His first solo recording, in 2013-14; on top-quality vinyl, in a flipback sleeve.
‘Parker combines the dark tonal palette & percussive attack he’s long been known for with real-time processing elements & field recordings, deftly crafting a unique world of solo guitar music — multilingual, mysterious, alive with extraordinary sonic events, with a sturdy intelligence in charge & a raw homestyle vibe. The title composition sets the album’s cavernous mood. Terse lines & ricocheting loops morph into a gnarly ambient section that resembles Neil Young droning out over a vg+ copy of Discreet Music. Parker creates a different sort of ambient space in his take on Frank Ocean’s Super Rich Kids, bending the melody around a bossa nova rhythm into a moodsville tone poem. Parker makes an extraordinary long-form statement out of Chad Taylor’s Mainz, a piece he first recorded with Taylor & Chris Lopes on the album Bright Light In Winter. Twice the length of the trio recording, the multi-layered soliloquy finds Parker leaping from the high rung to damn near orchestral heights, pushing his techniques & concepts to the breaking points. To say Lush Life comes with formidable baggage is an understatement. Parker achieves instant classic status with a rendition that sounds beamed-in from a decommissioned satellite — burned out, covered in space grit, yet still formally nuanced & beautifully reflective of Strayhorn’s world-weary lyrics… An artist who’s clearly taking his music to the next level.’

Organically funky, laced with avant-garde synth textures, and studded with breakbeats, the second Outernational is Jeff Resnick’s unique, ultra-rare, 1978 promotional recording for the School for American Craftsmen, at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Five tracks of soul jazz and modal fusion — re-modelling Trane, and opening with a variation of Norwegian Wood — by a local group including trumpeter Jeff Tyzik and pianist Sonny Kompanek; then Resnick mostly solo for the second side, when the money ran out, multi-tracking synthesizers on his home set-up, in an engrossing blend of reflective abstraction, grooving electro and spiritualised fourth-world tropicalism.
Bim!

Intensely evocative, meditative duets by modular synthesizer and viola, interwoven with field recordings — birds, the sound of forests — encapsulating sojourns on the Åland archipelago in the Baltic Sea, between Sweden and Finland.

‘Quietly multi-rhythmic, modular-trance-meets-processed-and-unprocessed-chamber strings, bewitching and bewildering field recordings all knitted tightly, an LA patchwork.’

“Our studios are side-by-side. When we were writing this album, you might have found us tracking viola stacks in one studio while, in the other, we were writing through-composed themes and rearranging the material. Granular synthesis and tape manipulation are key tools we use to create variation and movement in a composition. This process often yields surprising results, capturing the emotion but expressing it in unexpected ways. It feels essential that we embrace a bit of chance.
“In contrast to our first album, Recordings from the Aland Islands, we wanted this music to feel very present. Where Recordings was intended to transport you to another place, Different Rooms is meant to meet you where you are. It’s a decidedly urban album. The field recordings were captured on rain platforms, in city streets, in rooms at home, and intentionally paint a quotidian sonic image, blurring the line between what you hear in your own environment and what is on the record.”

Featuring Jeff Parker.

The flautist’s one BN as leader, from 1970, with Eddie Gomez, Don Alias and Sam Brown, produced by Sonny Lester, mixing funk, jazz, Latin, rock, improv… and a John Jacob Niles. Great stuff.

Quartet and sextet sessions led by the flautist and saxophonist: Midnight Oil, Roamin’ With Richardson and HJ favourite Going To The Movies, plus the rare and interesting 10” album Meeting In Studio, recorded in Belgrade during Quincy Jones’ 1960 European tour, by a mix of American and Yugoslavian musicians.

The saxophonist Jesse Sharps took over from Arthur Blythe as leader of Horace Tapscott’s Pan-Afrikan People’s Arkestra. ‘He became the Ark leader…he was hardcore,’ the pianist recalls. ‘They’d all be quiet and listen to him when he talked.’
This was the period of such classic PAPA recordings as Flight 17, Live At IUCC and The Call; lit up by the funky, deep spirituality of Sharps compositions like Desert Fairy Princess, Macramé and Peyote Song II.
His own Sharps And Flats album was recorded in 1985 for Tom Albach’s legendary Nimbus West imprint, adding a stunning sixteen-minute bonus cut by the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, featuring Horace Tapscott, recorded in 1979. 
A lost classic of the Los Angeles jazz underground, on wax at last!

Cecil Taylor collaborators Jimmy Lyons and Sunny Murray alongside the String Trio of New York bassist John Lindberg, giving the Willisau jazz festival what for, in August 1980.

‘In August of 1961, the John Coltrane Quintet played an engagement at the legendary Village Gate in Greenwich Village, New York. Coltrane’s Classic Quartet was not as fully established as it would soon become and there was a meteoric fifth member of Coltrane’s group those nights — visionary multi-instrumentalist Eric Dolphy. Ninety minutes of never-before-heard music from this group were recently discovered at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, offering a glimpse into a powerful musical partnership that ended much too soon. In addition to some well-known Coltrane material (My Favorite Things, Impressions, Greensleeves), there is a breathtaking feature for Dolphy’s bass clarinet on When Lights Are Low, and the only known non-studio recording of Coltrane’s composition Africa, from the Africa/Brass album. This recording represents a very special moment in John Coltrane’s journey — the summer of 1961 — when his signature, ecstatic live sound, commonly associated his Classic Quartet of ‘62 to ‘65, was first maturing. He was drawing inspiration from deep, African sources, and experimenting with doubled-up basses both in the studio (Ole) and on stage. This truly rare recording of Africa captures his expansive vision at the time.’

Luminessence series.

Solo double-bass, recorded in Rio.
Versions of Nardis and Love Theme From Spartacus — two favourites from his time with Bill Evans — plus Eddie Harris’ Freedom Jazz Dance, alongside five Johnson originals.