‘AMM (John Tilbury & Eddie Prevost) together with Lebanese electro-acoustic-free-jazz outfit A-Trio (Mazen Kerbaj, Sharif Sehnaoui & Raed Yassin) in 2015, ‘dancing slowly along a very thin line of fine-tuned, both clear and crackling improvised sounds. Harsh at times with magical mellow moments of intense, fragile, broken noises. No overdubs, no use of electronics. In a fine-art pantone-printed sleeve.’

‘This second AG recording for Treader sees Charles Hayward passing the drumsticks to Rupert Clervaux. Together with Coxon’s simple and insistent guitar themes, the elegant drum-work underpins four extended group compositions, containing a surprising collision of sounds and influences, bringing together Pat Thomas from the Improv scene, Floating Points-collaborator Susumu Mukai, and Alexis Taylor’s mooger-foogered rhodes. Somehow it all crystallises perfectly. The clearest precedent for this engaging recording is Ege Bamyasi-era Can, but really it occupies a position all its own.’

‘A rare and wonderful thing, a whirling, warm-blooded extension of the cosmic traveler’s inner consciousness, filled with surprise and steadiness instead of apprehension and fear. Fans of raga, psychedelic rock, jazz and world music are in for a real treat’ (Dusted).
‘Engaging, deliberately hypnotic music, its style ambiguously pitched between retro psychedelia, contemporary drone and timeless North African’ (All About Jazz).
‘One of the rough gems of the post-everything musical era’ (New York Times).

Perhaps the great pianist’s best record — duets with the Arts Ensemble bassist Malachi Favors, in 1975.

‘Smalltown Superjazzz was a free-jazz subsidiary label of Smalltown Supersound from 2005-2012. Dormant then till 2019, it is now reborn as the AFJ-Series, named after a recording by Don Cherry & Krystzof Penderecki’s The New Eternal Rhythm Orchestra.
‘AFJ-Series is proud to release this compilation of music from forty releases, spanning almost twenty years of Smalltown Supersound, Superjazzz and AFJ. The idea is to bring the Superjazzz era into the AFJ-Series, but also to leave it behind — and start fresh. A requiem and rebirth combined, inspired by the 1964 ESP Disk sampler (also by its hard editing).
‘Lasse Marhaug spent months ploughing through the entire catalogue. Whilst the main goal was to survey Smalltown’s wide range of releases in the improvised/jazz/free music field, his choices and juxtapositions almost play as a new piece of music.
‘So here it is — forty tracks of total freedom. The universality of improvised music, as Derek Bailey called it.’

Spinning off from Horace Tapscott’s Panafrikan People’s Orchestra, here is the Long Beach drummer with Dadisi Komolafe, Rickey Kelly and co, in 1983.
An extended reading of Bobby Hutcherson’s Little Bee’s Poem; two from Trane, Moment’s Notice and Mr PC; Wayne Shorter’s Armageddon; Joe Henderson’s Recordame.
Originally pressed in tiny numbers by Adams himself; the sole release on his Hip City imprint.

An essential, five-star Blue Note; warm, lyrical and flowing. Adderley was in Miles Davis’ group at this time — over the next year they would record A Kind Of Blue and Milestones — and the trumpeter pays back generously, choosing the tunes, and playing at his very best.

Funky, psychedelic, spiritual jazz with deep percussion, including marimba, from 1971; tuned into electric Miles but also Kool & the Gang, and keeping an eye on Tony Williams’ Lifetime.
The meditative opener is lovely. Heathens liken Animals to Fela.
Remastered from the original tapes.

‘Following up To Cy & Lee, this sprawling double LP finds DePlume expressing both sides of his artistic character beautifully: (1) an articulate singer and songwriter who invokes the melodious crooning of Donovan as much as Devendra Banhart or Syd Barrett, whose tunes are almost like mini-sermons, full of existential comedy and spiritual enlightenment; and (2) a brilliant composer of simple, soothing, and viscerally nourishing instrumental melodies, with a gift for expanding them into intrepid collective improvisations, led by a delicate and distinguished saxophone tone that conjures the fluttery sweetness of the great Getatchew Mekurya.’

Highly sought-after French jazz fusion — blending in West Coast funk, gentle blues, sketches of Andalusia — with John Hicks, Jerry Goodman from the Mahavishnu Orchestra, and Jean-Marie Fabiano from the Fabiano Orchestra.