RAW

The three original Chet Baker In Paris albums, originally released on Barclay Records, have been remastered from the original master tapes and presented on 180g vinyl in single sleeves with original jackets and liner notes. Volume 2 was recorded on October 24, 1955, just three days after Twardzik's passing due to an overdose. Chet leads his quartet with Jimmy Bond (the only one left from his original accompanying trio), young French pianist Gerard Gustin and Swedish drummer Nils-Bertil Dahlander

Brad Mehldau / AFTER BACH II - The album comprises four preludes and one fugue from J.S. Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, as well as the Allemande from Partita for Keyboard No. 4 in D Major, interspersed with seven compositions or improvisations by Mehldau inspired by the complementary works of the Baroque master-including his Variations on Bach's Goldberg Theme. Mehldau, speaking of the "universality" of Bach's music, says in his liner note: "The more you try to engage with him, the more your own personality becomes visible, unavoidably. You are not playing Bach-Bach is playing you, in the sense that he lays you bare... The greatest choice you make at all times is not out of an absence, but from what is there, in it's totality. Specifically, it is the constant choice you make in how to negotiate between harmony and melody."He continues, "This is why Bach is a model for me as a jazz musician. In my improvised solos, I want to make melodic phrases that carry harmonic implication, and create harmony that moves in a melodic fashion. This is a crucial component in the storytelling." After Bach II follows 2018's After Bach album, which originated in a work Mehldau first performed in 2015-commissioned by Carnegie Hall, The Royal Conservatory of Music, The National Concert Hall, and Wigmore Hall-called Three Pieces After Bach.

From collab project of Scary Pockets & their hero Larry Goldings' new album, featuring Kaveh Rastegar (Bruno Mars, de la Soul) & Kane Ritchotte (sombr, Portugal The Man). It was written/recorded on the spot & features artwork via The New Yorker's Barry Blitt; while previous records feat. John Scofield & Louis Cole. Scary Pockets is Pomplamoose's Jack Conte & writer/producer Ryan Lerman (Vulfpeck, Lizzy McAlpine); Grammy-nom Larry Goldings worked with John Mayer, James Taylor, Melody Gardot etc.

Donald Byrd - "Royal Flush (Blue Note Classic Vinyl Series)" / Donald Byrd was off to the races after joining Blue Note in 1958 and had fully hit his hard bop stride by 1961 with his excellent album, Royal Flush. Joining the trumpeter was a state-of-the-art rhythm section, featuring Herbie Hancock on piano, Butch Warren on bass and Billy Higgins on drums, plus Byrd's frequent collaborator Pepper Adams on bari sax. This Blue Note Classic Vinyl Edition is stereo, all-analog, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes, and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal. Special Pkg:180g Heavy Vinyl

AMARYLLIS (ECM LUMINESSENCE SERIES)

Digipak. A superb 1988 quartet studio performance recorded just 3 months before Chet's death, featuring audio transferred from the original tape reels.

TRANSYLVANIAN DANCE

A Semblance: Of Return is the new album from South African drummer, composer, and bandleader Asher Gamedze, available on Northern Spy Records as a limited "Emulsive Return" clear smoke 12" LP, and digipak CD. Gamedze gathers a close ensemble of longtime collaborators to explore what he calls "practices of assembly" - ways of making sound, and imagining new and old modes of freedom. Based in the independent music scenes of Cape Town and rooted in Pan-Africanism and Black Consciousness, Of Return extends the political and musical commitments that have defined Gamedze's work from Dialectic Soul (On The Corner, 2020), to Turbulence and Pulse (International Anthem, 2022) and Constitution (International Anthem, 2024) while opening a newly collective chapter in his practice, this time on Northern Spy. The band on the album - Ru Slayen (percussion), Nobuhle Ashanti (keys & synth), Zwide Ndwandwe (bass), and Keegan Steenkamp (trumpet), with Gamedze on drums - formed as a social unit: a group for whom music is part of a broader shared life, full of playing, thinking, laughing, and struggling. That ethos animates the music. Across the album's two sides, Of Return serves as a gathering place: a living room, a rehearsal, a shady club, a study group, a home. The music moves with a grounded, searching energy, shifting between group vocals, groove-heavy ensemble passages, and moments of stark melodic clarity. The grooves are earthy and lived-in; the improvisations feel like conversations; the lyric fragments echo the project's probing around notions of return as integral to any forward, future-oriented motion. Of Return enacts both return and departure, or more precisely, extension/elaboration. This it does through a rootedness in the traditions and politics of the Cape underground, and opening a sonic invitation to dream, to struggle together, and, fundamentally, to assemble.

Beneath the Mask marks a return to the more commercially viable jazz-funk of the Chick Corea Elektric Band's earlier albums, and marks the end of the first stage in the band's history, which began five years earlier with the group's self-titled debut. Energy meets craft on this superlative outing, which finds the five virtuoso musicians (Chick Corea, drummer Dave Weckl, bassist John Patitucci, guitarist Frank Gamble, and saxophonist Eric Marienthal) engaging in a highly sophisticated yet accessible set of music. Massive in the scale of the influences it contains, the album travels from the heavy grooving funk-fusion of the title track "Beneath the Mask," to the lively West African township jive of "One of Us Over 40." to the mellow smooth jazz of "A Wave Goodbye," and the grandiose '70s style prog-rock/fusion of "Charged Particles." Originally released on GRP Records in 1991, the album reflects the innovative spirit of The Elektric Band, pushing boundaries and creating a unique sonic landscape that captivates listeners.

