This is the first-ever reissue of this, Brit-jazz composer/arranger Neil Ardley's 1st full album under his own name. This 1971, Dennis Preston production features the all-star band I know you were expecting me to list! Included are: Dick Heckstall...

Lots of great tunes here from Dudu Pukwana, Johnny Dyani, Chris McGregor, Abdullah Ibrahim, Mongezi Feza, etc!

"The album includes new arrangements of compositions by Dudu Pukwana, Mongezi Feza and Johnny Dyani, and an atmospheric development...

The Artchipel Orchestra, led by conductor / arranger Ferdinando Farao, is a Italian big band (with 25 participants on this album) and Ferdinando is a big fan of the British jazz and jazz rock scene of the 70s, having previously covered tunes by Hugh Hopper, Alan Gowen, Robert Wyatt, Dave Stewart, Mike Westbrook & Fred Frith, among others.
For this, their third album, he has chosen to highlight the compositions of the late Lindsay Cooper. They band perform:
1. Half The Sky (from "Western Culture").

"Born of a time when jazz musicians crossed in to the world of rock music, Atlantic Bridge was a quartet featuring Mike McNaught (piano, electric piano), Daryl Runswick (bass, bass guitar), Jim Philip (flute, soprano sax, tenor sax) & Mike Travis (drums). All four musicians were seasoned players on the London jazz circuit, but sought to expand their musical horizons.
Influenced by the experimentation of Miles Davis on his album Bitches Brew and by the work of British musicians such as Keith Tippett..

"A reissue of Derek Bailey's Lot 74, originally released by Incus in 1974. Recorded at a private house in West London, the side-long title track is a masterwork: a twenty-two-minute, starkly personal, freely expressive, itchily searching re-casting of orders of rhythm and sound into a new, quicksilver kind of affective and musical polyphony. Never mind the guitarist's championing of "non-idiomatic improvisation", the poet Peter Riley gets the ball rolling in his identification of the various hauntings...

"In publishing the entire performance from start to finish, this release allows us to experience these much-missed artists at work with a degree of intimacy and familiarity absent from (for example) prestigious festival performances. Of course, any new addition to the Bailey discography is an exciting development, but I feel I must also mention just how well Will Gaines plays on this gig. For those who might be unsure why Derek was always so happy to play with Will, listen to how Will uses his strongly...

"A reissue of Derek Bailey and Tristan Honsinger Duo, originally released by Incus in 1976. Born in Burlington, Vermont, and conservatory-trained in the US, the cellist Tristan Honsinger moved from Montreal to Amsterdam in 1974, quickly linking with Han Bennink and Misha Mengelberg and opening a long and fruitful musical relationship with Derek Bailey. Recorded in 1976, Duo displays a performative musical approach already characterized by the lack of inhibition which would later endear him to The Pop...

Django Bates is a Brit-jazz band leader, pianist and tenor horn player of great reknown in the UK. He founded Human Chain in 1979 and in the 1980s he rose to prominence in the big band Loose Tubes. He has performed as a member of Bill Bruford's Earthworks and in the bands of George Russell and George Gruntz.
For this release, he has revisited The Beatles 'Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band', with rather great results, as long as you don't mind hearing a cultural icon get shaken up and remade...

Gordon Beck - piano
Jeff Clyne - bass
Tony Oxley - drums

"Pianist / composer Gordon Beck, one of the true forefathers of modern British and European Jazz, has been a source of inspiration and musical joy to Jazz connoisseurs since the 1960s. His formidable technique and more importantly overwhelming musicality are completely unique and unrivaled. This, his 4th recording as a leader, deserves a special notice for many reasons. Stylistically it is somewhat atypical to Beck’s usual output...

Gordon Beck (piano)
John McLaughlin (guitar)
Jeff Clyne (bass)
Tony Oxley (drums)
Joy Marshall (vocals)
This is very nice, lightly swinging jazz standards. John gets one solo. Don't buy this expecting Extrapolation or Bitches Brew.

"Gordon Beck, English jazz pianist and composer, broke onto the London scene in the early 1960s joining the Tubby Hayes group in 1962. Forming his own succession of groups from 1965 onwards. A subsequent 26 album career established him as one of

Harry Beckett: trumpet, flugelhorn
Ray Russell: guitar
Brian Miller: piano, electric piano, synthesizer
Darryl Runswick: bass, bass guitar
Nigel Morris: drums
Martin David: congas

This is the first-ever CD issue of Harry’s fourth solo album, from 1975 and it features a joyful electric jazz, with half of the original line-up (Brian Miller & Nigel Morris) and Ray Russell totally SMOKIN’ on lead.

