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The complete Don Rendell & Ian Carr Lansdowne recording sessions are now available as individual LPs. We located and acquired the original analogue master tapes from the Universal vaults and created masters at Abbey Road Studios to produce audiophile quality 180g pressings replete with replica artwork - shape, design, and even paper stock. No stone has been left unturned to deliver this absolute labour of love to the highest possible standard! Inside is a link to a printable online pdf which contains never before seen photographs, interviews with the remaining living band members and liner notes from BBC Radio 3 presenter and award-winning jazz writer Alyn Shipton.

The band played together for seven years and during this fruitful time they made a plethora of deeply melodic, post-bop British jazz compositions that later on took influences from Indo and more spiritually guided jazz. Produced by the influential Denis Preston and recorded at his Lansdowne Studios in London, the band was primarily made up of saxophonist Don Rendell, trumpeter/composer Ian Carr, and pianist/composer Michael Garrick. This is UK jazz at its absolute finest and is a treasure not to be missed. – Jazzman

The complete Don Rendell & Ian Carr Lansdowne recording sessions are now available as individual LPs. We located and acquired the original analogue master tapes from the Universal vaults and created masters at Abbey Road Studios to produce audiophile quality 180g pressings replete with replica artwork - shape, design, and even paper stock. No stone has been left unturned to deliver this absolute labour of love to the highest possible standard! Inside is a link to a printable online pdf which contains never before seen photographs, interviews with the remaining living band members and liner notes from BBC Radio 3 presenter and award-winning jazz writer Alyn Shipton.

The band played together for seven years and during this fruitful time they made a plethora of deeply melodic, post-bop British jazz compositions that later on took influences from Indo and more spiritually guided jazz. Produced by the influential Denis Preston and recorded at his Lansdowne Studios in London, the band was primarily made up of saxophonist Don Rendell, trumpeter/composer Ian Carr, and pianist/composer Michael Garrick. This is UK jazz at its absolute finest and is a treasure not to be missed. - Jazzman

The third release from Night Dreamer’s essential “Direct-to-Disc” sessions sees an incredible meeting between legendary US saxophonist Gary Bartz and leading UK spiritual jazz ensemble, Maisha, featuring two Bartz classics and three brand new joint songs written by both Bartz & Maisha in close collaboration.

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Having cut his teeth playing with the likes of Charles Mingus, Max Roach, Art Blakey and finally in 1970, Miles Davis at the peak of his electric period, Gary Bartz became a leading figure of the early-to-mid 70s spiritual jazz movement, releasing a string of ground-breaking albums on legendary NYC jazz label Prestige Records with his NTU Troop, featuring classics such as “Celestial Blues”, “Uhuru Dance” and “I’ve Known Rivers”, before collaborating on Blue Note Records with the Mizell Brothers on the anthemic jazz funk of “Music Is My Sanctuary”. An oeuvre much loved by soul jazzers and hip hop fans alike.

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Led by drummer Jake Long, Maisha have been central to the UK’s jazz explosion, and have fast become the UK’s most exciting and in-demand young spiritual jazz ensemble, from steller shows at Jazz re:freshed, Total Refreshment Centre & Church of Sound and supporting the Sun Ra Arkestra, to releasing their critically acclaimed debut LP, ​“There Is A Place” ​on Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood Recordings in 2018. Theirs is an organic & explosive sound that blends influences from afrobeat and broken beat to Persian music, with a deep love and understanding of jazz, particularly the heritage of spiritual jazz led by titans such as Pharoah Sanders, Alice Coltrane and of course, Gary Bartz. – Bandcamp

The Awakening were the only 'group' recorded by Black Jazz, for which they made two albums; those two releases happen to be among the most collectible in the label's entire catalog, which, given the value Black Jazz titles command in the open market, gives one an idea just how sought-after these records are. Recorded in 1972, Hear, Sense, and Feel marked the band's debut, and featured the same line-up that played on next year's Mirage. Being from Chicago, The Awakening's line-up unsurprisingly boasts a heavy connection to the AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) collective that claimed The Art Ensemble of Chicago among its most esteemed artists; in fact, both bassist Reggie Willis and tenor saxman/flautist Ari Brown were AACM members and appeared on albums with Muhal Richard Abrams, Lester Bowie, and Anthony Braxton among others. The other members of The Awakening, on the other hand, hailed from the city's soul jazz scene, specifically Young Holt Unlimited, for whom co-leaders trumpeter Frank Gordon and keyboardist Ken Chaney played (trombonist Steve Galloway played on Melvin Jackson's soul jazz classic Funky Skull). And it is that sweet spot, somewhere between the free jazz and Afrocentric explorations of the Art Ensemble and the rhythm-heavy soul jazz sound being recorded at Chicago-based labels like Brunswick and Cadet, that Hear, Sense and Feel lands. Which explains why this album sells for hundreds of dollars online if you can find it at all. Real Gone Music's first-ever LP reissue is pressed on black vinyl at Gotta Groove Records with lacquer cutting by Clint Holley and Dave Polster at Well Made Music. Mike Milchner at Sonic Vision Mastering has remastered the album for both CD and vinyl, and both formats feature liner notes by Pat Thomas, author of Listen, Whitey! The Sights and Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975, that set the scene for both the label and the band. A lost gem worthy of all the attention we think this reissue is going to get! – Real Gone Music

This excellent LP by the classic John Coltrane Quartet (with pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison, and drummer Elvin Jones) is highlighted by a 26-minute version of "Mr. P.C." Also included on the album are "The Inchworm" and the ballad "Every Time We Say Goodbye." Although the sound and passion of the group on this date will not surprise veteran listeners, it is always interesting to hear new variations of songs already definitively recorded in the studios. The Paris Concert is recommended to all true Coltrane fanatics. – All Music

The Blue Note Record label needs little introduction. Musically, graphically and sonically iconic, the label created and defined the golden age of modern jazz on record. Founded in 1939 by German émigré Alfred Lion, the label's roster of artists is a litany of giants – Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, Horace Silver, Lee Morgan, Art Blakey, Lee Morgan, Herbie Hancock and many more. With peerless musicians in the grooves, the legendary Rudy Van Gelder behind the boards, and graphic design genius Reid Miles creating emblematic artwork for every release, Blue Note – 'the Cadillac of the jazz lines' – was outstanding in every way.

