That’s Maupin on Bitches Brew, and Lee Morgan’s Live At The Lighthouse, and Head Hunters. He co-wrote Chameleon. From 1977, this is killer fusion in the same dazzling tradition — as confirmed by transformative readings of two classics by the Mwandishi sextet, Quasar and Water Torture, from the LP Crossings. We’re in the same neck of the woods as Eddie Henderson’s two deadly Blue Notes around this time — Sunburst and Heritage — and the great trumpeter is here. Also Patrice Rushen, who plays a blinder: check her out on the opener. Pat Gleeson, who introduced Herbie to synths, Head Hunters mainstay Paul Jackson, Blackbyrd McKnight, from Flood and Man-Child…

‘A more selfless album is hard to imagine,’ according to Down Beat in 1975. ‘The sound is supreme, and all the players strive to achieve a thorough blending.’ Recorded in New York in 1974, the disc’s personnel is drawn from the circle around Herbie Hancock in the period, but the music has a character all its own.
‘A classic of 1970s spiritual jazz, and as much as any recording on Strata East or Black Jazz, Maupin’s ECM offering is a wonder of arrangement and composition with gorgeous ensemble play, long yet sparse passages, space, and genuine strangeness. Maupin plays all of his reeds and flute in addition to glockenspiel here; Summers’ percussion effects include a water-filled garbage can. The two drummers swirling around in different channels don’t ever play the same thing, but counter and complement one another. And Hancock plays some of the most truly Spartan and lyrically modal piano in his career here… This album sounds as timeless and adventurous in the present as the day it was released’ (AllMusic).
‘Luminessence Series.’

Dewey Redman (tenor sax), Charles Eubanks (piano), Mark Helias (bass), Ed Blackwell (drums).

‘folk album of the year’ (The Observer); ‘*****  ... not a note is wasted’ (Time Out); **** Mojo; **** Uncut; ‘Compilation Of The Year’ (The Guardian).

Alasdair Roberts, Nancy Elizabeth, Michael Hurley, James Yorkston, Victoria Williams, Richard Youngs: six ravishing, luminous new interpretations. Short-run vinyl sampler, fine pressing, silk-screened sleeves.

Chaabi — ‘of the people’ — has its roots in the Andalusian music of Moorish Spain, spreading to North Africa with exiled Jewish and Moorish communities; but it really took off in post-WWII Algiers…

Six deeply spiritual pieces from the Kinko School, developed in eighteenth century Japan by wandering zen monks for whom this flute music was a pathway to enlightenment.

Musical accompaniments to kabuki theatre, by this pre-eminent Japanese chamber orchestra, with voice, shamisen lutes, fue flute, and kotsuzumi, otsuzumi and taiko drums.

With accompaniment on the sanshin lute — a lovely, melodic blend of Japanese, Chinese and South East Asian styles characteristic of the Okinawa archipelago (formerly the independent kingdom of Ryukyu).

The medieval story of the Heike clan — combining drama and heroics with Buddhist reflection on the ephemerality of existence — sung by Kakujo Iwasa and Kakuryu Saito, with lute accompaniment.

Exquisite music for shamisen lute, koto zither, and shakuhachi flute, running back more than a hundred years, to the end of the Edo era. Expertly performed by this accomplished trio of graduates of the Tokyo National Conservatory.

Featuring Billy Cooper, Walter Bulwer and Daisy Bulwer; dulcimer, melodeon, fiddle, banjo, drums, pipes, concertina and piano.