BREAKDOWN LANE: FREE SOLOS & DUOS 1976-1998

INFINITE-SUM GAME

Music offers instant and countless ways of freeing myself and connecting with people and the multiverse. It's my sanctuary and path to the unknown. At jams and gigs. I discovered that improv is human nature, and in my nature. It's all about following the qi, the energy, the flow.

\'Released in the early \'90s, Concert for the Comet Kohoutek captures a typically inspired night by Sun Ra & the Intergalactic Space Research Arkestra. Recorded in late 1973, on this date the Arkestra is guided by a musical theme composed around the idea of the Comet Kohoutek, which was passing close to Earth at the time. Typically, the release vaults between cosmic vocal songs that speak of Truth and other such brashly capitalized affairs (such as \'Astro Black\'), almost straight-ahead big-band jazz arrangements (\'Variations of Kohoutek Themes\'), and frighteningly evil free explorations (\'Journey Through the Outer Darkness\').\'-Jesse Jarnow, AMG Digitally remastered by Joe Phillips with brief liner notes by ESP label founder Bernard Stollman.\' Recorded live at Town Hall, NYC, on December 22, 1973.

IRON PATH

This previously unreleased recording features the remaining music from the legendary concert that produced Lowe's ESP-Disk's debut as a leader, Black Beings. This recording features Art Ensemble of Chicago saxophonist Joseph Jarman in perhaps his first New York appearance, with the future Cecil Taylor bass and drum team of William Parker and Rashid Sinan and violinist Raymond Lee Cheng (The Wizard) on his only known recording. High energy music in it's purest form.

In 1966, the late Steve Lacy visited the new ESP-DISK office at 156 5th avenue with a master tape of his concert in Buenos Aires with his quartet, Louis Moholo, Enrico Rava and Johnny Dyani. He offered to sell the master for what I thought was an exorbitant price. I bought it. This LP was released featuring a reproduction of a painting by his friend, the late Bob Thompson, who had died before obtaining recognition. In 1992, the master tape was brought to engineer Ken Robertson at the Sony Studio, who observed that it had been recorded out of phase, and he corrected the phasing. - Bernard Stollman Digitally remastered from the original tapes Featured Artists Steve Lacy: soprano saxophone Enrico Rava: trumpet Johnny Dyani: bass Louis T. Moholo: drums.

In 1972, thirteen years after her death, Congress extended copyright protections to include recorded musical performances. Billie Holiday would have benefited greatly from such protection: during the more than twenty-five years of her career, Holiday gave an unknown number of live performances on TV & Radio and in clubs & concert halls, many of which were recorded both officially and unofficially by sound engineers, fellow musicians and fans. Today, ESP-Disck, which for many years has been assembling unofficial recordings of several artists from before 1972, has released one of the most comprehensive collections of live Billie Holiday recordings to date, some previously available but most not. These recordings, laid out in chronological order, not only demonstrate the arc of Holiday's development as a vocalist but give a rare behind-the-scenes look into how the singer approached her musicians and her audience. The first disc of this compilation opens with a twenty-year-old Billie Holiday performing with Duke Ellington in 1935, followed by a radio broadcast from the Savoy Hotel in New York two years later in which Holiday fronts the Count Basie Orchestra. The next four discs cover Holiday's career from 1949 to her death in 1959.

IN SEARCH OF THE MYSTERY

COLLEGE TOUR 1: COMPLETE NOTHING IS

'Don Cherry, more than any other artist in the jazz of his era, pioneered the music's internationalist nature that has now come to be commonly accepted as an integral part of it's character. The individuality of Cherry's contribution to the history of jazz has often been unfairly obscured by his admittedly important association with the music of Ornette Coleman. While the (pocket) trumpeter's position as Coleman's front line partner in the altoist's first revolutionary quartet was indeed a major one, Cherry's role as one of the founders of the genre that is known today as 'world music' is equally significant. - Russ Musto Featured Artists Don Cherry-trumpet Gato Barbieri-sax Karl Berger-vibes Aldo Romano-drums Bo Steif-bass.

\'Milford Graves has been among the flashiest drummers in the free mode, known for skillful inclusion of Asian and African rhythmic ingredients into his solos.\' - Ron Wynn / Percussionist Milford Graves recorded his first and only ESP-Disk recording on August 5th, 1966 along with fellow percussionist, the late Sonny Morgan. According to Milford Graves, the track titles were given numbers according to how many beats were in each measure. This unique combination of percussion conversations between Graves and Morgan is a welcomed addition in ESP\'-Disk\'s new series of digipak re-issues. Digitally remastered.

From the original liner notes: "This recording is made of an assembly of estranging electronic sound effects, trite sports commentaries and the music of a beautifully improvising jazz trio. Bob James has, through this convulsion of out-of-context sound elements and music of a trio, tried to emphasize the strange acoustic complex of modern man in his city, in his world, in his cosmos". Features Bob James on piano, Barre Philips on bass, and Robert Pozar on percussion.

LIVE AT CAFE MONTMARTRE 1966 3

CLOSER

IT'S NOW: R TIME PLAYS DOUG HAMMOND

LOUIS ARMSTRONG'S AMERICA VOLUME 2

LOUIS ARMSTRONG'S AMERICA VOLUME 1

BARRAGE

SPIRIT STRONGER THAN BLOOD

Reissue. Circular Temple is a 1992 album by American jazz pianist Matthew Shipp featuring his trio with bassist William Parker and drummer Whit Dickey, which was recorded in 1990 and released on the tiny label Quinton Records.

BIRD IN TIME 1940-1947

BYRON ALLEN TRIO

The Alabama born saxophonist/clarinetist had a short lived career as a member of the sixties avant-garde but achieved legendary status for the company he kept in his Cooper Square loft where the likes of Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Don Cherry, Archie Shepp, and Pharaoh Sanders often congregated. This debut date is best known for the presence of players, who like Watts, were to become renowned for the rareness of their recorded output, including Sonny Sharrock, Byard Lancaster, Clifford Thornton, Karl Berger and Henry Grimes.