2024 release. After putting down the saxophone, the instrument he has become synonymous with, Shabaka returns with his first full length album under his own name. Expanding off the meditative 2022 EP Afrikan Culture, his new album Perceive it's beauty, Acknowledge it's Grace is a deeply moving suite of primarily instrumental music.

A Semblance: Of Return is the new album from South African drummer, composer, and bandleader Asher Gamedze, available on Northern Spy Records as a limited "Emulsive Return" clear smoke 12" LP, and digipak CD. Gamedze gathers a close ensemble of longtime collaborators to explore what he calls "practices of assembly" - ways of making sound, and imagining new and old modes of freedom. Based in the independent music scenes of Cape Town and rooted in Pan-Africanism and Black Consciousness, Of Return extends the political and musical commitments that have defined Gamedze's work from Dialectic Soul (On The Corner, 2020), to Turbulence and Pulse (International Anthem, 2022) and Constitution (International Anthem, 2024) while opening a newly collective chapter in his practice, this time on Northern Spy. The band on the album - Ru Slayen (percussion), Nobuhle Ashanti (keys & synth), Zwide Ndwandwe (bass), and Keegan Steenkamp (trumpet), with Gamedze on drums - formed as a social unit: a group for whom music is part of a broader shared life, full of playing, thinking, laughing, and struggling. That ethos animates the music. Across the album's two sides, Of Return serves as a gathering place: a living room, a rehearsal, a shady club, a study group, a home. The music moves with a grounded, searching energy, shifting between group vocals, groove-heavy ensemble passages, and moments of stark melodic clarity. The grooves are earthy and lived-in; the improvisations feel like conversations; the lyric fragments echo the project's probing around notions of return as integral to any forward, future-oriented motion. Of Return enacts both return and departure, or more precisely, extension/elaboration. This it does through a rootedness in the traditions and politics of the Cape underground, and opening a sonic invitation to dream, to struggle together, and, fundamentally, to assemble.

SMILES

TRISTEZA ON GUITAR

GREEK VARIATIONS & OTHER AEGEAN EXERCISES

Miles In France 1963 & 64- The Miles Davis Quintet: The Bootleg Series Vol. 8 / MILES IN FRANCE is the eighth installment in the celebrated Miles Davis Bootleg Series and this edition focuses on the birth of the Second Great Quintet in 1963 and 1964. The music heard here represents the sound of an end and a beginning coming through at once. The set contains 5 separate performances of the Miles Davis Quintet spread over 6 CDs and the energy and depth of feeling in the transcendent playing hint at the special relationship Miles and the group had with the French nation that embraced them in a way their homeland would not. It contains over 4 hours of revelatory, unreleased live music featuring Miles backed by George Coleman (on the 1963 recordings), Wayne Shorter (on the 1964 recordings), Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams. This set expands on the 1964 live album MILES IN EUROPE which documented the Miles Davis Quintet's performance at the Festival Mondial du Jazz in Antibes in July 1963. While that album included a single edited set across 2LPs, this will include all three very distinct performances from Antibes along with two never-before-released concerts from October 1964 in Paris, by which time Wayne Shorter had joined the band, so you could hear the Second Great Quintet come together before your ears. The audio has been lovingly mixed and mastered in the highest quality possible and the CDs are packaged in 3 gatefold mini-jackets housed in a luxe slipcase box with a die-cut O-card and a 32 page book that includes dozens of unseen photos, ephemera and extensive liner notes by noted journalist Marcus J. Moore.

Vinyl LP pressing. Jackie McLean's 1962 album Let Freedom Ring reflected the change in the air of the early '60s: both the musical freedoms being explored by the emergent avant-garde movement and the social freedoms sought by the ascendent civil rights movement. This four-song set featuring the alto saxophonist with Walter Davis Jr. On piano, Herbie Lewis on bass, and Billy Higgins on drums melds the bluesy language of hard bop with the bristling energy of The New Thing. McLean's emotive horn wails, shrieks, and soothes as the quartet moves through three striking McLean originals: "Melody For Melonae" (dedicated to his daughter), "Rene" (dedicated to his son), and "Omega" (dedicated to his mother). A plaintive rendition of the Bud Powell ballad "I'll Keep Loving You" rounds out the date.

Limited Coke bottle green colored vinyl LP pressing.

