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

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

JAZZ JAMBOREE 1967 vol 2, Muza 33 1/3 rpm (POL) 1967

Rare polish LP

A BOMB! A jazz bomb…

Because…. this line up of this Manfred Schoof Quintet is nothing else then a sensation!

The record cover does not give any information other then “Manfred Schoof Quintet, West Germany, playing Oleo by Sonny Rollins”.

Discussing this  1967 tour of the Manfred Schoof Quinet with Mr Parker gave us some sensational information regarding the line up… Schoof, Evan Parker, Schlippenbach, Niebergall and Bennink!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And the music IS a bomb! Oleo is treated with respect, creativity and FIRE! The energy is wild and the solo works by Parker, Schoof and Schlippenbach is nothing else then a sensation. And Bennink is on fire… This is JAZZ. This is WILD JAZZ. This is FREE JAZZ.

A very interesting historical document as well, regarding that this music was recorded already in 1967, when the collaborations between the free scenes in Germany and England, as well as Holland , only just had started. Globe Unity had just started its activity and Machine Gun by Peter Brötzmann was yet to be recorded.

This record is actually not extremely hard to find, since the information of the line up has been well hidden… this is something for all you Parker and Bennink completists out there! A record to be sought after…

Evan Parker has some Archie Shepp DNA it seems and the Ayler quotes before the wild drum solo by Bennink is astonishing…. Wild!!!!

Manfred Schoof – trumpet

Evan Parker – tenor sax

Alex von Schlippenbach – piano

Buschi Niebergall – bass

Han Bennink – drums

GUIDO MANUSARDI QUARTET – ROMANIAN IMPRESSIONS, Amigo AMLP 814, 33 1/3 rpm (SWE), 1974

Unique alternative mock up cover of classic Swedish jazz lp. Test pressing.

This is an amazing classic Swedish jazz lp from 1974 with Lennart Åberg in top form!

The unique thing with this particular copy is that it has a totally different and alternative cover. Which is pretty rockin! With hand lettered information and even an incorrectly spelled title of the album: “Roumanian Impressions”.

Always interesting to see how labels, musicians and artist are preparing and trying various cover ideas and such for a release and this one is a good example.

The music is a great example of the different influences that various ethnic music had on Swedish jazz during this period. Many musicians from the eastern part of Europe came to live in Sweden in the 60´s and 70´s, a.o. Okay Temiz and Maffy Falay. There was also a very strong connection to African music though the influence of Don Cherry (that was living in a country house in Tågarp, Skåne) early on with his Swedish family. Furthermore there was a strong South African input with musicians like Gilbert Matthews and Johnny Dyani living in Stockholm at the time… and many many more examples of amazing musicians visiting the land in the north and effecting its jazzhistory quite a bit!

Many Swedish jazz groups in the 60´s and 70´s were incorporating these influences in very creative ways, for instance Bernt Rosengren, Bengt Ernryd, Janne Wallgren and later Rena Rama (with Lennart Åberg and Bobo Stenson) and also Opposite Corner with Gunnar Lindgren as well as the freer improvising of the great collective Iskra.

The whole musician collective of “Ett Minne för livet” with its connections to the prog /psych part of the rock scene in Sweden were also heavily dealing with these influences.

We don’t have any info on why´s and how´s  regarding the rejection of this cover version – but we wanted to show this amazing album in a different visual context.

Lennart Åberg is taking the music to same very creative areas.. his soprano sax skills are ACE! We wanna hear more of Mr Åberg!

This is the cover as it later came out:

Guido Manusardi – piano

Lennart Åberg – tenor and soprano sax

Red Mitchell – bass

Peter Östlund – drums

DC rank this alternative mock up cover/ test pressing as:

PJ Harvey – DRY, Too Pure 33 1/3 rpm (UK ) 1992

2 lp set numbered limited edition 1000 copies w. demo versions

This is the classic debut album by PJ Harvey. Hard, free and full of rock poetry.

This 2 LP set came out in a limited run, long gone…

The second LP includes the raw 4 track demos made for the original record.

RAW and INTENSE – the demo versions has a very very  direct  – up-in- yr – face character, like no other recordings made on the Indie –scene.

The naked character, the intense texts and Polly´s piercing voice makes this album a very very special one. A musical BOMB!

To us, the energy reminds only about the best work of free jazz legends Ayler, Coltrane and Taylor.

A sensation when it first came and still a classic , no matter what genre is up yr alley.

All Harvey´s vinyl releases is worth looking for…  and there is a lot, released only on B –sides over the years. A treaure!

Music doesnt get better and freer then this!!! we kid u NOT!!!

limited edition content:

1. “Oh My Lover” – 4:02
2. “O Stella” – 2:30
3. “Dress” – 3:18
4. “Victory” – 3:15
5. “Happy and Bleeding” – 4:50
6. “Sheela-Na-Gig”– 3:10
7. “Hair” – 3:46
8. “Joe” – 2:33
9. “Plants and Rags” – 4:09
10. “Fountain” – 3:54
11. “Water” – 4:35
12. “Oh My Lover (Demo)” – 2:30
13. “O Stella (Demo)” – 3:16
14. “Dress (Demo)” – 3:16
15. “Victory (Demo)” – 4:19
16. “Happy and Bleeding (Demo)” – 4:44
17. “Sheela-Na-Gig (Demo)” – 3:15
18. “Hair (Demo)” – 3:37
19. “Joe (Demo)” – 3:16
20. “Plants and Rags (Demo)” – 3:32
21. “Fountain (Demo)” – 3:05
22. “Water (Demo)” – 4:32

PJ Harvey – voice and guitar

Rob Ellis- drums, harmonium, vocals

Steve Vaughan – bass

Ben Goenevelt – bass

Ian Illiver – bass

Mike Paine – guitar

Chas Dickie – cello

ALBERT AYLER – SOMETHING DIFFERENT!!!!, Bird Note BNLP1, 33 1/3 rpm, (SWE), 1962

Extremely rare first pressing with original mock up.

This copy of Something Different!!!! is a BOMB!

It is the original mock up of the cover , later printed in a low run of 200 copies, and it has two copies of the original photos (by Nils Edström), mounted on each side of the home made card board sleeve. The producer Bengt Nordström has handwritten the whole cover  with black ink, in almost the way it later came out from the printer in 1962.

Music is of course amazing. An early exploration of standard tunes but also some very adventorous free playing… Ayler is backed up by the great Swedish team of Torbjörn Hultkrantz and Sune Spångberg. Two of the most active and also important Swedish jazz musicians ever to appear. Both of them and Nordström took some very free and creative paths after the meeting with Ayler in 1962 /63, when he lived in Sweden.

Hultkrantz with  Per Henrik Wallin, Bernt Rosengren and Spångberg with Lars Werner, Iskra and other related minds!

Aylers tone is rawer then sushi, but the recording capture the energy of the music in a great way.

Music that makes you smile. Naked and full of hope and beauty.

There is two different versions of the first pressing: one with a green printed label and one white test pressing…

it’s a very very hard task to guess exactly how many copies exists of the two versions…. But a qualified guess is that the green label exists in 200 copies and the white label version exists in less… perhaps 50 copies. Both versions are considered to be the original and they are of course… impossible to find these days.

A HOLY GRAIL!

Albert Ayler – tenor sax

Torbjörn Hultkrantz – bass

Sune Spångberg – drums

this mock up copy: