Clean Feed Sale!

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It has been a while since we had a Clean Feed Sale, so here it is. The following CD's are temporarily available for the lowered price of 9,95 euros (shipping included). If you wish to order one or more of these, please send us your preferences by e-mail, to info@instantjazz.com

The Clean Feed label is known worldwide for its impeccable reputation and high standard, so there is lots to discover here. If you are not sure where to start, we give you a few suggestions. These albums are in bold and get a short description below.Many of them are favorites among our customers and friends.

SILKHEART SALE: David S. Ware Trio - Passage To Music

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David S. Ware is a household name for everyone who's even remotely interested in contemporary free jazz. Put otherwise: if you have the slightest interest in where today's free jazz is heading, there's no reason to not know who he is. You should have at least several of his records. The past two decades, he has been a true force of nature, nothing less, releasing one thrilling, expansive, virtuoso album after another, especially with his famous Quartet, which featured Matthew Shipp, William Parker and a series of drummers.

Passage To Music was recorded before that Quartet was formed, in 1988. It is probably also the oldest  albums as a leader available. There have been many previous appearances on other people's records and a handful of rare recordings, but this one is basically the one that put him on the map for real. Silkheart would release three more releases by Ware and they all featured the Quartet: Great Bliss Vol. 1 (1990), Great Bliss Vol. 2 (1994) and Oblations And Blessings (1996).

Passage To Music features Ware, bass player William Parker and drummer Marc Edwards (who'd become the Quartet's first drummer as well) and it set the tone for what came later: extended explorations steeped in the spiritual inspiration of John Coltrane and featuring Ware's masterful and immense control over the tenor saxophone (as well as stritch and saxello). It's no easy listening or stylish beatnik/cocktail jazz, but raw and intense music, which appeared at a time when jazz had become something bland in the mainstream. Not as well-known as later recordings (those recorded for AUM Fidelity, for instance), but every bit as thrilling, this is an album true fans can't afford to miss!

All four Ware releases on Silkheart are available from Instant Jazz!

AYLER SALE: Exploding Customer - Live At Glenn Miller Café

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Ayler Records is based in France, but for some reason, there's a lot of Scandinavian jazz to be found in their catalog. On top of that, many of their releases were also recorded in the Northern parts of Europe. There are even about a dozen records that were recorded in Stockholm's jazz club the Glenn Miller Café. One of the very best is this release by Exploding Customer .

This one, recorded in 2002, appeared back to back with another live release by the same band recorded two years later at the Tampere Jazz Happening. The members: Kjell Nordeson (drums), Tomas Hallonsten (trumpet), Benjamin Quigley (bass) and Martin Küchen (saxophones). As is to be expected with Küchen, it's firmly in the fiery free jazz tradition. Küchen is a lively, energetic player whose passion often starts from political outrage and anger, and it's no different on this release. The typically cryptic liner notes hint at severe issues and concerns, which led to expressive and sometimes explosive results, we also heard on more recent albums by the Tresspass Trio and Angles.

But there's so much more than blunt force: this bands swings like hell, is capable of laying down bad-ass grooves and frequently impresses with ultradynamic interplay. The Küchen/Hallonsten-tandem owes a lot to the hardbop/free-tradition, but manages to infuse it with its own character, twists and turns and shattering precision. The same goes for the highly effective rhythm section. Drummer Nordeson is perhaps more well-known, but Quigley is equally striking. Live At Glenn Miller Café is for lovers of raw, sincere free jazz that bursts at the seams with conviction that's hard to resist

Currently available for 9.95 euros!

Send us an e-mail if you wish to order this album of others from our sale (see below for complete list).

CLEAN FEED to release its two hundredth album

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And now the time has come to highlight the CLEAN FEED-label, from Lisbon, Portugal. Since its genesis in 2001, it has turned into a highly respected player in the field of improvised music, which is the result of years of hard work, stubborn dedication and vision. Originally, it was their intention to release just a handful of albums each year. That was the case in their early days (3 releases in 2001, 6 in 2002), but since then, the label has increasingly moved forward, convinced a lot of musicians and listeners and has become one of the most highly regarded labels for improvised music in Europe, if not the world.
 
