout jazz history. Produced by Steve Holtje. Engineered by Jim Clouse. Personnel: Matthew Shipp - piano; Michael Bisio - bass; Newman Taylor Baker - drums.
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ESPDISK 5013LP
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LP version. Chicago power-jazz trio Tiger Hatchery proudly comes out of the ESP-Disk' free jazz tradition, as Mike Forbes's playing makes clear, but there's an added noise-rock edge, especially in Ben Billington's aggressive drumming, that keeps the sound modern. Andrew Scott Young does much more than lay down the bottom, emerging as an equal member of their glorious cacophony. Their 2013 ESP release, Sun Worship (ESPDISK 5003CD/LP), earned huzzahs from press and free-jazz aficionados. Personnel: Mike Forbes - saxophones; Andrew Scott Young - basses; Ben Billington - drums. RIYL: Albert Ayler, Peter Brötzmann.
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ESPDISK 5013CD
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Chicago power-jazz trio Tiger Hatchery proudly comes out of the ESP-Disk' free jazz tradition, as Mike Forbes's playing makes clear, but there's an added noise-rock edge, especially in Ben Billington's aggressive drumming, that keeps the sound modern. Andrew Scott Young does much more than lay down the bottom, emerging as an equal member of their glorious cacophony. Their 2013 ESP release, Sun Worship (ESPDISK 5003CD/LP), earned huzzahs from press and free-jazz aficionados. Personnel: Mike Forbes - saxophones; Andrew Scott Young - basses; Ben Billington - drums. RIYL: Albert Ayler, Peter Brötzmann.
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ESPDISK 5030CD
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A product of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians who studied with AACM founders Anthony Braxton and Roscoe Mitchell, saxophonist Mars Williams is most famous as a member of The Psychedelic Furs but has proven his jazz bona fides with Peter Brötzmann and Ken Vandermark and while guiding Liquid Soul and Hal Russell's NRG Ensemble, to name just a few. His rock CV is also varied, including many years in Akron new wave band The Waitresses and work with Billy Idol, Ministry, Massacre, and many more. He also leads the Albert Ayler tribute band Witches & Devils, and out of their holiday concerts grew a unique tradition. One look at this album's track titles and you'll understand the concept here. One listen and you'll hear that, as odd as that concept may seem, it's brilliantly effective, with the disparate melodies working together in their common projection of joy and celebration. And it's worth noting that Williams's worlds collide on track three here, featuring The Waitresses's biggest hit, "Christmas Wrapping", as he played on their original recording. After enjoying An Ayler Xmas Vol. 1 (2017) last year, ESP-Disk' invited him to make Vol. 2 a co-release of Williams's Soul What Records and ESP-Disk', the top Ayler label. Personnel: Mars Williams - saxes, toy instruments; Josh Berman - cornet; Fred Lonberg-Holm - cello; Jim Baker - piano, ARP synthesizer, viola; Kent Kessler - bass; Brian Sandstrom - bass, guitar, trumpet; Steve Hunt - drums, percussion; Jeb Bishop - trombone; Thomas Berghammer - trumpet; Hermann Stangassinger - bass; Didi Kern - drums, percussion; Christof Kurzmann - lloopp, vocals.
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ESPDISK 5027CD
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Gabriel Zucker's first ESP-Disk' album, Evergreen (Canceled World) (ESPDISK 5017CD, 2016), was made with his big band, The Delegation. His second, Weighting is a quartet, with Delegation members Adam O'Farrill and Eric Trudel joined by acclaimed drummer Tyshawn Sorey. A suite inspired by Rachel Kushner's novel The Flamethrowers (2013), Weighting is a spacious mix of composition and improvisation, frequently intimate -- sometimes consisting of just intertwined sax and trumpet lines -- but occasionally punctuated with rowdy outbursts or densely-woven passages. Personnel: Gabriel Zucker - piano, compositions; Tyshawn Sorey - drums; Adam O'Farrill - trumpet; Eric Trudel - saxophone.
