With Untitled, Jack DeJohnette’s Directions popped a jazz milestone into ECM’s prolifically expanding oven, and it still smells as fresh as the day it was baked. Building off DeJohnette’s robust intro to the 14-minute “Flying Spirits,” a compelling quintet completed by guitar (John Abercrombie), bass (Mike Richmond), sax (Alex Foster), and keyboard (Warren Bernhardt) makes for an aerial interweaving of complementary signatures. The band kicks up a whirlwind of activity, leaving DeJohnette’s delicate applications to rustle like the last stray leaves blowing down the road, out of sight but ever in mind.

Gary Burton’s involvement in any project guarantees smoothness and melodic robustness, and Easy As Pie is no less promising than one would expect from the mallet master. As the title may imply, the results are generally laid back, but ever virtuosic. From the first licks of “Reactionary Tango” (Carla Bley) we get a taste of the banquet about to be laid before us. Jim Odgren shines on reeds the pages of this developing story, snipping from them a string of paper dolls.

Self-taught Trieste-born trumpeter Enrico Rava is the grand master of Italian jazz. Originally a Dixieland trombonist, he switched to trumpet in his teens after hearing Miles Davis. In 1967, he moved to New York (“where my idols were, all the people I wanted to meet”), and found his musical direction, playing with Roswell Rudd, Cecil Taylor, Charlie Haden, Carla Bley and the Jazz Composer’s Orchestra among others.

Musik was the second effort by the Contact Trio for ECM’s sister JAPO label. Inspired by the atmospheric developments of Wolfgang Dauner (see, for example, Output) and heavily invested in the softening distinctions between rock and jazz, the trio had by now perfected its rhizomatic sound in what was to be its final record. Here Peter Eisold takes the place of drummer Michael Jüllich, and the result is a truly aerobic experience.

Path brings together guitarist Bill Connors (fresh off a stint with the Jan Garbarek Group on Photo With…), Carla Bley Big Band regular Roger Jannotta on winds, and vibraphonist Tom van der Geld for a network of pellucid improvisations entwining the barest of compositional skeletons. Connors’s twangy steel drops us immediately into an ethereal sound-world with “One,” mediating a pleasant conversation between flute and vibraphone. Thus begins a kaleidoscope of duets, trios, and quartets (the latter courtesy of some non-intrusive overdubbing).

The reunited '80s new wave superstars, Berlin, return with a bold album of superb, highly danceable, and powerful new music - Transcendance! Vocalist Terri Nunn rejoins co-founders John Crawford and David Diamond for what promises to be one of the most talked about releases of the year.

A band that makes it into bluegrass’ exclusive 25-year club inevitably celebrates the thousands of one-nighters, hundreds of festivals, dozens of recordings, and uncountable road miles by “taking an album off,” and releasing a retrospective. But that’s not Blue Highway and definitely not their new release

Sweet, slick soul with just the right amount of roughness: Run Home Slow is the sophomore album from The Teskey Brothers. The Australian band are two brothers (Josh and Sam Teskey) and their friends Liam Gough and Brendon Love. Onstage the band is as tight as any in the game, bringing horns and keys into the fray to deliver a show that soars and dives with masterful control. It's anyone's guess how far The Teskey Brothers are going to take their music but all indications so far suggest the love will go deep and wide around the world for this special combo.

Wide Prairie, a posthumous 1998 compilation of Linda McCartney recordings spanning the early 1970s through the late 1990s, will be re-released August 2 via MPL / Capitol / UMe having been remastered at Abbey Road Studios under Paul's supervision.

Creedence were the first to sign up for Woodstock. In April 1969, the Fogerty brothers' band pocketed a cheque for $10,000. Now that they'd landed such a big fish, the organisers knew that other big names would start looking for their own spot on the bill of what was set to be THE festival of the year… But all the same, the group were disappointed to find themselves with a very late billing, between half past midnight and 1:20am, after the Grateful Dead.

Two titans of jazz come together in a rare and highly acclaimed collaboration, recorded in 1962. At the time, Duke Ellington had been working with various veteran jazz artists of the day such as Louis Armstrong and Count Basie, but John Coltrane was half Ellington's age and not nearly as famous at the time as he was going to be. For these small group sessions, each headliner brought his own bassist and drummer, who play in various combinations on the seven songs.

The album that was the beginning of Wo Fat's psychedelic journey through heaviness from 2006.
Released on double vinyl in a gatefold sleeve by Nasoni Records (Germany). The vinyl has the bonus track "Call of Zuvembie."
Released for the first time on vinyl. Limited edition of 400 black vinyl.

Saxon celebrates four incredible Metal decades with The Eagle Has Landed 40 (live). 1979 was a monumental year for British Hard Rock with the birth of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal and the subsequent rise of future giants of the genre.

This live recording captures the great Senegalese band around the time of their finest recordings (Amadou-Tilo and Casamance au Clair de Lune)…

Born to Nigerian parents brought to Algeria, percussionist Guem grew up playing traditional music and trance rhythms from an early age. His family soon initiated him into the secrets of the diwan–ceremonies where many of the participants enter a state of trance.