INTERCONTINENTAL

Chris Standring returns in 2026 with a heartfelt eleven song collection of inspired compositions drawing on influences from a golden age. This retro-soulful set harks back to a familiar, perhaps nostalgic time when sophisticated arrangements and beautiful harmonies where all in fashion. Featuring a top-flight four piece horn section and a vast array of orchestral colors, alongside Chris' unique guitar tones, Time Of Change takes you on an invigorating journey from start to finish. - True to the concept inherent in the title of the collection, the multi-talented performer's infectious blend of introspective and fast grooving/danceable compositions, intricate texturing and moody atmospheres is a natural outgrowth and organic expression of this unique period of his life where he's simultaneously reflecting on the past and excited about the great personal and musical adventures to come. Though he's enjoyed over 15 Billboard Top 10 singles and eight #1's - most recently with "Change the World" from Simple Things (2022) and "Top Hat & Tails" from As We Think (2024) - Standring insists that over the course of his past few projects, his writing has not been aimed at radio airplay but as a way to keep himself sane, happy and moving forward creatively. Inevitably, several tracks poppin' from his Benedetto archtop electric will catch the ear of programmers, but he's less focused on commercial success than digging in deeper, following the muse and the music.

'Amateur Girlfriends Go Proskirt Agents' was originally released in 2001, and soon got the 'classic' stamp. Tracks from this album are still on the top 10 streaming numbers for Xploding Plastix. Now, the full tracklisting from the album is finally presented on a deluxe double vinyl version, with 6 bonus tracks! With their mixture of obscure jazz-samples, cool beats, melodic feel, an 'anything goes'-mentality, and quite a bit of humor, Xploding Plastix created their own unique style. A kind of older Amon Tobin meets Scott Walker on a smoke-filled sleazy jazz-club. Throw in an exquisite taste for film-noire, and we are getting closer. This is Balearic beats, lo-fi, simply sweet! NME wrote: 'Meanwhile, over at Jam, Norwegians Xploding Plastix - two nutcases with lots of small boxes and a terrible name - are offering upheaval of a different kind. Theirs is a big, disorienting future-jazz racket, splicing DJ Food's mad drums, Aphex Twin's time signatures and The Herbaliser's moodiest, cinematic bits. Awesome.' ________________________________________ 'Meanwhile, over at Jam, Norwegians Xploding Plastix - two nutcases with lots of small boxes and a terrible name - are offering upheaval of a different kind. Theirs is a big, disorienting future-jazz racket, splicing DJ Food's mad drums, Aphex Twin's time signatures and The Herbaliser's moodiest, cinematic bits. Awesome.' NME - Tracklisting: A1. Sports, Not Heavy Crime (5:07) A2. Funnybones & Lazylegs (4:48) A3. 6-Hours Starlight (3:22) A4. Behind The Eightball (4:49) A5. Single Stroke Ruffs (2:28) B1. Treat Me Mean, I Need The Reputation (4:58) B2. Relieved Beyond Repair (1:45) B3. Tintinnamputation (4:26) B4. More Powah To Ya (5:26) B5. Having Smarter Babies (4:57) C1. Far-Flung Tonic (4:51) C2. Happy Jizz Girls (2:54) C3. Doubletalk Gets Through to You (5:23) C4. Comatose Luck (3:39) C5. Pistola Hub Club (3:17) D1. Behind The Eightball (Remix) (4:38) D2. Shakedown Shutoff (Live in Manchester) (4:56) D3. Omar Sharif Bonanza (5:28) D4. Popfrontical Eclection (4:22) D5. The Jim Pedesen Theme (2:42)

Chris Standring returns in 2026 with a heartfelt eleven song collection of inspired compositions drawing on influences from a golden age. This retro-soulful set harks back to a familiar, perhaps nostalgic time when sophisticated arrangements and beautiful harmonies where all in fashion. Featuring a top-flight four piece horn section and a vast array of orchestral colors, alongside Chris' unique guitar tones, Time Of Change takes you on an invigorating journey from start to finish. - True to the concept inherent in the title of the collection, the multi-talented performer's infectious blend of introspective and fast grooving/danceable compositions, intricate texturing and moody atmospheres is a natural outgrowth and organic expression of this unique period of his life where he's simultaneously reflecting on the past and excited about the great personal and musical adventures to come. Though he's enjoyed over 15 Billboard Top 10 singles and eight #1's - most recently with "Change the World" from Simple Things (2022) and "Top Hat & Tails" from As We Think (2024) - Standring insists that over the course of his past few projects, his writing has not been aimed at radio airplay but as a way to keep himself sane, happy and moving forward creatively. Inevitably, several tracks poppin' from his Benedetto archtop electric will catch the ear of programmers, but he's less focused on commercial success than digging in deeper, following the muse and the music.

Roy Hargrove's Crisol - "Grande-Terre" / In April of 1998, fresh off their Grammy win for Best Latin Jazz Performance for their debut effort, Habana, Roy Hargrove's Crisol went into a studio in Guadalupe to record their follow-up album. Until now, that album, Grande-Terre, has never been heard. Featuring an all-star band of Roy's long-time collaborators, Grande-Terre showcases Hargrove's fiery playing, his exquisite writing and the band's incredible power and unique sound. Verve Label Group; Verve; Jazz

WHAT HAPPENS HAS BECOME NOW

After the beautiful 'Naked Truth' in 2022, trumpeter Avishai Cohen comes back with his quartet, including Yonathan Avishai (piano), Barak Mori (bass) and Ziv Ravitz (drums), with a new suite, 'Ashes To Gold.'