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ESPDISK 5010CD
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Matt Lavelle (trumpet, flugelhorn, alto clarinet) and Reggie Sylvester (drums), New York avant-jazz veterans and longtime cohorts in the Bern Nix Quartet, perform in duo here on Retrograde, their debut on ESP-Disk'. Visiting destinations overlooked on John Coltrane's tour of the solar system, they craft their own space suite of earthier delights. This album was recorded live at Andrea Wolper's WhyNot Experiment? series. Matt and Reggie played two sets; the second set, with Bern Nix in the audience, is what you hear on this album, which is dedicated to the late Mr. Nix. This is the sixth album as a leader from Matt Lavelle (b. 1970), and his first on ESP-Disk'. He has studied with Ornette Coleman and swing-era veteran Hildred Humphries, has worked with William Parker, Roy Campbell, Daniel Carter, Jemeel Moondoc, Mat Maneri, Matana Roberts, Rashid Bakr, and folk/improv ensemble Stars Like Fleas. He collaborated with ESP fave Giuseppi Logan on the latter's 2010 comeback and worked extensively with Sabir Mateen. Currently, Lavelle leads a variety of groups, most notably The 12 Houses, an all-star avant big band. Drummer Reggie Sylvester (b. 1957) was a member of the early Black Rock Coalition of the mid-1980s and played with the BRC Orchestra and its instrumental offshoot Trio From Beyond, he opened for Blues Traveler, Spin Doctors, Ginger Baker's Middle Passage Band (album produced by Bill Laswell) (2016), and Raging Slab at Wetlands. In 1995, he recorded with experimental guitarist/vibist/bassist Paul Steven Ray, producing a three-song EP produced by John Snyder. In 2001, Sylvester joined metal/hard rock trio Rock Diesel, which recorded the independent CD Feedback. In April 2012, he became a member of the Bern Nix Quartet, playing all their shows until Nix's death in 2017 and on their 2013 album Negative Capability. Sylvester currently co-leads avant-pop/folk group the Human Hearts Trio with Lindsey Wilson and bassist Michael Trotman, a band that sometimes includes Daniel Carter. Sylvester was commissioned by Patricia Nicholson Parker to compose and perform I Know Your Face with Wilson, Carter, Nix, and bassist Francois Grillot at the Arts for Art festival Justice Is Compassion. Sylvester has also performed with Charles Gayle, Jemeel Moondoc, James Brandon Lewis, Ava Mendoza, J.D. Parran, Ann Waldman, and Charles Waters. James McLean, original sound man at the Knitting Factory, recorded and carefully engineered a full sound as good as that of a studio album.
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ESPDISK 5025CD
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Wet Robots is Fay Victor's first album as a leader released on an American label other than her own Greene Street Music, but she is already a star on the New York avant-jazz scene. From Bradley Bambarger's liner notes: "Few vocalists have the sheer boldness -- the outright fearlessness -- of Fay Victor as an improviser. The New York native has long been a creative force on the avant-jazz scene, as a singer, bandleader, composer, arranger, and teacher. She has worked on both sides of the Atlantic with the likes of Misha Mengelberg, Roswell Rudd, and Anthony Braxton, along with recording several distinctive albums as a leader. Reviewing her recent disc Absinthe & Vermouth (2013), NPR declared evocatively that Fay's original songs sound 'as if Joni Mitchell wrote lyrics for a lost Betty Carter prog-rock album -- and it totally works.' Fay has also recorded edgy blues in a duo with guitarist Anders Nilsson, and she is an inspired re-animator of vintage instrumentals as vocal material, in the spirit of Carmen McRae in Monk ; to this end, Fay has performed with her In Praise of Ornette group and with her house-rocking Herbie Nichols Sung band. Now we have on record Fay's SoundNoiseFUNK quartet, featuring Joe Morris, Sam Newsome, and Reggie Nicholson -- each an exceptional maker of music in the moment. Although Fay enjoyed a rapport with each of these players in various combinations, this foursome had never played together as a unit before the single summer day last year when Wet Robots was captured in a Brooklyn studio. If jazz is the sound of surprise, this album startles -- a sonic funhouse of left turns. The band floats in its own space, untethered by a bass. Morris's guitar moves like a snake. Newhouse keens, taps, sighs on the straight horn. Nicholson makes his percussion set-up a skittering, rattling thing. Then there is Fay -- her voice primal and wild, as attuned to unfettered expression as Albert Ayler's tenor."
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ESPDISK 5028LP
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LP version. On Buck Curran's second solo album, Morning Haikus, Afternoon Ragas, the emphasis switches to acoustic guitar, as compared to his first solo album, Immortal Light (ESPDISK 5014CD/LP, 2016). Side A, all solo acoustic instrumentals, seems to have fallen out of a wormhole emanating from Takoma Records in the 1970s. There's some of that on side B as well, but there are also vocals and other instruments, sometimes overdubbed, and the dedication of "Taurus" to Peter Green, guitarist extraordinaire of the original lineup of Fleetwood Mac (when they were a blues band), hinting at the breadth of Curran's influences. The introduction of other timbres and textures doesn't diminish the intimate, almost meditational mood, though. Co-released by ESP-Disk' and Curran's own Obsolete Recordings. Personnel: Buck Curran - vocals, guitars, harmonium, flute, banjo; Adele Pappalardo - vocals on "Dirt Floor". Mastering by Harris Newman at Grey Market Mastering.
