Corbett vs. Dempsey

Hans Reichel was a brilliant (difficult, but brilliant) guitarist and instrument-maker. Starting in the 70s, he released a number of truly amazing solo albums, most of them on the FMP label.
Using regular and self-made instruments, his music truly sounds like no one else's. This was his first and is the 1st time it has appeared on CD!
Conditionally hugely recommended!

"Originally released on FMP in 1973, this is the debut LP by legendary German guitar improvisor and instrument inventor...

"In 1998, at WNUR Radio, Evanston, the legendary German bassist Peter Kowald met two Chicagoans in the studio for a brisk set of string trios. Fellow-bassist Kent Kessler and cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, essential members of the Chicago scene, are well known as international improvisors too, and the threesome dug in for a fierce face-off. The session was closely recorded in the studio’s intimate confines, which could barely contain their energy. Kowald proposed a set of six miniatures, all ranging around...

Steve Lacy, soprano saxophone
Steve Potts, alto saxophone
Irene Aebi, voice
"Soprano saxophonist Lacy wrote the suite of tunes for Tips to feature the aphorisms of painter Georges Braque, as sung by Irene Aebi. Together with his right-hand-man, alto saxophonist Potts, he and Aebi recorded these 14 anthemic tracks in Paris in 1979, and the young hat Hut label issued them on a now-rare LP. The music allowed Lacy to extend and deepen his longstanding interest in setting text to music, and at the

Billy Bang, violin
"The long out-of-print first solo record by American violinist Billy Bang (1947-2011), recorded in 1979 and first released on Hat Hut Records, featuring his own compositions, extrapolated at length in the intimate live concert, as well as traditional and improvised material. Remastered from original tapes and augmented by newly discovered recordings from the same concert. Part of the large cache of historical Hat Hut records that Corbett vs. Dempsey continues to release. Original...

Peter Brötzmann, tenor saxophone
Fred van Hove, piano
Han Bennink, drums, percussion
"Recorded at the height of their powers as the leading free jazz trio in Europe, 1971 includes some of the hottest and heaviest music ever made by Brötzmann, starting with an inflammatory, incandescent 26-minute live track recorded at the New Jazz Meeting auf Burg Altena. Only available on a nearly-impossible-to-find LP sampler issued at the time by the festival, this marks "Just for Altena"'s first...

Tenor Saxophone – Frits Krogh
Piano – Tom Prehn
Bass – Poul Ehlers
Drums – Finn Slumstrup
Recorded in Copenhagen, October 13th, 1963

"Arguably the rarest LP of European free jazz, Axiom was recorded in 1963 for the Swedish label Sonet. Test pressings were released to the musicians, but they were not approved and the label never printed more than the two first copies. Prehn's music, which is exclusively known from a 1967 release that was reissued on the Unheard Music Series, is n

Rüdiger Carl, tenor saxophone Günter Christmann, trombone Detlef Schönenberg, drums

Tracks 1-6 originally released on FMP (FMP 0060, 1973). All other tracks previously unreleased.
Recorded for the German FMP label in 1972, this is one of the landmark recordings of free jazz in Europe, a mind-blowing studio session featuring Carl on tenor saxophone, Günter Christmann on trombone, and the astonishing Detlef Schonenberg on drums. Volatile and precise, anticipating much of the future sound of.

Jimmy Lyons, alto saxophone
Karen Borca, bassoon
Hayes Burnett, bass
Munner Bernard Fennell, cello
Roger Blank, drums

"Long known as Cecil Taylor's most reliable and loyal colleague, alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons has a select discography as a leader, and among its best entries is Push Pull, originally issued by Hat Hut as a massive 3-LP set. Recorded during a single marathon performance at the Collective for Living Cinema in New York in 1978, Push Pull features five extended piec

Joe McPhee, alto and tenor saxophones, pocket cornet, adapted pocket cornet
André Jaume, alto and tenor saxophones, bass clarinet
Recorded December 15, 1979, Paris.
Originally recorded and sequenced for release on Hat Hut Records, never issued.

