Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers - Ugetsu (1963) {OJC Remasters Complete Series rel 2011}

An extension of the popular Original Jazz Classics series (est. 1982), the new OJC Remasters releases reveal the sonic benefits of 24-bit remastering-a technology that didn't exist when these titles were originally issued on compact disc. The addition of newly-written liner notes further enhances the illuminating quality of the OJC Remasters reissues. "Each of the recordings in this series is an all-time jazz classic," says Nick Phillips, Vice President of Jazz and Catalog A&R at Concord Music Group and producer of the series.

"With these reissues, we get a fresh look and a new perspective on these artists and some of their most important work-not only from the meticulous 24-bit remastering by Joe Tarantino, but also from the insights we glean from the new liner notes that have been written for each title in the series."

Herbie Mann - Stone Flute (1969) {2013 Japan Jazz Best Collection 1000 Series 24bit Remaster WPCR-27463}

Features 24 bit remastering and comes with a mini-description. The 1970 record buyer who came across Stone Flute expecting a typical Herbie Mann album in the Memphis Underground vein was in for a big surprise. Instead of funk, there was moodiness. Instead of a groove, there were violins, viola and cello. The feeling was one of floating in space, with the flute sailing freely over the William Fischer arrangements, like a Miles Davis trumpet solo of this, the Bitches Brew era. This is a totally atypical Herbie Mann recording, but one which rewards repeated listening.

Art Blakey and Jazz Messengers - Heat Wave (1977) {Meldac Japan MECJ-30010 rel 1995}

These red hot live performances by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers – recorded in 1977 in San Fransisco – are evidence that the hard-bop school of Blakey was alive and well in arguably the darkest time for the straight ahead jazz musicians. The "fusion" music was taking the attention – and audiences – away from this kind of music, and we had to wait a few more years before its resurgence and emergence of young lions such as Wynton and Branford Marsalis.

Blakey made a tremendous contribution to this music by taking young, talented musicians and handing down the knowledge and experience to them by playing together day after day, giving invaluable lessons that could never be taught at school. In this fiery session, Blakey encourages and pushes his disciples to lay it all out, and creates a heat wave that engulfs everyone, including the audience.

All the players involved are impressive, but most notable are the red hot Bobby Watson on alto sax and the relatively cool but very effective George Cables on piano. This is a rare, significant document of Art Blakey and his group in 1977.

Produced by Makoto Kimata and Todd Barkan. Recorded live at Keystone Korner, San Francisco in June 1977.

ABBA - ABBA (1975) {2012, Remastered, Deluxe Edition, CD+DVD, Polar, 00602537123094}

New 2012 remastered reissue of 1975 album expanded with 3 bonus tracks & a 24-page booklet with extensive liner notes.Also includes a DVD with previously unreleased TV footage including the 1976 'Abba In Australia' doco. The Deluxe Edition of the ABBA album is the sixth release in the series of ABBA Deluxe Editions (the seventh if you count the 30th Anniversary Edition of Waterloo). The format is the same as for previous Deluxe Editions: one disc a CD of the original album plus bonus tracks, one disc a DVD of previously unreleased television material relevant to the period when the album and its hit singles climbed the charts all over the world.

Bob Brookmeyer - Complete 1953-1954 Quintet Studio Recordings with Stan Getz (2004) {2CD Set Definitive Records DRCD11264}

This exciting release features all the studio recordings made by Brookmeyer as a member of Stan Getz' legendary quintet. Featuring five studio dates all remastered. Includes booklet with comprehensive personnel details. In these reunions the cool-toned tenor blends in very well with the valve trombonist. These sessions are often quite memorable.

Allman Brothers Band - Peach Crate Box Set (2016) {USB Stick} (Limited Edition Vinyl Box Set, USB Stick files, not vinyl rip)

LIMITED EDITION 180-Gram audiophile 15-LP numbered vinyl box set with exclusive extras in a Georgia-style solid wood peach crate. All nine albums have been newly remastered by Kevin Reeves [Idlewild South 45th Anniversary (2015), The 1971 Fillmore East Recordings (2014)] from the original analog stereo master tapes to 192kHz 24-bit and cut by Abbey Road Mastering Studios onto copper plates using their DMM (Direct Metal Mastering) lathe for superior audio fidelity.