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ESPDISK 5024LP
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LP version. Robbie Basho (1940-86), who died young after a stroke, never got his due in the culture at large, but steel-string guitar enthusiasts have known for decades that he was one of the greats of "American Primitivism". Technically adept and compositionally imaginative, fusing the music of many cultures into a mesmerizing solo style, he has been an inspiration for many; his music has generated a surge of interest in recent years. This 1982 concert was part of a four-show Italian tour. It took place at the 18th-century Palazzo Gaddi that housed the local music high school and was mostly used for classical concerts, in an intimate space co-organizer Mario Calvitti (whose memories of the events surrounding this concert make up the bulk of the liner notes) says Basho called it "one lovely little room where I could play all night." Only previously released incompletely as a download, this show can now be heard in its full glory. This release is in cooperation with the Official Robbie Basho Archives. No. 2 in the RB-Archives-Live series. Produced by Buck Curran; Co-released with Obsolete Recordings.
"American musician Robbie Basho (1940-1986) is without doubt one of the greatest pioneers of world guitar music. To this day, his songs and compositions for the acoustic guitar remain wholly unique, contemporary, and otherworldy. Though largely unknown in Italy when he toured there in 1982 (in the company of Italian acoustic guitarist Maurizio Angeletti), the small to medium size audiences who attended his performances were overwhelmingly sympathetic to his musical vision and deeply entranced in the glow of his musical presence. From what is documented on this recording from Forlì, we are given witness to Basho's idiosyncratic spirit and musical artistry. Wielding only a six and twelve-string guitar and his powerful voice, we hear rapturous fingerpicking and singing. As the concert evolves, Basho's spirit rises high above terra firma as he transforms into a wild mythical winged stallion, riding waves of colour and sound ... charging across plains of cosmic light towards the outer regions of space and time." --Buck Curran, September 11, 2017, Bergamo, Italy
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ESPDISK 5020CD
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Through the wood, sinew, skins, metal, and fingers, one hears the years of experiential exploration, responsive nuances, and overwhelming power in the trio's joyfully intense playing. They cover a lot of territory in this recording, conjuring epochs and eras, terrains and cultures. This is improvised music composed spontaneously out of the breadth of experiences. André Stjames is a cornerstone of the rich, thriving Pacific Northwest jazz scene and works regularly with his own ensemble, Mel Brown, The Kin Trio, Gordon Lee, Renato Caranto, and many others. Over the last three decades, Stjames has worked with Sonny Rollins, the Harold Land-Blue Mitchell Quintet, Andrew Hill Trio and large bands, Bobby Hutcherson, Charlie Rouse, Pharoah Sanders, and more. Stjames's strong sense of lyricism, buoyancy, and surging momentum, as well as a deep respect for both tradition and innovation, have taken him to both ends of the jazz spectrum -- from torch songs and two-beat to bop and beyond. Tim DuRoche works regularly with the collective ensemble Battle Hymns & Gardens and The Kin Trio, and has logged extensive time with an array of US and European avant-garde jazz innovators, including Dominic Duval, Burton Greene, Matana Roberts, Paul Plimley, Lisle Ellis, Wally Shoup, Gust Burns, Bert Wilson, and Urs Leimgruber, among others. Tim is the host of "The New Thing", a weekly radio jazz radio show on KMHD 89.1 FM, and is the author of the book Occasional Jazz Conjectures (2011). Thollem's spent his life skirting and erasing the edges of boundaries musically, culturally, geographically. His work is ever-changing, evolving and responding to the times and his experiences, both as a soloist and in collaboration with hundreds of artists across idioms and disciplines including William Parker, Susie Ibarra, Nels Cline, Amy Denio, Faruq Z. Bey, Michael Wimberly, John Butcher, Gino Robair, Pauline Oliveros, and Hafez Modirzadeh, among many, many others. "He inhabits a world uniquely his own, rhythmically, harmonically and formally." --Terry Riley This is Thollem's third appearance on ESP-Disk', following The Naked Future's Gigantomachia (ESPDISK 4053CD, 2009) and TSIGOTI's Private Poverty Speaks To The People Of The Party (ESPDISK 4057CD, 2009). Personnel: Thollem McDonas - piano; Tim DuRoche - drums André Stjames - bass.