"Multi-instrumental master McPhee and his longtime colleague, French saxophonist and clarinetist Jaume, joined forces for this studio recording in 1979 that was prepared but never released. It is primarily structured around pairs of tunes by...

Tristan Honsinger, cello, voice
Jean Jacques Avenel, bass
Tiziana Simona Vigni, voice
Sean Bergin, saxophone
Michael Vatcher, percussion
Toshinori Kondo, trumpet

"A little-known gem of Dutch free music, Picnic is the brainchild of cellist Tristan Honsinger, who composed all but one of its 12 compositions. Brilliant and whimsical, the tracks bring to mind Honsinger's work with ICP Orchestra, for whom he has also composed extensively. Here he's working in an incredible ensemb

"First CD compilation of recent seven-inch and twelve-inch records by the enigmatic Wendy Gondeln, mixing electronic music, sawed violin, and Martian intelligence into a thoroughly spicy and utterly confounding goulash. Featured collaborations include Tim Berrescheim, Norbert Möslang, JB Slik, Wolfgang Voigt, and Michael Wertmüller. Projections also includes some of the art installation projects for Albert Oehlen works of recent vintage, such as "Alarm," composed by Wertmüller, well known among other...

Recorded March 10, 1963, Choreographer's Workshop, New York City.

A special 2-CD reissue of the hyper-rare El Saturn LP, recorded in 1963, early in the Arkestra's NY period, paired with a full disc of extra material. Loaded with John Gilmore, one of the greatest & rarest slabs of Sun Ra vinyl, on disc for the first time!"

Phillip Wilson, percussion
Olu Dara, trumpet, horn (serpent)
"In November 1977 and May 1978, months before drummer Phillip Wilson recorded his great LP Duet with trumpeter Lester Bowie for the Improvising Artists label, Wilson hit the studio for Esoteric, a recording of solos and duets with cornetist Olu Dara. Wilson (1941-1992) was one of the key percussionists in creative music, the Art Ensemble of Chicago's early trapsman, one third of the fusion band Full Moon, and an all around fount of inventi

"In July 2013, a few months after the passing of his mother, cornetist Rob Mazurek performed solo at Corbett vs. Dempsey gallery, in Chicago. Mazurek is one of the highest profile figures in contemporary creative music, leading bands like the Exploding Star Orchestra, Skull Sessions Octet and Starlicker. On this occasion, he brought a box filled with various implements – his cornet, naturally, but flutes, bells, books, maracas, apples, and little electronics. This box became an inexhaustible resource...

"At the end of his time in Chicago, in 1999, Brian Calvin recorded a batch of new songs with poet Devin Johnston. Designed to be an album, mostly recorded and mixed by Jim O'Rourke, who also plays bass and contributes background vocals on some cuts, they were never released, languishing in the vaults for almost two decades. Calvin and Johnston had both been members of USA, the band that recorded an LP and an EP for Drag City in the two years before this music was recorded. On the occasion of...

Thurston Moore, guitar
Frank Rosaly, drums, percussion

"Guitar hero Thurston Moore and improvising drummer Frank Rosaly met for a first encounter in 2012 at the Neon Marshmallow Festival, at the Burlington in Rosaly's hometown, Chicago. The results were monumental. The slow build of Moore's gigantosaur sound and Rosaly's clamorousness and gradually escalating propulsion made for an idea match over the course of an electrifying 35-minute piece, the thunderous conclusion of which left no ear...

"One of the most celebrated folks in improvised music, Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafsson made three ultra-limited edition vinyl LPs, each featuring a different dedication to a favorite musician from the past. Released in batches of 99, these records found Gustafsson playing compositions by Duke Ellington, Albert (and his brother Donald) Ayler, and the important post-bop baritone player Lars Gullin. Long out-of-print, these priceless slabs of free music have quickly become sought after collector’s items...

