The flautist with Nana Vasconceles, Dom Salvador, Portinho, Cecil McBee and co in 1980. Spiritual jazz with strong Brazilian flavours. Lovely stuff.

Even at the age of eighty — Nation Time is fifty years old — Joe McPhee refuses to stand still or bask in nostalgia. For all its lovely strangeness — for a start, besides playing, he sings and recites — this LP elaborates lineages in his oeuvre initiated with John Snyder in the seventies, and sustained with Pauline Oliveros.
Lasse Marhaug is an old hand, young at heart, too. After thirty years of making electronic music — hundreds of releases, collaborations and projects — his name is synonymous with Norwegian noise music.
A one-of-a-kind, highly enjoyable, compelling mixture of free jazz and electronics, inspired by science fiction and early electronic music.

Recorded in St. Edmund’s Church, Oslo, on 13 December 2017.
Compositions by James Weldon Johnson and Thelonious Monk; also originals, including a tribute to Don Cherry.
Another humdinger in the Actions For Free Jazz series supervised by Smalltown Supersound.
Vinyl only, no digital. 500 copies, that’s it.

Chocolate Mena leading three lineups — featuring Joe Henderson, Jerome Richardson, Alfredo Armenteros, and co — through Lalo Schifrin and Duke Pearson arrangements of core Latin and Jazz classics.

A fourth LP of spiritual jazz by this feted nine-piece from Australia.
‘A stunning work, full of integrity and class… Essential’ (Echoes).
‘Wonderful record, full of some great Kamasi/Donald Byrd/even Art Blakey moments.’ (The Guardian).

A heartfelt tribute to Sun Ra.
Trumpet, drums, and the great man’s favoured Rocksichord; and up-and-coming Cuban bassist Ledian Mola, who adds vocals inspired by Cuban folklore.
Another winner from 577.

The illustrious clarinettist alongside John Surman, Barre Phillips, Stu Martin, and Jean-Pierre Drouet, in 1970. Iconic Futura cover-art by Avoine.

Thrillingly uncontainable, uproarious, wildly creative music, teeming with passion, protest, sex, orality, dread, blues, and the gospel truth. With Roland Kirk newly enrolled, Mingus passes his bass to Watkins… and it all kicks off. We can’t recommend this record strongly enough. It will do you good.

A masterpiece from the same few months in 1963 as The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady, adding a couple more players to its killer lineup of Booker Ervin, Jaki Byard, Charlie Mariano and co. A kind of testimonial match by the eleven-piece, doing over some of Mingus’ best tunes so far: he didn’t take a group back into the studio till 1970.

LP from Speakers Corner.

‘I am trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it’s difficult is because I’m changing all the time.’ From 1957, hard on the heels of Pithecanthropus Erectus — hotter fire, and another masterpiece, featuring killer soloing from CM. On Haitian Fight Song: ‘I can’t play it right unless I’m thinking about prejudice and persecution, and how unfair is it. There’s sadness and cries in it, but also determination. And it usually ends with my feeling ‘I told them! I hope somebody heard me!’’ Reincarnation Of A Lovebird is here, too.

From 1960; ostensibly before Mingus heard Charlie Parker.
A host of stellar players — including Eric Dolphy, Booker Ervin, Max Roach, Marcus Belgrave, Slide Hampton, Yusef Lateef — in variously large ensembles, reading mostly tight, post-Duke scores.
Kicks off startlingly with a mash-up of Take the A Train, in the left channel, and Exactly Like You in the right. ( On the flip, Do Nothin’ Till You Hear From Me is likewise bundled with I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart.)
The great Mingus art songs Eclipse — hymning black-white relationships — and Weird Nightmare are here. Apparently vocalist Lorraine Cusson fluffed the last line of Nightmare — singing ‘Bring me a heart with a love of gold’ instead of ‘Bring me a love with a heart of gold’ — but Mingus was so happy with the take, he let it go.