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ESPDISK 5028CD
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On Buck Curran's second solo album, Morning Haikus, Afternoon Ragas, the emphasis switches to acoustic guitar, as compared to his first solo album, Immortal Light (ESPDISK 5014CD/LP, 2016). Side A, all solo acoustic instrumentals, seems to have fallen out of a wormhole emanating from Takoma Records in the 1970s. There's some of that on side B as well, but there are also vocals and other instruments, sometimes overdubbed, and the dedication of "Taurus" to Peter Green, guitarist extraordinaire of the original lineup of Fleetwood Mac (when they were a blues band), hinting at the breadth of Curran's influences. The introduction of other timbres and textures doesn't diminish the intimate, almost meditational mood, though. Co-released by ESP-Disk' and Curran's own Obsolete Recordings. Personnel: Buck Curran - vocals, guitars, harmonium, flute, banjo; Adele Pappalardo - vocals on "Dirt Floor"; Nicolò Melocchi - Bansuri flute on "Bhairavi Rovelli". Mastering by Harris Newman at Grey Market Mastering. CD version includes five additional tracks. "Crucible" is an archival recording made in the Summer of 2000, showing the development of Curran's musical style.
"Guitar tones linger and reverberate with a mystical translucence" --Dusted.
"Curran's music invokes swarming natural forces, looking for the borderline between the real and the sublime and, maybe, the supernatural." --Jesse Jarnow, Relix
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ESPDISK 1057LP
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ESP-Disk' present a vinyl reissue of Peter Lemer Quintet's Local Colour, originally released in 1968. British pianist Peter Lemer studied with Jaki Byard, Paul Bley, and Bill Dixon. His lengthy and distinguished career has found him in a wide variety of settings. As an avant-garde jazz pianist, he recorded with Spontaneous Music Ensemble; in the jazz fusion realm, he was a member of Gilgamesh and Paraphernalia; as a progressive rock keyboardist, he played with Gong, Baker Gurvitz Army, the Mike Oldfield Group, Seventh Wave, and In Cahoots. Sideman credits include work with Annette Peacock, Harry Beckett, and more. Surprisingly, Local Colour -- his debut recording -- is Lemer's only album as a leader. Recorded in London in 1966, it belongs in the collection of anyone who cares about the British jazz scene, and not only because of Lemer's talents. Everyone in this quintet went on to notable achievements. This was sax great John Surman's recording debut; he is now arguably the premiere British jazz saxophonist. Chances to hear the also scintillating sax sound of the more obscure Nisar Ahmad Khan (AKA George Khan) in a jazz context are much rarer, though near the end of 2017, Emanem released an excellent two-disc compilation of concert recordings, and some may remember his appearance on Robert Wyatt's Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard (1975) and his work with Cream lyricist Pete Brown and The Crazy World of Arthur Brown. Drummer Jon (then going by John) Hiseman had already established himself on the British jazz scene by co-founding the New Jazz Orchestra in 1964; two years after the Local Colour session he started jazz-rock band Colosseum, and he even collaborated with Andrew Lloyd Webber on the musical Cats. Bassist Tony Reeves had had a hit single in 1965 with Sounds Orchestral ("Cast Your Fate to the Wind"); after a brief stint with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, Reeves joined Hiseman in Colosseum; he was also a member of Greenslade and Curved Air. Together, they make a sort of inside/outside jazz that doesn't abandon themes and harmony but is still quite freewheeling when it wants to be. A seminal album of British avant-jazz. Personnel: Nisar Ahmad (George) Khan - tenor saxophone; John Surman - baritone and soprano saxophones , bass clarinet; Peter Lemer - piano; Tony Reeves - bass; Jon Hiseman - drums. Opaque red, 180 gram vinyl.
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ESPDISK 5023CD
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Japanese musicians Megumi Yonezawa, Masa Kamaguchi, and Ken Kobayashi present Boundary. The pianist and drummer live in New York City and often collaborate; the bassist lives in Madrid but comes to New York City twice a year for a month each time. The producer heard them at Manhattan jazz bar Tomi Jazz and immediately booked a session to capture their magic before Masa Kamaguchi left town. Megumi Yonezawa, from Hokkaido, earned multiple awards while studying performance and composition at Berklee, then joined Greg Osby's group on Jason Moran's recommendation and can be heard with him on the Blue Note album Public (2003). Other credits include work with David Liebman, George Garzone, Sam Newsome, and many more. In 2016 the Fresh Sound New Talent label released her debut album, A Result Of The Colors. But none of these credits reflect the freedom with which she plays on Boundary. Kamaguchi, also from Hokkaido, has the most recording credits (upwards of 30) in the trio, ranging from Ahmed Abdullah's Actual Proof (CIMP, 1999) to a series of tribute albums with Vinnie Sperrazza and Jacob Sacks. Inspired to play bass after hearing Jaco Pastorius albums, he studied with Gary Peacock student Yoshio Ikeda, then moved to Boston to attend Berklee, followed by a dozen years in New York City performing and recording with ESP star Sonny Simmons, David Murray, Charles Gayle, Paul Motian, Dave Douglas, Frank Kimbrough, and even Toots Thielemans. Kobayashi, who put the trio together, hails from Tokyo, where he earned a Bachelor's degree in art criticism and art history from Tama Art University. After moving to New York, he expanded his knowledge at the Drummer's Collective. He can also be heard on Jan (2014) with bassist Jochem van Dijk and Nine Stories (2016) with Takeshi Asai. Recorded at Park West Studios on June 4, 2017 by Jim Clouse. Personnel: Megumi Yonezawa - piano; Masa Kamaguchi - bass; Ken Kobayashi - drums. Cover art by Kiichiro Adachi. Liner notes by Matthew Shipp.