“It’s been a real Joy to bring this long-lost classic back to life....

"The product of a recording session in New York City in 1970, “Where Fortune Smiles” is one of the milestone albums to be recorded at a time when the divisions between the worlds of jazz and rock were less defined and albums such as Bitches Brew by Miles Davis and the work of Tony Williams’ Lifetime pointed a new direction in music.
Originally released on Pye Records’ “Progressive” imprint Dawn Records, Where Fortune Smiles was recorded fresh on the heels of John McLaughlin and Dave Holland’s work...

Excellent archival release - the second so far - from the Blue Notes’ 1979 tour of Belgium and Holland, taken from tour organiser Rob Sotemann’s tape archive. This features the established version of the group - South African expatriates all - Louis...

This release includes a CD of a new stereo remix, and a DVD with a new 5.1 surround sound mix along with the original 1978 mix, all taken from the original 1978 analogue tapes.
This album, originally released in 1977, established (ex Yes, King Crimson, Genesis, National Health) drummer Bill Bruford as a (very) credible composer and bandleader. For me, this is one of the finest fusion albums to have come out of the UK.
In addition to Bill's excellent playing, there is Dave Stewart on keyboards...

An Italian band who have a great love for Brit-jazz and, more specifically, the Ogun sound. The musicians are:
Pino Minafra trumpet, flugelhorn, voice
Roberto Ottaviano saxophones
Livio Minafra piano
Roberto Bellatalla bass...

Like the somewhat better known Michael Gibbs or lesser known Neil Ardley, bassist/composer Collier is a long time leader in the field of large and small scale jazz compositions that effortlessly meld US jazz (and especially the work of Charles Mingus) ...

Like the somewhat better known Michael Gibbs or lesser known Neil Ardley, bassist/composer Collier is a long time leader in the field of large and small scale jazz compositions that effortlessly meld US jazz (and especially the work of Charles Mingus) ...

"Colosseum's 1969 debut album is a notably pioneering endeavor in its combination of British blues-rock with British jazz-rock, even if the writing and singing aren't as impressive as the confident playing. Graham Bond and some of the horn-augmented...

“Music recorded at London's ICA in July 1982. It's a miracle of group interaction, wonderfully paced, moving steadily between moments of mounting intensity and tension. The passage about halfway through -- when Derek Bailey's harmonics ring out above a sheen of inside piano tremolos and shimmering electronics, topped off by Julie Tippetts's soaring vocalese -- is simply sublime. After which it's fun to try and tell the two pianists apart. Are those runs Ursula Oppens, with her formidable technique honed...

"This double CD set collects together, amongst other things, all of Outtakes for Other Occasions and The Small Screen, both of which were never commercially released, all four pieces from The Classic Guide to NoMansLand, the subscription 7” Pictures...

“This recording from the earlier years of Cafe Oto documents the impossible pairing of four contemporary giants. It's the reason the venue opened in the first place, for miraculous one-off groupings like this.
"The magic of the first minutes -- an alto solo by Joe McPhee of true purity -- soft-spoken, masterful and accomplished -- brought back to mind the blissful Coleman/Haden duet last year at the Royal Festival Hall. 'Ornette gave me freedom to move in a certain way,' said McPhee. He searched...

More roots of Brit-jazz here.
"Digitally remastered reissue of this 1961 album from the jazz drummer. Whole Lotta Tony was recorded and released in 1961 on Ember, and credited to Tony Crombie & His Friends. Drummer Crombie's CV to date had...

With Alex Maguire, Mark Sanders, Paul Dunmall, Simon Picard, Nick Evans, Jim Dvorak, Tony Bianco, Roberto Bellatella, Paul Rogers and others perform with Elton in duets, trios, quartets and quintets. Elton dusts off his Fender Rhodes chops for the 1st ...

Live recording of Elton's splendid band includes four saxists (Elton, Paul Dunmall, Simon Pickard & Trevor Watts), plus the rhythm section of Paul Rogers & Tony Levin. A mixture of heads and freedom. [Ogun]

A very deserving reissue of a semi-obscure, 'free-blowing free-bop with heads' quartet, co-led by Elton Dean & Alan Skidmore (saxes) with Chris Laurence-double bass & John Marshall-drums. Originally released in 1977, jazz/free jazz fans will have their socks knocked off by this!

“Apart from lending his forename to a certain Reg Dwight, Elton Dean is probably still best known for his contribution to Soft Machine, where his fuzzy, amplified alto grafted a jazz sensibility onto that band's organ...