Luminessence Series.

Utterly stupendous music from JG’s long wilderness years — radio recordings freshly dug out from 1965, three years after the austerely avant-garde brilliance of Free Fall kissed goodbye to any chance of a record deal for the best part of a decade.
Amazingly, more than anything — out of nowhere — you hear the quicksilver, stark brawn of fellow-Texan Ornette Coleman. Bill Meyer’s review in the Wire hits it on the head. ‘His liberal use of split tones and abrasive timbres underline his awareness of the advances of Albert Ayler’ — whilst in other passages ‘Giuffre’s quick fingering and elongated tones sound like the missing link between first generation free jazz and the advances in technique that Evan Parker presented on his solo albums ten years down the road’. Jazz On A Summer Day it ain’t.
‘Free counterpoint’ is a kind of collective improvisation which envisions the New Thing without bluster. ‘He wrote out full scores,’ recalls Joe Chambers in the excellent booklet, ‘with drum parts written as another voice. They look like Schoenberg and Webern scores, right in line with what I had been studying in college.’
The other players are awesome, too. Bassist Richard Davis is here, perfumed with masterpieces like Out To Lunch, The Space Book and Rip, Rig And Panic, all recorded within the previous year. (That’s him on Astral Weeks, by the way.) Chambers’ drumming is sensational.
Jazz fans, it’s a must. Hotly recommended.

A terrific, bountiful seasonal single — with Bonnie Prince Billy in his cups on one side, and Mike Heron from The Incredible String Band on the other, with a Boxing Day ghost story. Beautifully sleeved, limited.

Forgotten masterpieces, out-of-this-world improvisations from the 1920s; and dazzling commissions by Sir Richard Bishop, Six Organs Of Admittance and co. ‘Dextrous, frenzied, fearless… awesome’ (Plan B).

Earth-moving stuff here, of course, with Joe Henderson, Alice Coltrane, Gary Bartz, Norman Connors… but ‘forgotten’? Even as a marketing angle, you must be kidding.

Powerful, fierce free improvisation, crossed with avant-rock, bringing together Steve Noble, John Edwards and Alex Ward. A numbered edition of three hundred, on heavy vinyl, with thick, hand-assembled covers.

Superb songwriting in a dazzling range of styles and voices, from soul ballads to cocktail jazz, the sardonic to the purely heartfelt.

An astounding compilation of the breakneck Shangaan dance output of the Nozinja studio in Soweto, recorded between 2006 and 2009.

Her second and third Motown LPs, from 1962 and 1963 — irresistible, timeless pop — making her its biggest star. In authentic mono for the first time on CD, using fresh transfers of the original master tapes.

The great Frankie Beverly and Maze in full effect, in 1981. High amongst the best live-in-concert albums of all time.
‘As spiritual as secular music gets,‘says Nelson George; ‘a document of a love affair between singer and audience.’

Fabulous survey of Allen Toussaint’s Sansu label, from 1965 on, mixing one-aways with legends.

Visceral, elemental, electronic funk, conjured from scraps of sound, breath, mutterings, dubwise remembrances, scuffling, sweat and blood, thin air — ‘crawled out of the slime’, as the opener puts it, self-engendering like the baddie in Terminator — all harnessed to cruelly grooving earthquake bass and b-boy drum science.
Rhythmically it has ants in its pants and it needs to dance, with an improvisatory, streetwise nervous energy and uninhibited, purposeful rapture — akin to this guy, say, eighteen minutes in — crossed with on-song Pepe Bradock and stripped-to-the-bone, mongrel hip-hop.
It’s unruly and edgy, a bit off its rocker, emotionally ranging — typically anxious, often nostalgic — and riveting dance music.
Judge-dread mastering by D&M; first-class Pallas pressing; stunning gatefold artwork by Will Bankhead.
Ruff ruff ruff.

Singers like Jimmy Thomas, Stacy Johnson, Vernon Guy, Jessie Smith, Bobby John, Jackie Brenston, Venetta Fields, Tina Turner, Ernest Lane, Dee Dee Johnson — fronting a super-tough Kings Of Rhythm lineup.