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ESPDISK 5018CD
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After a duo album -- Live at Okuden (ESPDISK 5007CD, 2015) -- and two trio albums -- Live at Okuden (ESPDISK 5009CD,2016) and This Is Beautiful Because We Are Beautiful People (ESPDISK 5011CD, 2017) -- by Matthew Shipp and Mat Walerian, all for ESP-Disk', they offer a quartet album that continues their strategy of working with different musicians each time out. Michael Bisio and Whit Dickey are long-time collaborators with Shipp, but the addition of Walerian's Zen style changes the dynamics of their interactions. Walerian and Dickey, masters of restraint, were a match waiting to be made, and their instant rapport is one of the attractions of this album. Personnel: Matthew Shipp - piano; Mat Walerian - alto saxophone, bass clarinet, clarinet; Michael Bisio - bass; Whit Dickey - drums.
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ESPDISK 5022CD
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In the first part of his career, Matthew Shipp avoided solo recordings, saying he wasn't ready -- and the first solo album he made, Symbol Systems (1995), happened by accident when the other player on the session didn't show up. Since then, his style expanded and matured and he recorded prolifically, including a number of solo albums, but they have remained special events, distinct statements of purpose. Zero continues in this tradition; its philosophical basis can be gleaned from the lecture on the bonus CD. But, of course, it is the music itself which speaks most eloquently. Please note that the tune titled "Zero" is not the same as a previous Shipp composition of the same title. Only the first of this album (an edition of 1000) will include the bonus CD containing the talk Mr. Shipp gave at The Stone. Liner notes by Steve Dalachinsky.
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ESPDISK 5024CD
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Robbie Basho (1940-86), who died young after a stroke, never got his due in the culture at large, but steel-string guitar enthusiasts have known for decades that he was one of the greats of "American Primitivism". Technically adept and compositionally imaginative, fusing the music of many cultures into a mesmerizing solo style, he has been an inspiration for many; his music has generated a surge of interest in recent years. This 1982 concert was part of a four-show Italian tour. It took place at the 18th-century Palazzo Gaddi that housed the local music high school and was mostly used for classical concerts, in an intimate space co-organizer Mario Calvitti (whose memories of the events surrounding this concert make up the bulk of the liner notes) says Basho called it "one lovely little room where I could play all night." Only previously released incompletely as a download, this show can now be heard in its full glory. This release is in cooperation with the Official Robbie Basho Archives. No. 2 in the RB-Archives-Live series. Produced by Buck Curran; Co-released with Obsolete Recordings.