One of the greatest, most damaged albums ever. In any genre or category. Period. The only album that sounds like this one is this one.

"One of the absolute essentials of Chadbourne's oeuvre, what he described as "free improvised country & western bebop," featuring his frantic, skewed interpretations of classic songs such as Merle Haggard's "Swingin' Doors," Roger Miller's "The Last Word in Lonesome is Me," and Willie Nelson's "Mr. Record Man," There'll Be No Tears Tonight was recorded in Spring...

"In 1981, Joe McPhee culled together one of his greatest bands to record Topology, his classic outing for Hat Hut. Feturing an expanded version of Po Music, his ensemble with saxophonist André Jaume, guitarist Raymond Boni, and bassist François Mechali, the group included pianist Irene Schweizer, percussionist Pierre Favre, baritone saxophonist Daniel Bourquin, cellist Michael Overhage, and trombonist Radu Malfatti. One of the tracks left on the cutting room floor was a spectacular take on Ornette...

"Commissioned by Experimental Sound Studio in 2000 to create a radio work for the Outer Ear Festival, Kapsalis and Corbett returned to their investigation of film noir and pulp fiction, creating a half-hour work of non-narrative radio theater featuring music and text collage, as well as Kapsalis on violin and Corbett on analog synthesizer. Drawing on writers like Jim Thompson and David Goodis, as well as a lexicon of criminal terminology, it offers a Dada roller-coaster ride through diners, speakeasies...

Joe McPhee, brass and reeds
"In his upstate NY secret laboratory, home-based in Poughkeepsie, Joe McPhee diligently documented his activities throughout the '70s, with the help of Craig Johnson, the producer who started CjR as an outlet for McPhee's music. Among the unreleased tapes waxed in that span, Alone Together is unique and especially beautiful. Like Sound on Sound (released by Corbett vs. Dempsey in 2010), these recordings make use of multitrack recording, overdubbing McPhee upon McPhee...

Wadada Leo Smith: trumpet, flugelhorn, flute, steelophone, percussion, gongs

"On the occasion of improvisor and composer Wadada Leo Smith's exhibition Ankhrasmation: The Language Scores, 1967-2015 at Chicago's Renaissance Society, Corbett vs. Dempsey is pleased to present Red Chrysanthemums, a previously unreleased live recording of solo performances by Smith, documented in Los Angeles in December, 1977. Three adventurous, spacious tracks feature Smith's unique and innovative trumpet, as well as..

Joe McPhee on tenor and soprano saxophone
Recorded live by Claude Robert October 11, 1977 at Salle Ste Croix des Pelletiers in Rouen, France.

"Variations on a Blue Line/'Round Midnight was recorded in October, 1977, during a highly significant period in Poughkeespie, NY, multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee's work, as he was pioneering the transatlantic, collaborative spirit that has helped to define the last three decades of his career. Blue Line comes from a concert in Rouen, France, when McPhee...

"Chicago-based cellist and composer Tomeka Reid, a mainstay on the Windy City scene and an important contemporary member of the A.A.C.M., was commissioned to create original music for the first documentary to chronicle the Imagists, Chicago’s hometown post-surrealists who exhibited together starting in the mid-1960s. Reid composed theme music for the film and made a wide range of multi-track improvisations based on moods, creating a tableau from which the film drew as it unwound the artists’ circuitous...

"An epic outing on electric guitar, recorded in November 2013, as part of an evening of music and film at the Art Institute of Chicago. The CD features a single magnificent improvisation, ranging from brittle, delicate passages to full-throttle flame-throwing. Performing an accompaniment to James Nares’ brilliant film Street, Moore played with his back to the screen, letting the sounds and images converge and diverge of their own accord. The result was an extraordinary stand-alone live recording that...