It might feel weird to consider they're based in Portugal, of all places, but as label boss Pedro Costa points out, this might be one of its most importants assets: "We see ourselves as a world label because the music is just one. And especially for a label based in Lisbon, the message has to be clear: concentrating on the music we believe is crucial to document this very rich era, whether it's from New York, Chicago, Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm or Japan. That's truly our manifesto." Portugal boasts a strong live scene and very quickly the artist roster became quite impressive.
 
PEOPLE FROM ALL AROUND
 
From the early days onwards, they offered music by local talents (people like Rodrigo Amado, Carlos Zingaro and Julio Resende) as well as work by international artists, quite often from the United States. Among them important and groundbreaking musicians like Gerry Hemingway and Charles Gayle, but also younger talents like Steve Lehman, as well as lesser known veterans of the scene, such as Dennis Gonzalez (who released an impressive string of albums that pulled him out of relative obscurity), Ellery Eskelin and Steve Swell.
 
But that's not nearly it, as the label also welcomed a bunch of musicians from Scandinavian countries and Italy. Clean Feed also facilitated some surprising encounters, such as TownOrchestraHouse, which featured both powerhouse drummer Paal Nilssen-Love as well as saxophone legend Evan Parker. And several more players started popping in, like Ken Vandermark and Anthony Braxton, who also appeared on the label's one hundredth release in 2008, a 4CD box set also featuring guitar player Joe Morris.

PACKAGING AND PACE
 
The ways in which Clean Feed manifested itself are manifold. There's the roster, there's the impressive quality and (later) quantity, but for a while, it also boasted some of the most recognizable artwork, with cd's that were packaged in artfully folded carboard covers with magnets, which have made way for mini LP-sleeves recently. The label also featured a DVD by 4 Corners (an international project featuring Americans Adam Lane & Ken Vandermark, Swedish trumpeter Magnus Broo and, again, Norwegian drummer Paal Nilssen-Love), and has guitar player Elliott Sharp curate a series within their catalog.
 
In the meantime, the pace at which the label released albums kept picking up. From the humble beginnings, they quickly moved to 20 releases in 2005, to more than thirty in 2009. We've recently seen a lot of younger talents making their entrance (Harris Eisenstadt, Kirk Knuffke, Peter Evans, Christian Lillinger), while several other artists released what may be their strongest work yet on Clean Feed (Tony Malaby, Hugo Antunes, Martin Küchen, with both his Trespass Trio and the Angles Sextet) or, as in the case of Tom Rainey, made their long-awaited debut (as a leader) on the label!
 
THE NOW AND THE FUTURE
 
In 2010, Clean Feed cd's are being distrubuted in the USA, Japan and in Europe (in Belgium by yours truly), and it has become a household name in the field of free jazz, avant-garde, world jazz and improvised music in general. Just look around the net, and you'll see that CF-releases are turning heads and receiving excellent press from both the larger jazz institutions as well as specialised blogs and e-zines. There have been 39 releases so far, this year, and nine more are lining up. The past few years, the label also hosted the annual Clean Feed Festival in New York, because it seems to have extra strong ties with that city and its many musicians in particular (several Americans on the roster are New Yorkers or have strong ties with the local scene).
 
CF#200, TONY MALABY's TAMARINDO 'LIVE' FEAT. WADADA LEO SMITH presents a quartet recording from June this year and features the amazing line-up of saxophone player Malaby, visonary trumpeter Leo Smith, as well as bass guru William Parker and drummer Nasheet Waits (Jason Moran, etc). If that isn't a line-up to make you drivel at the mouth, than no line-up in the field of jazz ever will. They're selling it as "powerhouse free bop" and who are we to question that? We'll offer more information about this new batch soon!
 