"American musician Robbie Basho (1940-1986) is without doubt one of the greatest pioneers of world guitar music. To this day, his songs and compositions for the acoustic guitar remain wholly unique, contemporary, and otherworldy. Though largely unknown in Italy when he toured there in 1982 (in the company of Italian acoustic guitarist Maurizio Angeletti), the small to medium size audiences who attended his performances were overwhelmingly sympathetic to his musical vision and deeply entranced in the glow of his musical presence. From what is documented on this recording from Forlì, we are given witness to Basho's idiosyncratic spirit and musical artistry. Wielding only a six and twelve-string guitar and his powerful voice, we hear rapturous fingerpicking and singing. As the concert evolves, Basho's spirit rises high above terra firma as he transforms into a wild mythical winged stallion, riding waves of colour and sound ... charging across plains of cosmic light towards the outer regions of space and time." --Buck Curran, September 11, 2017, Bergamo, Italy
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ESPDISK 1010EP
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Reissue on 180-gram opaque white vinyl. Originally released in 1965. The transitional "Bells" was just under 20 minutes, released originally as one side of a clear vinyl LP with the other side empty of music. It was recorded at a May 1, 1965, Town Hall concert of ESP artists, displaying Albert Ayler's new group, which added Albert's brother Donald and Charles Tyler. The denser sound of "Bells" shows Ayler moving towards the bigger sonic statement made on Spirits Rejoice (ESPDISK 1020CD/LP), his September 23, 1965, Judson Hall session. By the way, "Bells" as heard here is not, in fact, a single composition; rather, it is a medley moving from "Holy Ghost" to an unnamed theme and then into "Bells" proper. ESP-Disk' founder Bernard Stollman was so excited by "Bells" that it was released without delaying to record additional music to fill the other side of the LP. Both Donald Ayler and Charles Tyler were making their recorded debuts; Tyler would go on to record for ESP as a leader (Charles Tyler Ensemble (ESPDISK 1029CD, 1966), and Eastern Man Alone (ESPDISK 1059CD, 1967)). One vinyl pressing of Spiritual Unity (ESPDISK 1002CD/LP) in the '60s substituted a different track for "Spirits." Mr. Stollman had no memory of how this had happened, but it was subsequently corrected and became a rarity known only to rabid collectors and ESP fanatics. The one that is on all the CDs (except for one Japanese release with both) and all the rest of the vinyl editions is the same tune as what is titled "Saints" on Witches & Devils (aka Spirits, recorded on February 24, 1964). The anomalous substitution, which does sound somewhat similar, is the same tune known as "Vibrations" on the album Vibrations (aka Ghosts) and as "[tune Q]2" in Revenant's Holy Ghost boxed set. Martin Davidson (owner of Emanem, another indie label responsible for many groundbreaking jazz releases) suggested that ESP-Disk' include this mysterious rarity on its 50th-anniversary CD edition of Spiritual Unity (ESPDISK 1002CD), and supplied the sound file. ESP kept the vinyl edition of Spiritual Unity as originally intended. How to get "Vibrations" out on vinyl, then? Well, Bells has long had plenty of open space on its B-side. . . .
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ESPDISK 5019CD
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Dragon and Phoenix refers to the names of the sound holes on the Chinese instrument known as the guqin, aka qin (gu is a prefix meaning "ancient"), which figures prominently on this album of improvised acoustic duos, being heard on thirteen of the sixteen tracks, with two qins on four tracks. Stephen Dydo, former president of the New York Qin Society, is the more traditional player here, whereas Alan Sondheim has a style heavily based on free improvisation. The two bonded over their instrument collections, sometimes trading or loaning choice items. Dydo, who has also had lengthy careers as classical guitarist and as a twelve-tone composer, once told the author that a good day of composing yielded a measure and a half; this painstaking attention to detail has stood him in good stead during his more recent study of the qin. Sondheim, who has previously had three releases on ESP-Disk starting in the 1960s and has prolifically spread his recent musical evolution across a variety of other labels, is an impulsive musical adventurer who uses his dizzying array of instruments for what their sounds can contribute to his musical style; he is not unaware of the traditional performance techniques of his instruments, but he never lets his musical expression be limited by or to those techniques. Except for the use of madal (a hand drum) on one track, all the music here is made with stringed instruments. The music is very often focused on contrasts of timbres and textures. However, there may be as much pure melodic content here as on any Sondheim album. Harmonies are spare but spiced with microtonality. Though it may be more subtle than much of ESP-Disk's catalog, attentive listeners will likely find that this meeting of tradition and experimentation lives up to an old ESP-Disk slogan: "You never heard such sounds in your life." A note about the track titles: They are based on the first sixteen characters of the Ch'ien Tzu Wen, translated by Ellen Zweig and Alan Sondheim, correlated with other English translations in Ch'ien Tzu Wen, The Thousand Character Classic, A Chinese Primer, edited by Francie W. Paar (1963). The translation is slightly modified for the CD, creating an almost haiku-like poem. Personnel: Stephen Dydo - qin, viola, banjo; Alan Sondheim - qin, viola, banjo, guzheng, rababa, erhu, madal.