"Glasses was recorded in October, 1977, during a highly significant period in McPhee's work, as he was pioneering the transatlantic, collaborative spirit that has helped to define the last three decades of his career. Documented in Tavannes, Switzerland, the set contains sensational tenor work, including the title piece, which finds McPhee ringing out a rhythm on a half-full wine glass, from which he extrapolates a melody on the saxophone, as well as a stunning version of John Coltrane's "Naima." The...

"Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafsson and Chicago saxophonist and clarinetist Ken Vandermark have worked together extensively since the mid 1990s, in groups of their own and as members of the Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet. Oddly, they had never performed duo before March 2013, when they squared off at Corbett vs. Dempsey gallery. The result was a delirious journey through extended techniques, intimate improvisation, and full-throttle flame-throwing, with an emphasis on the more delicate, sensitiv

Mats Gustafsson, tenor saxophone
Ken Vandermark, clarinet, tenor saxophone
Fredrik Ljungkvist, clarinet, tenor and baritone saxophone
Guillermo Gregorio, clarinet, alto saxophone
Jeb Bishop, trombone
Per-Äke Holmlander, tuba
Joe Morris, guitar
David Stackenäs, guitar
Sten Sandell, piano
Jim Baker, ARP synthesizer, piano
Fred Lonberg-Holm, cello
Kent Kessler, bass
Johan Berthling, bass
Michael Zerang, drums, percussion
Raymond Strid, drums

"This is a reissue of Eugene Chadbourne's album, first released as a cassette on No Prestige Records in 1988.
Dateline: Christmas Day, 1977, San Francisco. On an ailing quarter-track tape deck, in a marathon session, Eugene Chadbourne recorded a series of slide guitar solos playing compositions by the likes of Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, and Ornette Coleman, along with a few standards and originals.
Although the recording quality was imperfect, the playing was absolute...

Really excellent 1972 recording from Ra & company; never before on CD and now with extra material as well! Recommended!

"Arguably the last great original-era Saturn LP to be reissued on CD, Discipline 27-II has long deserved to be more familiar to Sun Ra fans and layfolk alike.
Recorded during the same sessions in 1972 at Chicago's Streeterville Studios that produced Ra's most popular and best-known record, Space Is The Place (1973), it's got much the same vibe, from the 24-minute four-part..

Michael Wadada - esraj, sitar
Style Scott - drums
Lizard Logan - bass
Kalu Zeria - table
Aziz Zeria - harmonium
Big Red - violin
Bubblers - piano
Mothmen - cuica, percussion
Maria Aiawa - vocals
Mark Stone - flamenco guitar
I. Green - bassoon
Tony Sullivan - banjo
Moot Beret - Chinese shawm

"A reissue of Suns Of Arqa's Revenge Of The Mozabites, originally released on Rocksteady Records in 1980. One of the key ensembles in the history of wh

"A reissue of Suns Of Arqa's Seven, originally released on Arka Sound in 1987. Perhaps the pinnacle of the Suns Of Arqa discography, Seven was released in 1987 and was in fact the band's fifth LP. With its stunning cover design and outlandishly ambitious sound, steeped in dub but festooned with plainchant and Indian music, it was alone in the market, its closest relatives maybe African Head Charge or New Age Steppers, but with a host of original ideas and musical intersections and an incredible, almost...

Beaver Harris, drums
Don Pullen, piano
Hamiet Bluiett, baritone saxophone
Ricky Ford, tenor saxophone
Buster Williams, bass
Francis Haynes, steel drums
Candido, percussion (1)
Sharon Freeman, Willie Ruff, Bill Warnick, Greg Williams, french horns (1)

"Of all the never-issued-on-CD items in history’s dustbin, A Well-Kept Secret is perhaps the most egregious. The beautiful studio recording, made under the watchful ear of über-producer Hal Willner, was first issued o

Fred Lonberg-Holm, cello
Amphibians of the Everglades, noises

"Never one to shy away from unusual projects, cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm set out into the mosquito-infested swamps of Florida’s Everglades in search of a host of amphibious collaborators. In the night air, he bowed and plucked in conversation with the environment, especially the vocalizing frogs, which seemed to take him on as an exotic member of their own.
Impeccably documented by the experienced soundscape artist and field..

