Ornette Coleman – at Town Hall 1962, ESP  1006, 33 rpm ( USA) — PRE PRESSING

extremely rare , less then 50 copies

This is the holy grail… the missing link… in the ESP catalogue…. the pre press of the classic Ornette Coleman´s debut on ESP with the classic trio of Izenson & Moffet.

This baby was pressed as a pre – press with an PR insert attached on the back of the cover. The cover is one of the most beautiful silk screened cover the DC hav ever ever seen, You wont find this record so easy… but to hold it. feel it and smell it… is worth everything, we think!!!

The silk screen cover came in a variety of colors . we have seen three different versions so far…

Music is the same as on the later 1st pressing —- with a string group attached , creating beauty beyond belief!

Ornette himself is playing overthetop – and he is overall in an amazing form, with fluent poetry gushing out of hos horn like nobody else.

This is basically Ornette’s first harmolodic chamber music based on his ideas he would later call Harmolodics.

ESSENTIAL!!!!!

Release comes  with an essay on The New Music by Robert Ostermann attached in the sleeve.

Ornette Coleman – alto sax

David Izenson – bass

Charles Moffett – drums

String Quartet on Track #3

Selwart Clarke: violin
Nathan Goldstein: violin
Julien Barber: viola
Kermit Moore: cello

Steve Lacy – Torments, solo in Kyoto, morgue 01, 33 rpm (JAP), 1975

Very very rare Japanese LP

A very very interesting and unusual Steve Lacy solo soprano sax record on the obscure Japanese Morgue label. This is one of the rarer ones in the Lacy discography, but very much worth looking for. This is alos the first release on the obscure and classic Japanese label Morgue, manuevered bylegendary producer Aquirax Aida!

Lacy is covering his own compositions in his typical manner. very precise and detailed… totally relaxed… and totally BEAUTIFUL!

the sound recording of this live concert from Kyoto is also spectacular clear and give all the details away. It  is quite something else , this one… rarer then most… and better then most…

Especially Staples  is a very interesting track , in its transparency and advanced architectonal work.

Steve Lacy was one of the true pioneers of improvised solo works and this is for sure one of his finest recordings, both musically and technically. He traveled in Japan quite a bit during his career and collaborated with a huge variety of Japanese musicians, artists and dancers. Many amazing documents of this are captured on vinyl and cassette and they are ALL worth getting, including the mighty works together with Kosugi, Masahiko Togashi and Masahiko Satoh.

The Lacy discography is an extensive one… a discaholics nightmare (and wet dream…),  starting with his early Dixieland attempts with Dick Sutton and others and moving forward, forward, forward over the years of recorded beauty!

But this amazing solo document might be one of his very finest statements!! a true masterpiece in its architectonal beauty…

Steve Lacy – soprano saxophone

INTERNATIONALES NEW JAZZ MEETING AUF BURG ALTENA, JG 021/022,

33 1/3 rpm (GER) 1970

Very rare private festival 2 lp – set

A 2 LP set of recordings from the first festival of New Jazz Meeting in Altena. Music was recorded at the festival but there seems to have been no special agreements with the musicians at the time about releasing the material.

JG (Jazz Groove) records did a whole bunch of spectacular releases.

For a discaholic though… this volume and the similar release from  the 2nd  festival the year after is packed with creative music of astonishing quality.

Some of the music is popping out of the speakers like erdmänschen in springtime coming out of their holes…

Check the Eje Thelin / Joachim Kühn group out for example — asskickin free jazz with very creative soloworks of especially guest Rolf Kühn and Swedish trombone maestro Thelin.

The John Surman Trio is another example of a group in its creative peak! Monster interaction, by especially bass and drums, proving the fact that this might have been one of the most happening and together rhythm sections in the history of freer jazz! Soprano sax is floating like lava… very defined, articulate and creative music by the trio. the TRIO!

Wolfgang Dauner Trio making a clear statement, on a whole side of vinyl with Eberhard Weber playing the bass in a way that we wished that he never would have changed to the smaller sized cello later in his career… but who is playing the ripping guitar? it is a very confusing side… or are there information missing? it definately sounds like a guitar fuckin around

All the music is of interest in one way or the other…. Just a VERY interesting document of an extremely active and creative period in the developments in creative musics in Europa. The summer of 1970 was a HOT one…

The 2 lp set comes with a beautiful red cover and a very nice and appealing photobook, with some time typical images of both audience and musicians.

Credits, see the photo with its charming typewriting characters:

2 INTERNATIONALES NEW JAZZ MEETING AUF BURG ALTENA, JG 027/ 028 , 33 1/3 rpm (GER), 1971

Very rare private festival 2 lp – set

Following up the first years release with another basically unauthorized release of creative music and free jazz… this is a musical BOMB!

The 2nd meeting was obviously a wild one… the music on this green 2 LP – set is astonishing to the level of being ridiculous… there are tracks here of brain melting quality.