And what's next? Time will tell, but there's no doubt it's gonna be an exciting ride. "I like to see us as an international label that doesn't belong to any country, any scene, any kind of cooperative thing but only as a label that exists to release the music of today by people of today in the field of improvised music" (Pedro Costa).  Needless to say that Instant Jazz is looking forward to the future as well!

We usually have a lot of Clean Feed-releases in stock. Feel free to inquire about availability or check out or catalog!

El Negocito

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It's not just a café that happens to be a record label as well, it's not a restaurant or a tiny club, nor just a meeting place for (foreign) students or the jazz scene in Ghent. No, it is ALL THOSE THINGS AT ONCE! While the place allegedly offers Chilean food and drinks and often attracts a crowd that's mainly Spanish-speaking, it's so much more than that. It's as small as the furniture is basic, to say the least, but somehow... the people succeed in creating this chaotic, multicultural, metropolitan atmosphere that's usually something you only find in huge cities.

Added to this, it's charmingly situated in the middle of the red light district and it has a twist of good ol' Belgian surrealism and the result is a club where at one moment, you find yourself surrounded with a bunch of loudly chattering Latina's and the next moment, you're watching a bunch of avant-garde musicians creating wholly unconventional music. El Negocito released a few excellent album in the meantime and hosts a lot of concerts, making it one of the most thriving and interesting venues for those with a soft spot for jazz, experimental music and improvisation.

The program bill is simply to long to reproduce here, but do not miss their first festival - redlightBlue, which takes place during the three last days of October. Will be included: a bunch of solo concerts (Peter Jacquemyn, Eric Thielemans, etc), duo concerts (Maris/Cappozzo, Cassiers/Dumoulin, Gyslinck/Ottervanger, etc) and a bunch of other assembled units. Adventure guaranteed!

So if you're in the area, be sure to drop in, as it's a one of a kind place and experience. More information about upcoming gigs at the website 

Pi Recordings

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We're proud to announce that we now also offer releases by Pi Recordings. As they mention themselves on their website, the people at Pi are "dedicated to the innovative" and with an artist roster that includes people such as Steve Lehman, Marc Ribot, Wadada Leo Smith and Muhal Richard Abrams, you're always in for a treat.

We'd like to briefly introduce a few of the label's recent releases (click for more info or purchase):

RUDRESH MAHANTHAPPA & BUNKY GREEN - Apex
As on "Dual Entity" (w/ Steve Lehman), Mahanthappa again plays with a fellow alto player, this time Bunky Green. The veteran is 75 years old, but the energetic playing is still intact and the album brims with creativity. Also a bonus are the appearances by a.o. legendary drummer Jack DeJohnette and "genius grant" receiving pianist Jason Moran!

STEVE COLEMAN  AND FIVE ELEMENTS - Harvesting Semblances And Affinities
As a member of the M-Base movement of the 80's, Coleman played a crucial role in the development of modern jazz and this album, which was recently released, but recorded a few years ago, shows that he's still at the top of his game. The compositions are as tight as ever, the recognisable playing is still there and there's stellar accompaniment by Tyshawn Sorey and several other talents.

HENRY THREADGILL & ZOOID - This Brings Us To, Volume II
Threadgill is one of those musicians that create an entirely personal sound world. Whether it's with Air, Very Very Circus or Zooid, his current project, the man's music remains eccentric and imposisble to categorize. Like its predecessor, which topped many end-of-year-lists in 2009, "Volume II" captures his cutting edge compositions that are guarenteed to baffle even the more experienced jazz fans.

AMIR ELSAFFAR & HAFEZ MODIRZADEH - Radif Suite
Released earlier this year, but definitely worth mentioning, is this excellent album by two musicians w/ roots in the Middle East (trumpeter ElSaffar is Iraqi-American, sax player Modirzadeh is Iranian-American), playing with the rhythm section of Mark Dresser and Alex Cline. The result is modern jazz, in the fierce tradition of Ornette Coleman, but with a curious Eastern twist. Highly recomended!