Ken Vandermark, reeds
Michael Snow, piano

"Although he is best known as a groundbreaking experimental filmmaker, one of the architects of structural cinema, and visual artist, Michael Snow has been active as a musician since the 1950s. In Greenwich Village of the 1960s, his loft was the site of concerts by Cecil Taylor and other paragons of free jazz, and Snow’s film New York Eye and Ear featured a soundtrack by Albert Ayler’s group and starred its members.
A brilliant keyboardist and..

Mats Gustafsson – alto, tenor and baritone saxophones
Jason Adasiewicz – vibraphone and balafon

"Discussing this impending studio date, the indefatigable saxophonist Mats Gustafsson and intrepid vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz decided to compose new pieces for one another. The resulting tracks – which also include a hallucinogenic arrangement of “Timeless,” dedicated to its composer, the recently deceased guitarist John Abercrombie – show a markedly different side of both musicians. Quiet, at ..

“It's been nearly five decades since Joe McPhee assembled a group of musicians to perform the weekend concerts that would become Nation Time, his second LP. It was December 1970, thirty-one-year-old McPhee was inspired by Amiri Baraka's poem 'It's Nation Time,' and the students at Vassar Collegedidn't know what hit them. 'What time is it?' shouted McPhee. 'Come on, you can do better than that. What time is it?!!' The music on Nation Time came out of a fertile, but little-known creative jazz scene...

The long-awaited first reissue of one of the most legendary albums in the history of free music. Recorded live in concert in 1976, when Graves' trio with saxophonists Arthur Doyle and Hugh Glover was at the height of its powers, Bäbi is a testament to the absolutely unique approach the drummer had established for himself. He had reconfigured the drum kit, removing the second heads on all the drums and replacing the snare with two toms, which allowed him a much more nuanced sense of indirectness in his...

“It's easy to be cynical these days, maybe difficult to imagine that music can change the world, but not for Joe McPhee and Hamid Drake. With Keep Going, they will make the planet a better place for humanity, a place to be humane, to preserve humankind. At 78-years-old, Poughkeepsie multi-instrumentalist McPhee is a national treasure, and he's making more music than ever before, pushing himself to tour incessantly, issuing astonishing new records at a fierce rate. But this release, with legendary Chicago...

“Some recordings, the world is just not ready for them when they're made. In 2008, Swedish born, Austrian resident saxophonist Mats Gustafsson and Poughkeepsie, New York multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee made a suite of studio recordings, Brace For Impact that they loved so much they immediately culled, mixed, and mastered them. A decade later, when the original label for which they were planned had not yet issued them, Gustafsson and McPhee offered them to Corbett Vs. Dempsey, and when the label couldn't...

Byard Lancaster - flute, alto saxophone
Khan Jamal – vibraphone
Monnette Sudler – guitar
Billy Mills - bass; Dwight James – drums
Rashid Salime – congos
Omar Hill – percussion
vocalists on "New Horizon/Backstreets of Heaven" are unidentified.
Recorded at Columbia University, NYC, in 1973.

“Hailing from the Germantown section of Philadelphia, well known as the site of the Sun Ra Arkestra communal homestead, Sounds of Liberation were at the forefront of '70s Black

Dudu Pukwana - alto saxophone, whistle
Misha Mengelberg – piano
Han Bennink - drums, clarinet, viola, trombone

“A reissue of Dudu Pukwana, Han Bennink and Misha Mengelberg's Yi Yole, originally released in 1979. Recorded at the ICP Jubileum, a festival in Uithoorn, Holland, in 1978, Yi Yole brings together the core of the Instant Composers Pool -- pianist Misha Mengelberg and drummer Han Bennink -- with legendary South African alto saxophonist Dudu Pukwana.
Longtime member of the.