Jean-Philippe Rameau - Orchestral Suites, The complete Philips & Glossa recordings - Frans Brüggen (2018) {4CD Set Glossa}

Such was the significance of the music of Jean-Philippe Rameau for Frans Brüggen that the Dutch conductor’s first concert with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century featured a suite by the French composer, and his final directing appearance, shortly before his death in 2014, did likewise. Between times this inspirational musician and his orchestra recorded a series of orchestral suites drawn from the opéras-ballets, tragédies en musique and pastorales-héroïques, first for Philips and then for the orchestra’s own imprint on Glossa.

Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers - Ritual +2 (1957) {Japan Pacific Jazz CP32-5374, Early Press}

A hard-swinging cooker from Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers – recorded during the landmark year of 1957 – when Blakey's group was open to recording for a number of different labels, in a number of different settings! The set was originally done for the west coast stalwart Pacific Jazz, but it's got a sound that's much more in the hardbop mode of the New York scene – all the fire and intensity that Blakey first cooked up for Blue Note, cast out with a slight sense of openness here in the less iconic setting. Players include Jackie McLean on alto, Bill Hardman on trumpet, and Sam Dockery on piano – and the album's right up there with Vik/RCA, Savoy, and Chess material they cut at the time.

Nina Simone - Four Women: The Nina Simone Philips Recordings (1964-1966) {2003 Verve Deluxe 4-CD Set}

Nina Simone recorded seven albums for the Philips label between 1964 and 1966. It was the period in her career in which her reputation was cemented as a world-class artist, and one in which she gained fame for her contributions to the civil rights movement as well. Despite the fact that she recorded great albums both before and after her years with Philips (most notably with RCA), her Philips period is easily her most enigmatic. Among her Philips recordings are her live label debut and six studio recordings featuring wildly varying instrumentation, arrangements, and contents. The box contains all seven LPs on four CDs, and includes one bonus track.

Fairport Convention - Cropredy 2002, Another Gig: Another Palindrome (2002) {2CD Set Woodworm Records WR2CD 039}

The annual Cropredy Music Festival is one of the most important events on the yearly calendar for fans of British folk music; organized by members of Fairport Convention, it's not just a three-day concert but a gathering of the tribes for followers of the U.K.'s most venerable folk-rock outfit, and as Fairport traditionally closes out the last day of the festival with a marathon performance, it's not uncommon for former members of the band to pop by for the big show. The 2002 Cropredy Festival was an especially memorable event for fans; not only did it mark the group's 35th birthday, but nearly every living Fairport alumnus showed up for the occasion, and this two-disc collection of recordings from the 2002 event features near-complete reunions of the original 1967 lineup (minus only the late Martin Lamble on drums) and the 1969 Liege & Lief edition (with Vikki Clayton standing in for Sandy Denny and Gerry Conway taking over on drums for the more inexplicably absent Dave Mattacks).

Freddie King - Live & Loud 1968 (2014) {Floating World FLOATM6243}

The energy on this CD conveys the passion Freddie King put into his playing and the bending of strings really comes through in his music. The song selection is great and Freddie wails on guitar despite muffled vocals. Freddie King lived almost his entire adult life on the road playing the blues. King died at age 42, in 1976, so his recording history is limited. This is a great chance to experience Freddie King live and why his unique playing style is so legendary.

Art Blakey And The Jazz Messengers - In My Prime Vol. 2 (1977) {2015 Japan Timeless Jazz Master Collection Complete Series}

Reissue with the latest remastering. Features original cover artwork. Comes with a descripton in Japanese. Leader of The Jazz Messengers at the time of this recording for over 22 years, drummer Art Blakey was still discovering new talent. In addition to altoist Bobby Watson, trumpeter Valeri Ponomarev and David Schnitter on tenor, this particular session introduced the great pianist James Williams to The Messenger fold. Despite the changes in musical fashions, Art Blakey and his hard-bop institution were still turning out new material and solos in the late '70s that sound fresh and alive today.

