H

“Out and unusual compositions from drummer Ben Hall and his sextet with Mick Dobday on electric piano & organ, Anthony Levin DEcanini on electronics, Ronnie Zawadi on percussion, John Dierker on reeds, Mike Khoury on viola & violin, and joined by Joe Morris on guitar, for 6 "Spines", free compositions using odd compositional structures leading to superb solo and group playing. Each Spine presents a unique sonic world, from aggressive playing to abstract and sonically fascinating interludes, with...




“Described by Sonny Rollins as a forceful and sensitive player and by Pat Metheny as the father of modern jazz guitar, Jim Hall is an enigma. At first what you hear is a mild mannered, proficient guitarist, not too flash, always tasteful. Listen a little closer though and you find an experimentalist, a quiet revolutionary. Howard Roberts played faster, Joe Pass probably had more chord substitutions, but Jim seems to convey more personality with his clean, slightly muted tone, harp-like strumming and...



H-Alpha is a NYC/downtown all-star trio of Briggan Krauss-baritone and alto sax, Ikue Mori-laptop, Jim Black-drums and percussion. All three of these musicians have numerous interesting/great/teriffic projects under their own names or in association

A modern string quartet who recorded this album in 1998, they have some personnel ties to Julverne, as well as to the legendary Flemish folk groups Rum and Madou. This is mostly self-written (by Jeannot Gillis) modern material.

Mary Halvorson (guitar)
Patricia Brennan (vibraphone)
Nick Dunston (bass)
Tomas Fujiwara (drums)
Jacob Garchik (trombone)
Adam O'Farrill (trumpet)

“Amaryllis is a six-song suite performed by a newly formed sextet of master improvisers. The Mivos String Quartet joins for three of the songs, making this the largest ensemble for which Halvorson has written to date.
The suite showcases Halvorson's many musical influences from jazz, experimental, new music, and beyond.”

“Belladonna is a set of five compositions written for Halvorson on guitar plus The Mivos String Quartet. It is Halvorson's first time writing for a string quartet. Mivos' parts are through-composed and augmented by Halvorson's guitar improvisations.”

Mary Halvorson - guitar
Patricia Brennan - vibraphone
Nick Dunston - bass
Tomas Fujiwara - drums
Jacob Garchik - trombone
Adam O'Farrill - trumpet

For my money, Mary’s Amaryllis album was one of the new music / new jazz highlights of 2022. Glad to see them back again!

“The album features eight new compositions by Halvorson, performed with her sextet Amaryllis; the improvisatory band that performed on her critically praised 2022 albums Amaryllis and Belladonna compr

This record has gotten a lot of critical acclaim and it deserves it, as the group and Mary have a unique guitar-trio sound. My only caveat about the press is that everyone talks about how 'out' this is and maybe I'm just getting old and obscure, but it...

"This album is the debut of her seven-piece ensemble. The album features six Halvorson originals, where the four-horn blend brings deeper sonority, orchestral possibility, and an increased level of intricacy to Halvorson’s distinctive compositional...

"After thirteen years and thirty-two CDs Zorn’s expansive Book of Angels project is now complete! This final installment presents the last ten unrecorded compositions from Masada Book Two and the variety, drama and lyricism is just as strong as the very first volume. Mary Halvorson, a long time Masada fan and one of the most acclaimed guitarists of her generation leads a dynamic quartet featuring Miles Okazaki, Drew Gress and Tomas Fujiwara. The music is intense, wild and incredibly varied—a beautiful...

Mary Halvorson-guitar
Chris Speed-sax
Eivind Opsvik-bass
Tomas Fujiwara-drums

“Halvorson is a highly inventive composer and improviser, playful, yet fierce when she needs to be, with a knack for oblique melodies and rhythmic hooks which her crack New York quartet knock in and out of orbit.
Reverse Blue's ten tracks feature some genuinely lovely tunes alongside some ingenious twists, with Halvorson wrapping her fingers around pretty Baroque figures, Moroccan modes, wiggy...

"Saturn Sings is guitarist/composer Mary Halvorson’s highly anticipated follow-up to her acclaimed 2008 debut, Dragon’s Head. It documents a new book of music written for her latest ensemble, the Mary Halvorson Quintet, which adds fellow New Yorkers....

"Mary Halvorson is one of the most acclaimed guitarists of her generation—a virtuoso improviser, distinctive composer, arranger and a deep student of the jazz guitar. Here she joins forces with living legend Bill Frisell to pay tribute to Johnny Smith, a guitarist who has been a huge influence on them both. Performing nine ballads associated with Smith and his classic composition “Walk Don’t Run”, this is an essential CD of soulful guitar duets by two of the most beloved and original guitarists in modern..