The Classic combo of Brötzmann, Van Hove and Bennink is  making  one of their first appearances on record ever… and they deliver a BEAST!

The music is wild… the tenor sax of Brötzmann is ripping flesh from the bones… anyones bones… one whole side of unstoppable music!

If surviving the first side… you have a lot of very enjoyable and creative music to listen to on this green colored release. From the Manfred Schoof Quintet we have a very unusual piece with some creative interaction, as well as a very interesting british group of Alan Skidmore´s with special guest Mike Osborne kickin absolute ass! an absolute top number of british free jazz… fast moving arragements and melodies and wild playing… wild and beautiful. TOP NOTCH!

The John Surman Trio is following up the success from the previous new jazz meeting with a collaboration with the Albert Magnelsdorf Quartett. And it’s a goooooood one…doubling the instruments makes this a real happening combo with leader Mangelsdorf showing how things should be ran….

But the main thing here is without a doubt, the Brötzmann track… for the Brötzmann completist, this is a MUST!  Brötzmann collectors cant sleep without this in the collection… and a life without sleep can prove difficult for some people…

The 2 lp set comes complete with a photobooklet with many amazing photos.

In the times of unauthorized releases of European free music , the JG records are a bit legendary…  ran by two men in Altena, of whom one was a dentist and according to the local musicians at the time, fixing up quite a few Americans teeth of the visiting musicians.

Credits, see the photo:

Additional info on Altena and JG records and related matters can be found here:

http://www.myfavouritejazz.proxudo.de/html/newjazzaltena.html

the brötzmann trio track alone:

Mototeru Takagi Trio – Musura freight , interval ILP101, 33 1/3 rpm (JAP), 1973

Very scarce Japanese LP

This is the BOMB of Japanese free jazz… the free jazz that makes your ear melts, your soul blister and your jaw drop down the floor.

Ripping! And astonishingly beautiful. Takagi in absolute top form taking the music beyond it all… upyrface – inyrface – atyrface

Takagi was one of the most interesting Japanese players and died way too young, but contributed on a couple of Japanese free jazz masterpieces over the course of his short lived life.

Albums such as Now We Create  with the quartet of Masahiko Togashi is nothing else then a life changing document… and the beast 2 to 10 saxophone with drummer Sabu Toyozumi is forever one of the most hard hitting documents of freer jazz and expressions all time, worldfuckinwide.

Mosure Freight is a classic musically. Blowing hard… and harder…

Interesting enough paying respect to his collegues in Art Ensemble of Chicago, by playing their classic People in Sorrow in a beautiful take.

The trio is really interacting as a trio and this album is really worth looking for… hard to get these days, but not impossible.

But Takagi is the main focus here… his tone, piercing but yet warm, bears traces of Reverend Frank Wright and early Brötzmann to mind. But he developed his totally unique way of playing that unmistakingly only can be him. His tone is rawer then sushi, chewing the reeds down to molecules… fasten your seatbelts… No tenor sax has ever sounded this dirty and distorted. completely KICKIN music on the record especially and a very very unique player all together!!! a CLASSIC!

Mototeru Takagi – tenor sax

Takashi Tokumiro – bass

Tsutomu Ono – drums

Mengelberg – Bennink Duo– Een mirakelse tocht , ICP 013 , 33 1/3 rpm, (NL) , 1972

Very rare 6 disc flexi release

A beautiful set of 6 flexi discs in 8 (?) inch format… amazing packaging… amazing music… amazing feel… this set has it all.

Bennink and Mengelberg in absolute top form taking it all away, on piano, drums, trumpet, vocals and such… in the typical slightly anarchistic way that is a signum of these two master- minds and players of European free improvised music.

Totally essential music and totally essential release! Flexis are the THING! Then… and now.

This period in European free music history is a very active one… just after the language had been established and the collaborations have started between the “German” school, the “English” school and the “Dutch” one… those were the three main perspectives. And very many collaborations started around this period that lasted for a long period of time.

But very few releases has this mindbending feel to it.

Very hard to find and very much worth looking for.

Highest possible recommendations!!!! Comes in a handstamped envelope, sometimes with  the written address of the customer on the front.

Misha Mengelberg  – piano

Han Bennink – drums, soft trumpet, prepared trombone, khene, dhung and voice

Bertil Strandberg  Kvintett – Cirrus, ARA 3001 , 33 1/3 rpm (SWE), 1973

Very rare Swedish jazz lp

This lp is a very sought after piece of vinyl , in the modal / spiritual jazz vein… and its GOOD!

Strandberg is playing beautiful and the band is great behind him. Some very creative solos by Ed Epstein that moved to Sweden around this period and settled later in the south of Sweden.

Recorded in Örnsköldsvik (Övik) in a very limited run – this vinyl is one of the rarest Swedish jazz lps and goes for lots of cash these days… and musically, its really worth looking for. Especially worth mentioning is the amazing piano playing by Göran (Utsawa) Stranberg – an amazing jazz piano player from the north!