Chet Baker - Indian Summer, The Complete 1955 Concerts in Holland (2007) {Dutch Jazz Archive NJA0701}

Previously unreleased, historic live recording!
The Jazz At The Concertgebouw Series is a stunning discovery!

For the first time ever, we get to listen to a series of live concert recordings of top American jazz musicians, made at the world-famous Concertgebouw in Amsterdam in the late 1950s!

Jerry Garcia Band - After Midnight: Keane College, February 28, 1980 (2004) {3 Disc Set HDCD Rhino R2 76538}

Released in 2004, After Midnight: Kean College, 2/28/80 is a three-disc offering from a short-lived incarnation of the Jerry Garcia Band, featuring Garcia (guitar/vocals), John Kahn (bass), Ozzie Ahlers (keyboards/vocals), and Johnny De Foncesca (drums). The aggregate lasted less than six months, with De Foncesca replaced by former Sly & the Family Stone and Santana percussionist Greg Errico less than a month after this late February show. Opening up for Garcia on a majority of the East Coast run was his lyricist and primary collaborator, vocalist Robert Hunter. He joins the JGB during the second set for readings of his own "Tiger Rose" and "Promontory Rider," in addition to offering up his recollections of the experience in the package's liner essay.

David Crosby - Live On The King Biscuit Flower Hour (1989) {King Biscuit Flower Hour Records KBFHCD009 rel 1998}

After a stint in prison, David Crosby (guitar/vocals) emerged from his year-long incarceration a completely clean and sober (gasp!) man. His revitalization was marked by a period of unbridled creativity, yielding his second solo effort Oh Yes I Can (1989). Crosby was supporting the album during the spring 1989 tour that produced the material on this disc. The set was recorded live at the Tower Theatre in Philadelphia and backed by a powerhouse combo that included longtime CSN bandmate Michael Finnigan (keyboards), Dan Dugmore (guitar), Jody Cortez (drums), and Davey Farragher (bass/vocals). Indeed, abstemiousness suits Crosby as his powerful, emotive vocals, and strident fretwork have rarely been as well defined or as energetic as they are here.

Art Blakey And The Jazz Messengers - In My Prime Vol. 1 (1977) {2015 Japan Timeless Jazz Master Collection Complete Series}

Reissue with the latest remastering. Features original cover artwork. Comes with a descripton in Japanese. Leader of The Jazz Messengers at the time of this recording for over 22 years, drummer Art Blakey was still discovering new talent. In addition to altoist Bobby Watson, trumpeter Valeri Ponomarev and David Schnitter on tenor, this particular session introduced the great pianist James Williams to The Messenger fold. Despite the changes in musical fashions, Art Blakey and his hard-bop institution were still turning out new material and solos in the late '70s that sound fresh and alive today.

Freddie Hubbard - First Light (1971) {CTI–Sony Music 5127902 rel 2003}

Never one to take lyricism for granted, trumpeter and composer Freddie Hubbard entered Creed Taylor's studio for the third time in 1971 with the express purpose of making a record radically different from anything he'd cut before; he was looking for it to use electricity and to be out of the soul-jazz mold, but was also more ambitious and wanted to push that envelope and himself. Taylor and Hubbard assembled a band that included Herbie Hancock on Rhodes, guitarists Eric Gale and George Benson, bassist Ron Carter, Jack DeJohnette on drums, Airto Moreira on percussion, and Richard Wyands on acoustic piano to back him.

Larry Young - Contrasts (1967) {2014 Japan SHM-CD Blue Note 24-192 Remaster}

Features the high-fidelity SHM-CD format (compatible with standard CD player) and 24 bit remastering. One of the best Larry Young albums for Blue Note – and a record that really gets at his unique conception and style in the 60s! The session's a key bridge between Larry's soul jazz roots and his more far-reaching experimental work – filled with deep, heavy grooves – yet mixed with playful, personal touches on the Hammond – some of the most unique sounds coming from Blue Note at the time!