“Celebrated guitarists Mary Halvorson (Code Girl) and John Dieterich (Deerhoof) announce their debut collaborative album, a tangle of stars. The album is a collection of new instrumental songs spanning experimental jazz, pop, rock, noise, and improvisation, all of which were composed, arranged, and recorded over three days at Dieterich’s home studio in Albuquerque, NM.
Guitarist and composer Mary Halvorson has been described as “a singular talent” (Lloyd Sachs, JazzTimes), ”NYC’s least-predictable...

“Mary Halvorson is involved in so many side projects it's hard to pick a favorite ; until now. Sifter, her trio with Kirk Knuffke (cornet) and Matt Wilson (drums), has created one of the most inviting discs of the year with its self-titled debut. The compositions are concise. The themes are hummable. The solos never venture too far from home, and yet conversely it's a highly adventurous recording.
This album is loaded with surprises, as on ‘Back and Forth,’ where the main theme goes up and...

"Hamadryad is a group of musicians all driven by the same passion: musical creation. Their music tastefully blends progressive and classic rock, with a touch of cinematic vision, taking the listener on a musical adventure. (In classical mythology...

Klaus Ellerhusen Holm clarinet alto saxophone
Hernâni Faustino double bass
Nuno Morão drums percussion

"Here is an example of a specially well succeeded co-operation between a notorious representative of the Norwegian scene (Klaus Ellerhusen Holm) and two of the Portuguese one (Hernâni Faustino and Nuno Morão), combining the recordings of live presentations in a couple of spaces dedicated to creative music in Portugal, Salão Brazil (Coimbra) and SMUP (Parede). If you’re a Clean Feed...

“The official reissue of Motohiko Hamase's remarkable ambient/environmental/minimalism project #Notes of Forestry, available for the first time since its original release in 1988. The album is sourced from original masters.
One of the most fascinating and peculiar works from the golden era of Japanese ambient, #Notes of Forestry was initially released in 1988 by Newsic, the cult label started by Tokyo's Wacoal Art Center (also known as Spiral), home, notably, of Yoshio Ojima who co-produced...

“The official reissue of Motohiko Hamase's extremely rare live album Anecdote, recorded in 1987. Anecdote was recorded live June 12th, 1987 at Spiral Garden (Wacoal Art Center) in Aoyama (Tokyo) as part of the Eat Newsic Concert No.3. Motohiko Hamase on electric fretless bass, synthesizers, and computer programming, is accompanied by frequent collaborators Toshio Kaji on acoustic piano and synthesizers, and Yasunori Yamaguchi (of #Notes of Forestry fame) on acoustic percussions.
The three-man band....

“The official reissue of Motohiko Hamase's astounding ambient house album Technodrome, originally released in 1993. Inspired by John Cage, Jon Hassel, Brian Eno, and the emergence of house and techno music, Technodrome is jazz bassist turned electronic experimentalist Motohiko Hamase's foray into what he calls ambient house or, as he explains, "using the gritty sensation inherent to the core of house music" to create an ambient record "aiming to express inverted images, optical illusions, and the sense...

"The legendary jazz recordings made by Black Saint/Soul Note make a welcome return to the active catalog with this series of boxed sets. The set includes the albums Reunion, Arroyo, Trio!, My Panamanian Friend and Dancing to a Different Drummer."

"Shadow Machine is the first CD by Tom Hamilton and Bruce Eisenbeil, who began playing music together in 2007. Coherence without predictability, speed without tempo, direction without a roadmap - an unlikely foray into the world of out-jazz and free...

Mike Silverton, text, voice; Tom Hamilton, sounds, assemblage; Al Margolis, sounds "Analogue Smoque's deportment owes much to Dada, which positions it some 85 years late for lunch. The work's disjunct, shard-like character looks in significant measure...


Once again, I had never heard of guitarist Fred Hamm until he sent us a copy of this album and I was fairly impressed. Working with a trio (keyboards and drums). Not jazz, not rock, not techno; fairly hard to pigeonhole, although I guess it is closest to jazz/rock, but only just...

"Passionate for the music styles of Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Led Zeppelin gave him the desire to begin to play the guitar at age 15. He carries out various musical projects in parallel; free jazz...

"Sometimes plenty can happen in three years; sometimes plenty can happen in a matter of days. When Jan Hammer recorded Maliny Maliny at a club in Munich on August 30, 1968, the keyboardist had no idea that, in three short years he'd be at the...


Who else has been at it with such a huge amount of releases (some bad ones admittedly, but bad ones shows he is willing to take chances and taking chances is how you make great ones) for 45 years?

"The last conversation I had on the subject of...

Damn fine 2002 release from Peter. There is no reason that someone this late is his career should still be popping out great work, but he is!

"This clutch of songs was written and performed exclusively on acoustic guitars, as were all my earliest efforts. The only additional instruments are Stuart Gordon's violin & viola and David Jackson's saxes & flute. This was not intended to be and has not turned out as any kind of folk or roots collection...

I saw someone on the internet post something like, "dark, deep, great" and that's a pretty good summation of the great man's career in general. This is his 30th solo, by most counts (easy to lose track, y'know...)