Bertil Strandberg – trombone, percussion

Ed Epstein – tenor sax

Göran Strandberg – piano

Ove Gustafsson – bass, guitar

Bjarne Boman – drums

Brother to Brother , Yokefree YF – 1, 33 1/3 rpm (USA) 1971

Extremely rare, private US pressing

This is something spectacular and wild… a LP recorded by Craig Johnson (of CJR – fame) in 1971…a bizarre and beautiful “play” with readings, nature sounds, electric piano interludes, chickens going bananas and the mighty free jazz legend Joe McPhee on recorder!!!

This one is not even in any discographies!

Story is that the producer of this spectacular LP, had the whole stock of the finished records, plastic wrapped and all, at home… and you had to go there and apply to buy one… and not many applications were approved appearingly. Therefor are very very few copies out there… and never ever shows up on auctions and related.

The concept is amazing, the chickens are amazing and McPhee is McPhee… as always…

Definitely one of the rarest beasts of free jazz related material ever done!

Cortland James –  voice

Unknown chickens and doberman pincer dogs, rabbits and ducks

Marva Parker – electric piano

Joe McPhee – recorder

Springboard – Polydor special 545 007, 33 1/3 rpm (UK) 1966

Rare British LP

This music is spectacular! This LP is spectacular! This cover is spectacular!

Recorded in 1966… this music is another musical BOMB, forseeing the free improvised music to come only years later.

The music is very much based in a Free Jazz / Ornette Coleman – tradition… looking for new ways, new paths to follow… and most of all creating its own musical language.

Together with the more experimental records of Joe Harriott and the SME´s Challenge  LP on Eyemark, this is a music that really defines the borderline between a European free jazz tradition and the openness to come.

Extremely interesting period in the history of jazz, if you ask DC!

Trevor Watts dancing around in melodic frenzy and beauty! KILLER playing by him.

And the rhythm section of late great bass player Clyne and Stevens himself are just mindblowing and swinging like mad! Ian Carr is making some of his very finest moments of his recorded output with this amazing Springboard unit!

We love the cover drawings made by a young family member of the Steven´s. Also with very on-the-spot liner notes but the very same 6 year old Richie Stevens.

NOV 2012: essential PS……… DC has been talking to Mr Trevor  Watts about these recordings and the general times in UK around mid 60´s. There seem to have been a missing bit, to be added to the puzzle about how and when the free improvisation movement ( or whatever you wanna call it…) was born and developed in especially the vibrant UK.

True is that the starting point of more freer jazz in the UK and Europa started around the release of this LP Springboard and the first Lp w SME that came out before Springboard: Challange on Eyemark

http://matsgus.com/discaholic_corner/?p=879

What was not known to us, is that the main inspiration, except the concept of playing with various percussive techniques on all instruments, is that fact that John Stevens got tremendously inspired musically after a trip to Denmark in 1964! He heard the legendary saw player Niels Harrit ( also playing sax  as a member of the danish pioneers The Contemporary Jazz Quintet!!!) – came back to England and wanted to develop new forms for jazz, entirely different from the jazz structures and forms existing at the time!!!

According to Mr Watts, this trip to Denmark was very essential for the development of the new music! and John Stevens is to blame… and not least Niels Harrit. we can only recommend to find those GREAT and mind bending records by The Contemporary Jazz Quintet!!!!

Trevor Watts – alto sax

Ian Carr – cornet

Jeff Clyne – bass

John Stevens – drums

Monica Zetterlund – Taklagsskiva, Philips  45 rpm (SWE) 1962

Extremely rare, give away – one sided  7”

An amazing document of Monica Zetterlund in best possible form.

Music is astonishing…. Two tracks: “Nilsson” and “Katten Felix”.

“Nilsson” starts with a spoken “drama” illustrated by Zetterlund and the Orchstra… wild, dramatic and abstract…. Fantastic! and very unusual for a Zetterlund recording from this time!

After a minute the tune starts swingin… text is by amazing Swedish authors and entertainers Hasse Alfredsson & Tage Danielsson (with whom Zetterlund worked with extensively during the 60´s and 70´s), a story built  around the actual  construction  of the Philips–building  in Stockholm.

This 7” was given away to the employees after finishing building the Philips house  September 14^th 1962… how many copies that survived we can only guess… and the music can only be found (?) on this very, very rare 7” !

Katten Felix, by Georg Riedel, is a calypso track with great arrangements  by the composer (?) and very sweet lyrics by the great late Beppe Wolgers.

We haven’t been able to track down the name of the orchestra or the individual members of the ensemble…. But they are GOOD! We are guessing it is a Swedish jazz studio ensemble led by Georg Riedel or Bengt – Arne Wallin.

Amazing music in an amazing packaging…. This 7” is beautiful… and the photo of Monica herself on the cover is one of the best of her ever!

Monica Zetterlund – vocals

Unknown members of the Philips Studio Orchestra usually under the leadership of Bengt – Arne Wallin (or Georg Riedel)