“A reissue of ICP Tentet's Tetterettet, originally released in 1977. Recorded in 1977, the Instant Composers Pool's Tetterettet is the first classic of the band's larger incarnations.
Assembled out of elements recorded live in Uithoorn, Utrecht, and the band's home base of Amsterdam, with Misha Mengelberg using a cut-and-paste collage method akin to Teo Macero's work with Miles Davis, the record features an all-star lineup that added three leading lights of free music: bassist Alan Silva and...

“Since 2015, Chicago's Experimental Sound Studio has been the host of Option, a series of intimate concerts of improvised music. Featuring an uncommonly wide range of players representing virtually all haunts of free music, the series has fostered not only an important exchange of ideas in musical form, but it has also promoted literal conversation about the music, usually substituting a dialogue with the musician or musicians for the requisite second set.
In 2018, the series was funded by...

Torbjörn Zetterberg - double bass
Susana Santos Silva - trumpet, tin whistle
Mats Äleklint - trombone, harmonica
Jonas Kullhammar - tenor saxophone, flute
Alberto Pinton - baritone saxophone, clarinet, flute
Jon Fält - drums

“If you've missed out on bassist Torbjörn Zetterberg, now's your chance to play some catch up ball. He's one of creative music's most eloquent exponents, having emerged from the fertile Swedish jazz scene around 2005.
With his band Torbjörn Zetter

Joe McPhee - tenor saxophone
Fred Lonberg-Holm cello/electronics

“Despite having worked together in innumerable settings, including the longstanding Survival Unit III, with drummer Michael Zerang, cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee have never released a CD of duets.
In an extra intimate studio setting in upstate New York, where both players reside, No Time Left for Sadness demonstrates their incredible musical understanding.
Recalling some of...

Arto Lindsay – guitar
Joe McPhee - alto and tenor saxophone, pocket trumpet
Ken Vandermark - tenor and baritone saxophone, clarinet
Phil Sudderberg, drums

“One day in the studio, something ridiculously great happened. It was deep Chicago winter, cold as shit. Four musicians assembled for a round-robin set of improvisations -- duets, trios, a few quartets. Approached casually, the late morning bloomed into Largest Afternoon, 15 crackling encounters between guitarist Arto Lindsay...

David Grubbs – guitar
Mats Gustafsson - flute, fluteophone, baritone saxophone, live electronicsr
Rob Mazurek - piccolo trumpet, wooden flute, electronics, percussion, voicer
“An übertrio drawn from distinct parts of the creative music spectrum, The Underflow was recorded during a sizzling two-night stand in May 2019. In a series of duets and trios, guitarist David Grubbs, saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, and trumpeter Rob Mazurek met headlong for the first time, converging not only their...

Wendy Gondeln - violin, electronic treatments, and more
Mats Gustafsson - piano mate, saxophones, and live electronics
Wolfgang Voigt - editing and mix (track 3 and 8)
Martin Siewert - guitar and lap top guitar (track 1 and 7)

“In 2018, Mats Gustafsson provided raw saxophonic material for the elusive Wendy Gondeln, who sometimes applied a scalpel, sometimes a pneumatic drill, to rework, remix, reimagine all the Swede's squeaks, pops, blats, and tones. In some places, Gondeln adds....

“For a performance at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, in spring of 1966, percussionist Milford Graves invited pianist Don Pullen to play duets. The two musicians had worked together in a band fronted by saxophonist and clarinetist Giusseppi Logan, with whom they had recorded two LPs in 1965 for ESP-Disk'. Graves was already a daunting presence in free music. One step at a time, he was busy transforming the role of drumming in jazz, introducing a new way of dealing with unmetered time and...