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ESPDISK 5016LP
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Endgame Of The Anthropocene marks Talibam!'s return to ESP-Disk, a partnership that started in 2009 with the highly acclaimed Boogie In The Breeze Blocks album (ESPDISK 4055CD). Talibam! is a 14-year working unit based in New York City that can be described in various ways -- as a classic keyboards/drums expanded-jazz duo, as Dadaist provocateurs with an innate love for the history of music, as a Fluxus-informed theater troupe, as an electronic ensemble inspired by Stockhausen, or as a rhythm section at the cross hair of agility, speed, punctuation, and intention. Since their inception in 2003, Talibam!'s ultimate goal has been to wed disparate ideologies through proficiency, controversy, inquiry, and compassion. Every Talibam! album attacks from a different angle; Endgame continues this tradition of each new release sounding completely different from everything they've done before, as does Hard Vibe (ESPDISK 5015LP). Talibam! has made a geo-psychic prediction: after it expires in 2048, the Antarctic Treaty System will be rejected. As the rest of the planet will have been rendered uninhabitable due to wars rooted in overpopulation, global warming, and the relentless exploitation of diminishing resources, human interference and the failure to ratify will lead to international war over the sovereignty and control of Antarctica's vast resources. Endgame Of The Anthropocene is Talibam!'s first cinematic album of through-composed eco-gothic geo-sonics. It is the soundtrack to 2048's despotic nationalism and crumbling international infrastructure, underscoring an eco-mercantilistic tragedy and the desperate plundering of the last pristine landscape on Earth. This inevitable destruction of Antarctica's purity marks the global-environmental endgame of the Anthropocene. Endgame Of The Anthropocene is a dystopian sonic pronouncement of failed socio-environmental memes, and features Talibam!'s emergence into hyperkinetic rhythm-based instrumental/electronic music. Syncopation via polyrhythmic electronic drum and synth pads create corporeal dance floor beats that would make a super computer perturbed. Kevin Shea is a master of cyber swing and eco-war rhythm -- on this record, he keeps it android yet anthropoid, like Aphex Twin meeting a hologram Phil Collins. Keyboardist Matt Mottel anchors wide sweeps of analog synthesis -- his sonic palette oscillating between the Silver Apples, Sun Ra, and Arca via an Arduino beta bass drop. This music is hallucinatory composition -- electronic muzik via an ethnographic sonic landscape influenced by Parmegiani, Don Cherry, Front 242, Hailu Mergia, Vangelis, Suicide, Islam Chipsy, Stockhausen, and DJ Shadow.
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ESPDISK 1003LP
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ESP-Disk present a reissue of Pharoah Sanders Quintet, originally released in 1965. Recorded on September 10, 1964, prior to his well-known association with John Coltrane, this eponymous album (later renamed Pharoah's First) is the debut release of the iconic tenor saxophonist, Pharoah Sanders. (Yes, there are some spelling oddities here: the artist -- birth name Ferrell -- only later changed the spelling from the standard Pharaoh to the more personalized Pharoah). With one foot in mainstream jazz -- pianist Jane Getz had played with Charles Mingus -- and the other, tentatively at times, in the avant-garde, this is a fascinating glimpse of Sanders's style before he wielded the unremitting fierceness of his playing with Coltrane and the modal mysticism of his later solo albums on Impulse. Interestingly, in recent years he has deployed a more polished version of this sort of avant-flavored bop, bringing his career full circle and strongly suggesting that the hybrid heard here was not due to any failure of nerve on his debut but rather was the cornerstone of his conception. ESP-Disk has issued this album under three different covers; for its 21st-century reissue on vinyl, they have chosen to use the second and most beautiful. It is augmented with liner notes by a current ESP-Disk artist, tenor saxophonist Ras Moshe Burnett of The Red Microphone, who can be heard accompanying Amina Baraka on their eponymous release (ESPDISK 5021CD, 2017). Personnel: Pharoah Sanders - tenor saxophone; Stan Foster - trumpet; Jane Getz - piano; William Bennett - bass; Marvin Pattillo - percussion.
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ESPDISK 5015LP
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Talibam! delights in creating music that cannot be pinned down within the safe-spaces of existing genres. With each new album, Talibam! reinvent their methodological palette in order to bolster a fresh clarity of joyous auditory surprise, something their fans have come to depend on. Talibam! focus on compositional clarity, with reverence for their diverse interest in genre. On Hard Vibe, they push the pulse of motorik rhythm through a psychedelic jazz filter. This time out, they have created a sonic edifice so radical, so intricate in its density that additional hands were required to bring it to life; thus was born the Talibam! Hard Vibe Band with Matt Nelson (Battle Trance, tUnE-yArDs) and Ron Stabinsky (Mostly Other People Do the Killing, Peter Evans Quintet, Relâche) joining Matthew Mottel (CSC Funk Band, Alien Whale, Nymph, Platinum Vision) and Village Voice "Best Drummer in New York" Kevin Shea (Mostly Other People Do the Killing, Rhys Chatham, People featuring Mary Halvorson). The scientists in the Talibam! laboratory describe the results thusly: The Hard Vibe composition transforms aspects of rhythm changes into a disciplined sequence of minor key modulations to create a rigorous Hard Vibe obstacle course for the soloists over a tight melodic/rhythmic grid. Inspired by Herbie Hancock's '70s cosmic music, long-form repetitive works such as Miles Davis's On The Corner (1972), Charlie Parker's "Salt Peanuts," tenor sax endurance soloists, Albert Ayler's New Grass (1699), the legendary organ brutality of Larry Young, and the NYC avant-garde rock minimalism of Rhys Chatham and Glenn Branca, Hard Vibe maintains an infectious pulse with virtuosic structural jazz improvisation. The Jan Hammer/'80s soundtrack-inspired keytar payoff (second half of side B) brings festival audiences to its feet in epic dance and ripping solo proportions. But those are inspirations more than ingredients. As ESP-Disk would say, "You never heard such sounds in your life."
