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...

"Archive release. This debut release of Neil Ardley and his New Jazz Orchestra BBC broadcasts from 1971 measure a year of change for the band's musical director.
The first session captures the full majesty of the NJO at the height of it's powers in a Jazz Club session from February with a 20-performer line-up pre-recorded at London's Camden Theatre. Humphrey Lyttelton helms proceedings; musicians include Ardley, Harry Beckett, Ian Carr, Henry Lowther, Derek Wadsworth, Mike Gibbs, Don Rendell...

The Artchipel Orchestra, led by conductor / arranger Ferdinando Farao, is a Italian big band (over 20 participants) and Ferdinando is a big fan of the British jazz and jazz rock scene of the 70s, having previously covered tunes by Alan Gowen, Dave Stewart, Mike Westbrook & Fred Frith, among others.

Here, he's tackling the Soft Machine boo, but even though the title is "Play Soft Machine", a more accurate title would be "Plays Hugh Hopper's Tunes For Soft Machine", as that's what this mostly is....

"Although this album contains a varied selection of material, including one original composition and three tracks from a 1998 Mike Westbrook project, I'm just going to write just a few words about what seems, at the moment, to be at the core of this great orchestra's repertoire: namely, some classic British jazz-rock from the 1970s. This music was always on the margins, of course, even at the time. Back when I was a schoolboy, most of my friends were listening to soul, blues, punk, disco, heavy metal...

This is apparently an authorized-by-Brian collection of rare live recordings from 1968 from the Piper Club in Rome and their appearance on "Ce Soir On Danse" from Paris! Quite good sound for the time period.

"In May 1968, Brian Auger and the Trinity & Julie Driscoll were part of an international rock 'n' roll disaster. That fiasco created a stash of urgent, commanding recordings, capturing a golden moment that took half a century to reach the wider world. A year after Monterey Pop but a year....

"A reissue of Derek Bailey's Solo Guitar release on Incus in 1971, with additional tracks included on previous reissues and a performance at York University in 1972.
Recorded in 1971, Solo Guitar Volume 1 was Bailey's first solo album. Its cover is an iconic montage of photos taken in the guitar shop where he worked. He and the photographer piled up the instruments whilst the proprietor was at lunch, with Bailey promptly sacked on his return.
The LP was issued in two versions over the years...

This fine album, one of the few recorded examples of Muir's pure improvisational playing, has been out on vinyl before - in its original issue in 1981 - but not with this fantastic photo on the cover, which I had never seen before....

"A reissue of Jamie Muir and Derek Bailey's 1981 duo album, Dart Drug, originally released on Bailey's Incus label. Percussionist Jamie Muir was a member of King Crimson during the recording of Larks' Tongues In Aspic, in 1973. Staying less than a year with Robert..

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

"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...

"He is an icon of the Rock world: the legendary song writer, bassist, pianist and singer Jack Bruce. In 2006 at the 37th German Jazz Festival Frankfurt, he joined forces with the hr-Bigband to perform a highly acclaimed concert, presenting classic Cream songs and other landmarks of his career in gripping new arrangements. It was a magic moment of dialogue between Jazz and Rock that roamed between composition, improvisation and vibrant, virtuoso performances. The hr-Bigband is one of the most innovative...

“When Bill Bruford emerged from Yes, his reputation as a drumming legend was firmly established. He then went on to refine and expand his individual technique and style with King Crimson. His solo career, while not as commercially successful as those bands, has also been impressive. His explorations with Allan Holdsworth continued to carry the fusion torch with dignity.
Never one to rest on his laurels, Bruford continued to search for different contexts in which to express his musical and percussive..

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...

Lol Coxhill-soprano sax
Charles Hayward-drums
Hugh Hopper-bass
Orphy Robinson-vibes, steel drums
with
Robert Wyatt-cornet

The first release (and sadly the only one) by this improvising group of established figures from the creative rock and improvised music scene in Britain. They've been together for a few years now, plays shows when circumstances permit, and it's great that they've finally documented something. This pretty quickly finds its feet, finds a groove and keeps.

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) and the unique sounds of British jazz in very attractive ways. These are nicely remastered issues of his albums, which are available for the first time in decades, and released on CD for the first time. This one is from 1975 and features Harry Beckett....

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) ...

With Jon Hiseman, Chris Farlowe, Dick Heckstall-Smith, Clem Clempson, Dave Greenslade and Mark Clarke.

"In spite of Jon Hiseman's reluctance to reform Colosseum, in the early nineties, the spate of band reissues generated new interest in the band. Whilst on tour in Germany, Hiseman was encouraged to rethink, & a debut reunion concert was arranged in October, 1994."

"There has been understandable confusion for decades about the overlap and the differences between Colosseum's second U.K. album and their second U.S. album. Their second U.K. LP was titled Valentyne Suite; their second U.S. album, however, was not only given a different title, The Grass Is Greener, but featured a substantially different track listing, with only four of the eight tracks overlapping with Valentyne Suite (although the version of "The Grass Is Greener" on the U.S. release has a guitar...

“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 has been out of print for some years and completely unavailable on these shores. Well worth getting if you don't already have it.
A repressing of bassoonist/oboeist/saxist/composer Lindsay's first two solo albums. Lindsay first made her name in Henry Cow and was also greatly featured in News From Babel. Both of these were film scores.

"Consists of the whole of the LP previously issued as Re/arc and most of "The Golddiggers".
Featuring Lindsay Cooper, Sally Potter, Phil Minton...

Paul Mitchell-Davidson-bass, Ken Shaw-electric guitar, Veryan Weston-piano, Colin Wood-cello and Richard Wright-guitar.

“Morphometry is an exquisite album of duets by the legendary soprano sax player Lol Coxhill and his friend and disciple, Raymond MacDonald. These are recordings made in July 2008 during what would be Coxhill's last visit to Scotland. Pressed on custard-colored vinyl with fleas on the label, in homage to Coxhill's album Fleas In Custard (1975), this release features a front cover woodcut created by Ian Barrett, whose uncle Syd was one of the figures whose paths crossed with Lol in 1960s London.”

“The debut album was recorded while Dean was still with Soft Machine, and made largely with fellow-Softs, though it is clear that he was already interested in exploring new territory...Deservedly rescued from oblivion by Cuneiform, Just Us is a great introduction to a compelling voice.” – The Penguin Guide To Jazz Recordings

English jazz saxophone legend Elton Dean has been in the public eye for over 30 years, & has played in numerous acclaimed groups over the years, including the...