"Consequences" is Peter's...

"Peter Hammill’s 35th album under his own name is a finely crafted masterpiece that grapples fearlessly with the varied psychological aspects of old age. Forget the demon alcohol or drugs, advancing time is prog’s worst enemy as more of its veteran heroes, young guns when they started making waves half a century ago, are falling with increasing frequency.
Peter Hammill, who co-formed Van der Graaf Generator at Manchester University 50 years ago, is one of the few to square up to their mortality on...

In many ways, this album of cover tunes, many of them European pop tunes and standards, is one of the weirdest thing this artist has ever done. It certainly isn’t what people are / were expecting! And, slyly, it jabs home a certain political point as well!

“For the first time ever, Peter has recorded a collection of cover versions. The songs come from a variety of musical worlds: Classical, American Songbook, Italian Pop and Tango. In all but three cases Peter has also translated the songs, from...

"Thirty-five years and dozens of recordings down the pike, Peter Hammill has finally devoted an entire album of material (one 41-minute work in 14 sections) to the subject that is at the very heart of his art: language. His lyrics - even in the early days, on the first albums by Van der Graaf Generator - have always been insightful, literate and thought-provoking, ever the beating heart of his music. This album explores multiple aspects of the word - its meaning, power, implications, magic and more...

His 23rd. That's quite an achievement beyond the fact that it's also a really good one!

"A quite beautiful album, though much underrated by fans. Each song here has a strong narrative - tales within songs. Love lost and celebrated in 'Naming the Rose'; a man's obsession with a younger woman in 'How Far I Fell'; domestic violence in 'Like Veronica' and is that a hint of the novel 'Perfume' contained in 'In A Bottle'? Hammill has always had a strong narrative inclination but here it's at its most..

Brand new, double disc of solo performances. One disc of Peter on piano and voice (entitled "What if I forgot my guitar?") and one disc of guitar and vocals (entitled "What if there were no piano?").

"A curious side effect of the reunion and...

A new solo disc by Hammill, and a pretty good one at that. Is there anyone else with such a huge body of work that continues to actually make good albums (No, not EVERY album is good, but enough are that it's always worth hearing what he's up to)...

"The PHQ undertook a number of tours after Roaring Forties and so it was natural that the (occasional) group was on Peter's mind when time came to record the next studio album. This was X My Heart. It might have been a blueprint for future work with the line-up, but in the event there were to be no more more live shows for this set-up.
It features one of his most beautiful ballads, "Earthbound," which features heartfelt vocals and a gorgeous string accompaniment. "Narcissus (Bar & Grill)" will...

“Something of an oddity, this release. For the first time ever, I believe, I performed all of the songs from my latest album, “From the Trees” in the course of my tours at the end of 2017 and the start of 2018.
One of the guiding principles behind the recording of “Trees” was that I’d be able to do versions of all the songs in a stripped down, one voice, one piano or guitar form before starting the recording proper. This collection, then, squares the circle, consisting of live solo performances of...

"Esoteric Antenna are pleased to announce the release of the eagerly awaited new studio collaborative album by PETER HAMMILL & GARY LUCAS. Peter Hammill’s work, both as a solo artist and as part of Van Der Graaf Generator, is legendary, whilst Gary...

Fabulous quality performance and visuals on this 1981 show by Peter and his main vehicle for live performance at this time, The K Group, with a great, great set list and nearly 1 3/4 hours playing time!!
Peter Hammill-vocals, keyboards, guitar
John Ellis-guitar, vocals
Nic Potter-bass
Guy Evans-drums

"When the K-GROUP went on the stage of the Hamburg Markthalle, they were very well rehearsed anyway; after all, they had been on tour for a while now. It is a stroke of good fortune

"Recorded in Holland on December 21, 1966, Music From Europe was a strong statement of European free jazz from one of its first and strongest leaders. Over the beautifully structured compositional suites are strong blowing and improvising by both the...

This is the never-before released 'original Bob Drake master', which the band didn't use the first time. Is it hugely different? I didn't think so, although the band (and Bob!) do, so we are mentioning it...

"...a highly skilled chamber ensemble...offering a literate synthesis of rock, jazz and European folk forms. You can't really put this music into a tidy little compartment, but it's unforced, sophisticated and highly entertaining."-Alternative Press.


So, we are deep into exploitation-ville with this set, but it’s still at least half (one full CD’s worth) a GREAT one.
Disc one is actually ‘Kawaida’ by Kuumba-Toudie Heath (aka ‘Tootie’ Heath) which I actually bought new when I was a freshman in High School from my local Waxie Maxie’s!
It’s a fabulous 1970 ‘spiritual jazz/Afrocentric’ recording that features an incredible band:
Toudie Heath – Drums
Buster Williams – Bass
Don Cherry – Trumpet
Mtume – Congas
Herbie Hancock