Volume 8 of Jazzman's Spiritual Jazz series takes a close look at the deeper side of Blue Note – from the experimental avant-garde explored by younger musicians such as Bobby Hutcherson, Joe Henderson and Pete La Roca, to the exciting new developments in modal sounds put forward by stalwarts Hank Mobley, Jackie McLean and Duke Pearson. The music we have selected shows how musicians working with the label responded to a period of dramatic social and sonic change, charting the route toward the esoteric and spiritualised sounds that would dominate the deepest jazz of the 1970s. - Jazzman Records | Bandcamp

 By the time drummer Pete La Roca recorded his debut album Basra in 1965 he had already appeared on 9 Blue Note sessions as a sideman and spent time in bands led by Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane. But it was another tenor titan, Joe Henderson, that La Roca brought in as the sole horn voice to front a dynamic quartet that was completed by what liner note writer Ira Gitler called “one of the most attuned rhythm sections in jazz” featuring bassist Steve Swallow and pianist Steve Kuhn. The resulting album is one of the great underrated gems of the Blue Note catalog featuring an expansive 6-track set that includes 3 compositions by La Roca (“Basra” “Candu” “Tears Come from Heaven”), Swallow’s tune “Eiderdown,” “Malagueña” by Cuban composer Ernesto Lecuona, and a stunning ballad performance of the standard “Lazy Afternoon.” 

This Blue Note 80 Vinyl Edition is all-analog, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes, and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal. – Blue Note Records

After his six years with the seminal John Coltrane Quartet, the mighty drummer Elvin Jones signed with Blue Note Records in 1968 and made a series of 10 fantastic albums including 1972’s Mr. Jones, produced by Francis Wolff and George Butler, and featuring saxophonists Dave Liebman, Steve Grossman, and Pepper Adams, Thad Jones on flugelhorn, pianist Jan Hammer, bassist Gene Perla, and percussionists Carlos “Patato” Valdes, Frank Ippolito, and Albert Duffy. The music delves into expansive post-bop with Latin influences and includes an impassioned version of Tadd Dameron’s gorgeous ballad “Soultrane” in dedication to Coltrane.

This Blue Note 80 Vinyl Edition is all-analog, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes, and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal. – Blue Note

Available on vinyl for the first time in 40 years, Outernational Sounds presents Horace Tapscott's burning, spiritualized 1978 set, The Call. One of the unsung giants of jazz music, the composer, bandleader, arranger, pianist and community activist Tapscott was the undisputed keystone of the grassroots Los Angeles jazz scene. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, his radical community arts and music formations the UGMA (Underground Musicians Association) and his protean big band, the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, were at the epicenter of music, culture, and politics in the Los Angeles area.

The Call was put together from two studio sessions in April 1978, one at Hollywood Sage and Sound, and one at United Western -- the latter session had the addition of a string section, who can be heard on the moody Cal Massey composition "Nakatini Suite" and Jesse Sharp's swinging modal trip, "Peyote Song No. III," with its swirling soprano solo. In keeping with the communal nature of the Arkestra, the other two compositions, "The Call" and "Quagmire Manor at Five A.M." are also by Arkestra members. But at the center of the music is the builder of the Ark, the visionary whose original call to action started a movement whose legacy continues to this day -- Horace Tapscott. Vinyl-only release, 180 gram pressing by Pallas, fully licensed from Nimbus West founder Tom Albach. - Forced Exposure

A TAV Essential Listening Album

“We Release Jazz (WRWTFWW Records’ new sister-label) is proud to present its first release, the official reissue of Ryo Fukui’s highly sought-after masterpiece Scenery (1976), sourced from the original masters and available on limited edition 180g vinyl mastered at half speed for audiophile sound, as well as on digipack CD.

Unquestionably one of the most important Japanese jazz albums ever recorded, Scenery reveals Ryo Fukui as a miraculously brilliant self-taught pianist fusing modal, bop, and cool jazz influences for a very personal, dexterous and game-changing take on classic standards made famous by Bing Crosby and John Coltrane among others. From "It Could Happen To You" and its serene and calm intro which magically flows into a jubilant and upbeat piece, to the out-of-this-world piano solo of "Early Summer", or the incredible teamwork of "Autumn Leaves" where Fukui leads Satoshi Denpo (bass) and Yoshinori Fukui (drums) into groove heaven, every single note on the album oozes precision, confidence and flair and every single section slides seamlessly into one another, creating a supreme and elegant blend of jazz.” – Bandcamp

“Released when Ryo was 27 years old, Scenery is to jazz music as Is This It? is to rock music. A love letter of the purest form. The Strokes took forty years of rock music and chewed it up in a way that only a true blood fan of the music could, and so it is with Scenery. Playing a mixture of a mixture of original compositions and renditions of classics jazz standards, Ryo immediately proves what seperated him from jazz musicians of the time…

…Ryo and his trio perform them with such passion and energy the standards transform into something wholly unique. Equally fundamental, was that the trio exuded such a genuine lack of cynicism, and intellectual posturing, something the overly self-serious jazz world so desperately needed in 1976.” – Overblown

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