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ESPDISK 1021LP
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When Oscar Peterson moved from Montréal to New York in 1949, then-17-year-old Paul Bley took over Peterson's residency at the Alberta Lounge on Peterson's recommendation; in his 20s, Bley played with Charlie Parker. Bley incorporated maverick pianist Lennie Tristano's approach to improvisation and collaborated with Charles Mingus, and in 1958 in Los Angeles famously put together a band with Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, Charlie Haden, and Billy Higgins. His move into free improvisation in the groundbreaking Jimmy Giuffre 3 brought him acclaim. After moving to New York, he was one of the performers at the Cellar Café in Bill Dixon's 1965 four-day "October Revolution in Jazz" festival, which led to Bley being one of the co-founders shortly thereafter of the Jazz Composers Guild. It was in the midst of that fabled month that Bley recorded his first LP for ESP-Disk' (sixth overall to that point), Barrage. Bley returned to the studio for his second ESP-Disk' LP a bit less than two months later. Closer finds Bley again heavily featuring then-wife Carla's compositions; she's credited on seven of the ten tracks, including two also heard on Barrage, "Batterie" and "And Now the Queen." They sound quite different on this quieter trio date, and the performances are more concise (no track tops the 3:30 mark). Paul Bley included one of his own tunes, "Figfoot," as well as Ornette Coleman's "Crossroads" and future-wife Annette Peacock's "Cartoon." Closer features Bley's distinctive pianism in one of its earliest recorded manifestations. The other players are fellow Jimmy Giuffre 3 member Steve Swallow (bass) and, in his recording debut, Barry Altschul (percussion).
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ESPDISK 5021CD
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Amina Baraka speaks truth and spits fire when she reads her poetry. She is a warm and friendly person, but keeps a metal shovel by her front door in case of trespassers. She is a devoted Communist. She is vast, she contains multitudes. After decades in the shadow of her late husband, poet and playwright Amiri Baraka, Amina is about to raise her profile in the company of The Red Microphone, four musicians who are fellow fighters in the struggle for equality for all. Not that she hasn't been getting her poetry published all those years, but, generally, poets who add music to the mix can transcend category boundaries and reach more listeners. And this is some powerful music, inside/outside jazz, created in the moment, but occasionally building on a composition by group member Rocco John Iacovone, the cadences of Baraka's words intertwining with the rhythms of the music to become more than the sum of its parts.
All words by Amina Baraka. All music collectively improvised by The Red Microphone except: the music of "Timestep", written as "Travelin' Thru" by Rocco John Iacovone, with quote of "L'Internationale" by Pierre Degeyter; the music of "The Spirit of Billy Bang", written by Laurie Towers; the music of "The Things I Love", written as "Blue Nights" by Rocco John Iacovone; the music of "Talking Drum", written by John Pietaro.
Personnel: Amina Baraka - words, lead vocals; The Red Microphone is: Ras Moshe Burnett - tenor saxophone, flute, percussion; Rocco John Iacovone - curved soprano saxophone, alto saxophone, piano; John Pietaro - musical direction, drums, percussion; Laurie Towers - bass guitar.
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ESPDISK 3030LP
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ESP-Disk present a reissue of Albert Ayler's Prophecy, originally released in 1975. Recorded in concert at the Cellar Cafe, NYC, June 14, 1964. Three weeks before this trio recorded ESP-Disk's first jazz album, the epochal Spiritual Unity (ESPDISK 1002CD/LP), it was captured "live" by Canadian poet Paul Haines, who also recorded the New York Eye and Ear Control soundtrack (ESPDISK 1016CD/LP). This is one of the most influential groups in jazz history, a coming together of like-minded innovators who would be considered crucial influences by succeeding generations, so there is no question of the immense value of this material. Yoked, in the CD era, to the one-sided 1965 LP Bells (ESPDISK 4076CD), made with a different band in a very different style a year later, it is perhaps best appreciated on its own. Personnel: Albert Ayler - tenor saxophone; Gary Peacock - bass; Sunny Murray - drums; Paul Haines - engineer. Presented here on opaque yellow vinyl.
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