Miles Davis - 'Round About Midnight (1956) {2006 DSD Japan Mini LP Edition Analog Collection SICP 1201}

The combination of attitude and intellect was irresistible. Beginning with ROUND ABOUT MIDNIGHT and proceeding through a remarkable succession of famous recordings over the next 30 years, Miles Davis became one of the greatest soloists, arrangers and talent scouts in the history of American music. People who didn't own a single jazz record came to know his name–Miles was a jazz icon.

Canned Heat - Future Blues (1970) {Iconoclassic Records ICON1046 rel 2016}

The final Canned Heat album to feature co-founder Alan Wilson, Future Blues was also one of their best, surprisingly restrained as a studio creation by the band, the whole thing clocking in at under 36 minutes, as long as some single jams on their live discs. It was also one of their most stylistically diverse efforts. Most of what's here is very concise and accessible, even the one group-composed jam – Alan Wilson's "Shake It and Break It" and his prophetically titled "My Time Ain't Long" (he would be dead the year this record was issued), which also sounds a lot like a follow-up to "Going up the Country" until its final, very heavy, and up-close guitar coda.

Elvin Jones - Puttin' It Together (1968) {2014 Japan SHM-CD Blue Note 24-192 Remaster}

Features the high-fidelity SHM-CD format (compatible with standard CD player) and the latest 24bit 192kHz remastering. Proof that Elvin Jones wasn't just riding on the laurels of the Great One during his years with John Coltrane – as the album's a breakout date that has Jones firmly establishing his own voice in jazz! There's an explosive power here that makes us think that Elvin must have really just been biding his time with Coltrane – waiting for the chance to try out his own new ideas in music, and finding the perfect accompanists here in a trio that includes Jimmy Garrison on bass and a young Joe Farrell on tenor, soprano sax, and flute! The lack of a piano in the group really makes for a sense of new freedom that's totally great – not dreamy, melodic piano-less work, as in some of the LA groups of earlier years – but a searing, soaring intensity that Farrell was a perfect choice to head up.

Masahiko Satoh - All-In, All-Out (1979) {Sony Music Japan SRCL1978 rel 1991}

This unkown gem - that will amaze casual listeners and still conquer regular ones - stars both Masahiko Sato's talent in displaying a wide variety of tones and fusion scales and Dave Liebman's fierce and intense saxophone playing. Sometimes "All-in, All-Out" recalls Weather Report's edgy style of abstract fusion, and Sato's work here serves that purpose very well,which means, painting soundscapes simultaneously dreamy and cerebral. "Sapajou Walk" begins like an orchestrated blues lament, but by the time we reach "Fallout", the last track, we realize that this is not just a pop-oriented jazz thing, but a trip to something much deeper. This is truly great stuff, so check it out.

Archie Shepp - I Didn't Know About You (1990) {2015 Japan Timeless Jazz Master Collection Complete Series}

Reissue with the latest remastering. Features original cover artwork. Comes with a descripton in Japanese. Straight, soulful work from Archie Shepp – an overlooked gem from the start of the 90s, and a set that we'd rank right up there with his classics from his great "straight" period of the late 70s! The album's got frequent partner Horace Parlan on piano – who already helps things get grounded in all the right territory – and the excellent Wayne Dockery is on bass, a player with subtle power that really helps give the album all the right depth. George Brown completes the group on drums – and Shepp blows both tenor and alto sax – the latter of which has this raspy quality that's maybe overblown, but in this really powerful way. Title sinclude "Ask Me Now", "Party Time", "Billie's Bossa", "Go Down Moses", and "Now's The Time".

Jan Boerman - The Complete Tape Music (1998) {5CD Set Donemus CV NEAR 04-08 rec 1959-1997}

Jan Boerman (born 30 June 1923) has been a composer working in electronic music studios since 1959. He was born in The Hague. The Delft Polytechnic in Utrecht, from which the Institute of Sonology was developed, housed the first electronic music studio in the Netherlands after the Philips laboratory in Eindhoven, which was not generally open to composers.

