Essential stuff! This 2 LP set includes a huge amount of previously unreleased live material, played by the Ayler group in New York, during 1966 and 1967. Ayler's brother Don is on trumpet, and the rest of the group includes Henry Grimes (or Alan Silva), Michel Sampson, and Beaver Harris. Titles ... (Jazz) read more LP, Vinyl record album

Ayler's last album ever – and an incredibly strange batch of tracks that shows perfectly the kind of stylistic and emotional struggle he was going through in the final years of his life. Like the albums New Grass and Love Cry, this one shows Ayler toying with influences from other genres ... (Jazz) read more LP, Vinyl record album

Art Blakey, without any Jazz Messengers – but still coming through loud and clear, thanks to help from a unique group that features Sonny Stitt on tenor, McCoy Tyner on piano, and Art Davis on bass! The album's still got all the hardbop charm of Blakey's best Blue Note dates, but also feels ... (Jazz) read more LP, Vinyl record album

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Johnny Hodges sits in with trombonist Lawrence Brown and his all-star group that includes Harold Ashby on tenor, Ray Nance on coronet, Paul Gonsalves on tenor, and Cat Anderson on trumpet. As you'd expect, this set's got a strong swing vibe and a good Basie groove to it. Tracks are short, with ... (Jazz) read more LP, Vinyl record album

An amazing record from Marion Brown – one of his greatest ever! The record has an unusually introspective quality, and features Muhal Richard Abrams playing piano, Fender Rhodes, and Ring Modulated Hammon Organ, plus Paul Bley playing some of the same on a few tracks. The two-keyboard sound ... (Jazz) read more LP, Vinyl record album

An unbelievable recording! As Archie Shepp made his first album for Impulse a tribute to Coltrane, Marion Brown made his a tribute to Shepp – a wonderful lineage of avant talent in the 60s, stated boldly here, given Brown's amazing talent on the record! The album's filled with hard, soulful ... (Jazz) read more LP, Vinyl record album

Messed up bluesy funk from Impulse's strange early 70s years! Mel Brown's leaving behind his straighter jazz funk groove here, and is moving into more of a Bay Area stoner crossover sound – with touches of blues, bits of soul, and lots of unconventional grooving. A number of cuts have ... (Soul) read more LP, Vinyl record album

Mel Brown's fifth album – as we'd assume by the title – and a pretty darn tasty batch of funky numbers! There's still a bit of the bluesy playing that can sometimes ruin a Mel Brown record –but the best cuts are just super-dope guitar funk numbers, either chopping along at a ... (Jazz) read more LP, Vinyl record album

A great example of the cool, classy swing that Benny Carter hit in the 1960s – a groove that was more regularly brought to backings for standout singers of the time, but which also works beautifully here in an instrumental mode! Carter's alto sax is at the top of the charts, but the album's ... (Jazz) read more LP, Vinyl record album

A wonderful chapter in the career of Ray Charles – and a key album in helping raise his respect level a notch or two in the early 60s! We might argue with the mathematics in the title – or at least joke that Ray was using equations as titles years before Anthony Braxton – but you ... (Soul) read more LP, Vinyl record album

Excellent Impulse set by Ornette that's devilishly hard to find these days! Too bad, too, because the record's great, and the group includes Don Cherry, Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden, and Denardo Coleman – with a great mix of old and new Ornette styles and players. The group does a great ... (Jazz) read more LP, Vinyl record album

One of Alice Coltrane's most adventurous albums – a beautiful blend of organ, harp, percussion, and strings – much of which are transcribed for the album by Ornette Coleman! The most haunting aspect of the album is Alice's work on organ – spare, jagged, with a nascent soulful ... (Jazz) read more LP, Vinyl record album

One of John Coltrane's best early albums for Impulse – a warm set of modally grooving tracks, and one that picks up where My Favorite Things left off! The group here features McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass, and Elvin Jones on drums – a really magical rhythm section that ... (Jazz) read more LP, Vinyl record album

A seminal set from John Coltrane – one of those amazing records that wasn't issued until a few years after his death – then blew folks' minds even further with the depths of his talents! The setting is a live performance in Japan from 1966 – a really open-ended, freewheeling, ... (Jazz) read more LP, Vinyl record album

A set that really earns its title – as it's easily some of the most cosmic music John Coltrane ever recorded – and also kind of a way of saying goodbye to the planet, to leave his music in the hands of a next generation of creators! The album features material recorded by a Coltrane ... (Jazz) read more LP, Vinyl record album

Brilliant work – John Coltrane really opening up in his new spiritual mode of the 60s, hinting at the changes to come, while still keeping the modal groove of previous recordings! The record features tracks from a few different sessions from the years 1961 to 1963, but it holds together ... (Jazz) read more LP, Vinyl record album

Modal Coltrane at its finest – a record that almost returns the great one to the territory explored at the end of his years at Atlantic Records, but which still incorporates all of the new ideas learned afterwards! The album's actually one of the straightest that John Coltrane cut after 1964 ... (Jazz) read more LP, Vinyl record album

One of our favorite albums ever from John Coltrane – but a record that's sometimes eclipsed by the genius of A Love Supreme! The feel here is very similar to that one – long tracks that introduce a new mode of searching, spiritual jazz for the 60s – one that's performed by a core ... (Jazz) read more LP, Vinyl record album

Sublimely spiritual work from the great John Coltrane – a live album, but one that's easily one of his most important contributions to music in the early 60s – and a set that we'd rank right up there with his best studio sides for Impulse or Atlantic Records at the time! The group here ... (Jazz) read more LP, Vinyl record album