A select few composers were invited to work at Eindhoven, including Edgard Varèse (who created his Poème électronique there in 1958) but, by 1960, Philips decided to close the facilities. It passed its equipment on to the Delft Polytechnic, which became the primary site for electronic music in the Netherlands. Administrative problems, however, caused both Boerman and Dick Raaijmakers to leave Utrecht in 1963, whereupon they began setting up a private studio in the Hague. Their facility eventually became incorporated into the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, and both men became members of the faculty. Years later, in 1986, the Institute of Sonology echoed their move by transferring from Utrecht to the Royal Conservatory in the Hague.

Boerman was trained in the traditional manner as a pianist and composer, and his initial exposure to the electronic music studio was both a shock and a revelation. There was relatively little "repertoire" in this new domain, so, while he had been struggling with serialism and "finding his voice", Boerman intuited that here was a vast new terrain to explore, free from the stylistic pressures (i.e., the triumvirate of Paris, Darmstadt, and Cologne) that were so powerfully felt at that time in Europe. Raaijmakers, on the other hand, had been studying broadcasting, recording, and applied electronics at Philips, so was more drawn into the world of studio composition.

The James Hunter Six - Hold On! (2016) {Daptone Records DAP-040}

Hold On! is the fourth album by the rocking soul man James Hunter and his stalwart sextet. Daptone's Gabriel Roth produced the excellent Minute by Minute in 2013, but this is the band's debut for the label. Hold On! was recorded live in the studio, but Roth and Hunter decided on mono to best capture the immediacy of the performances. The songwriter has recorded only original material since 2006, and these ten tracks are no exception. What separates this date from previous outings – excellent though they all were – isn't the mono production, but the diversity in songwriting, rhythmic invention, and arranging. "This Is Where We Came In" may contain a simmering organ, but doo wop-esque backing vocals from Gregory Lee, Alex Desert, and Malik Moore elevate it (and the two other cuts they appear on) beyond the early pop-soul framework that it comes adorned in. So do the cha-cha rhythms, rhumba fills, and comps from Andrew Kingslow's piano.

Batsumi - Batsumi (1974) {Panai, Japan Bonus Tracks Edition rel 2011}

“Batsumi” Is A South African Gem Made In The Face of Oppression. During the brutal era in South African history known as Apartheid, the minority-white ruling party forcibly moved millions of black South Africans from their homes to segregated areas, stripping them of their citizenship and reassigning them to tribal Bantu status. But even in the face of this outrageous oppression, South African music thrived. Artists like pianist Abdullah Ibrahim (formerly known as Dollar Brand), and multi-instrumentalist Hugh Masekela gained fame both within the country and beyond. But Ibrahim and Masekela were the exceptions, rather than the rule. Because they both lived and toured abroad, it was easier for their music to get attention. For local South African musicians, operating under the threat of state violence, breaking through to European and American audiences was much harder.

Karlheinz Stockhausen - Himmelfahrt - 1st Stunde aus Klang (2006) {Stockhausen-Verlag No. 83}

Since 1991, a complete edition of all recordings in which Karlheinz Stockhausen has personally participated is being released on compact discs. Each CD in this series is identified by Stockhausen's signature followed by an encircled number. The numbers indicate the general historical order of the works. Stockhausen realised the electronic music and participated in these recordings as conductor, performer, sound projectionist, and musical director. He personally mixed down the recordings, mastered them for CDs, wrote the texts and drew the covers.

Grant Green - Feelin' The Spirit plus 1 (1962) {Blue Note Japan, CP32-9527, Early Press, rel 1987}

Soulful, spiritual work from guitarist Grant Green – an exploration of older tunes with a hip Blue Note 60s soul jazz approach! The album features Grant working in a quartet with Herbie Hancock, Billy Higgins, and Butch Warren – plus some added tambourine on a number of tracks – and the overall approach is extremely laidback and open, with Green soloing in a personal style that's a bit less frenetic than some of his other work of the period.