On the 30th anniversary of the Victo Festival Anthony Braxton took to the stage for a magnificent solo performance on the alto sax, performing 8 spontaneous compositions and an 8+ minute version of "Body and Soul", seamlessly crossing lyrical and complex approaches to the horn using his unique intervallic, trimbral and diagrammatic language, a stunning and embraceable accomplishment.

A historic 2002 Victoriaville meeting of pianist Cecil Taylor, trumpeter Bill Dixon and percussionist Tony Oxley, yielding an unusually restrained and atmospheric performance in which Dixon's spacious, electronically colored brass lines anchor Taylor's delicate clusters and Oxley's finely detailed percussion, creating a sparse, suspended and quietly beautiful form of collective improvisation far removed from Taylor's more familiar torrents of sound.

A 2003 Victoriaville tribute to bassist Peter Kowald bringing together Barre Phillips, Joelle Leandre, William Parker and Tetsu Saitoh on four double basses and voices, uniting musicians shaped by free jazz, European new music, Japanese traditions and free improvisation in a deeply resonant collective performance reflecting Kowald's ideal of cross-cultural communication through improvised music.

Reuniting Montreal reedist Jean Derome with French clarinetist and saxophonist Louis Sclavis alongside bassist Bruno Chevillon and drummer Pierre Tanguay, this live performance from the 2001 Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville blends elegant compositions, playful motifs, and adventurous improvisation, the quartet weaving jazz-rooted interplay with inventive textures and spirited rhythmic drive.

Lindsay Cooper and singer/lyricist Sally Potter lead an exceptional septet at the 1989 Victoriaville Festival, joined by Alfred 23 Harth, Hugh Hopper, Marilyn Mazur, Phil Minton and Elvira Plenar in a politically charged suite combining intricate composition, free improvisation, cabaret and European folk influences, moving from stark ensemble passages and ferocious reed work to Weill-like songs, Balkan inflections and darkly theatrical vocals.

The late trumpeter Bill Dixon's final performance at the 2011 Victo Festival, performing with and directing an incredible group including Taylor Ho Bynum, Rob Mazurek, Stephen Haynes, Graham Haynes, &c. &c.

Recorded live at the 1987 Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, pianist Marilyn Crispell delivers a powerful solo performance that moves between explosive free improvisation and lyrical introspection, weaving dense clusters, driving rhythmic passages, and delicate melodic reflections into a deeply expressive exploration influenced by Cecil Taylor while asserting Crispell's own distinctive voice.

Early live recordings from the 1996 duo of Eugene Chadbourne on steel dobro, electric banjo and eccentric sound devices with German percussionist Paul Lovens on drums and cymbals, balancing fractured song references, dry humor and highly responsive free improvisation in performances that move from near-silence and delicate rhythmic displacement to abrupt, playful bursts of angular interaction.

Composer and electric harpist Zeena Parkins leads an ensemble including sisters Margaret and Sara Parkins with Chris Cochrane, Ikue Mori, and David Shea in two intricately structured works that blend strings, electric harp, voices, percussion, and electronics, unfolding as a dynamic avant-garde chamber music exploration where collective improvisation, shifting textures, and subtle harmonic interplay shape richly layered sonic environments.

A historic 2003 Victoriaville summit joining Evan Parker's trio with Alexander von Schlippenbach and Paul Lytton to Peter Brotzmann's trio with William Parker and Hamid Drake, creating a first-time sextet encounter where two deeply established improvising units collide and interlock through dense reed exchanges, surging rhythm, piano, bass and percussion in a fiercely collective meeting of European and American free improvisation.

Evan Parker's Electroacoustic Ensemble, merging reeds, strings and percussion with live signal processing to create something indescribably transformative is further amplified with the addition of free improvising vocalist and Tuvan throat singer Sainkho Namtchylak, adding an unearthly layer of interaction and transmogrification to this incredible 1996 FIMAV performance.

Intense meeting of saxophone legend Parker and the remarkable Tuvan improvising vocalist Namtchylak performing live at Music Gallery in Toronto, 1996.

The first release by the Quartet Noir ensemble of Urs Leimgruber on tenor and soprano saxophones, Marilyn Crispell on piano, Joëlle Léandre on double bass and Fritz Hauser on drums and percussion, recorded live at Victoriaville in 1998 as an eight-part collective improvisation whose dark, spacious textures, patient pacing and finely balanced use of silence gradually build toward passages of greater density and intensity.

The first recorded meeting of the long-running LDP trio, bringing Swiss reedist Urs Leimgruber, pianist Jacques Demierre and bassist Barre Phillips together at Radio DRS in Zurich in 2001 for six entirely acoustic improvisations whose concentrated listening, spacious silences and finely balanced textures move organically between breath-level detail, resonant abstraction and sudden passages of vigorous collective intensity.

EVIYAN is Iva Bittova, Gyan Riley & Evan Ziporyn - 3 unique composer/performers merging into a singular sound, an intimate, acoustic blend of world roots, post-minimalism, jazz, rock, and cabaret.

Two masters who rarely play together--guitarist Fred Frith and saxophonist Evan Parker--performing together as a duo at the 30th Musique Actuelle Festival in Victoriaville, Canada for an amazing exchange of ideas and intensely subtle dialog.

The first performance outside Japan by Kikuri, pairing Keiji Haino on electric guitar, drums and voice with Merzbow's Masami Akita on electronics, effects and drums at the 2007 Victoriaville Festival, moving between massive feedback and overdrive, blues-inflected guitar, percussion and unexpected passages of space and restraint in five intense yet remarkably varied improvisations.

Documenting a reunion of Musica Elettronica Viva's founders Frederic Rzewski (piano and vocals), Richard Teitelbaum (keyboards and computer) and Alvin Curran (keyboards, computer and shofar) at the 32nd International Festival Of Current Music in Victoriaville, Canada in 2016.

Directed by composer Miya Masaoka, this expansive orchestra brings together a large ensemble of strings, winds, electronics, and world instruments — including contributions from George Lewis, Hafez Modirzadeh, Liberty Ellman, and Trevor Dunn — for two ambitious works that blend chamber writing, improvisation, tape, and street recordings, exploring themes of nuclear history and urban social conflict through layered textures, shifting styles, and provocative sonic collage.

Braxton's Composition 361 is a staggeringly detailed 70 minute tour-de-force for his 12-tet, a work of shifting layers, counter-structures, quiet tensions and scorching explosions.

The transatlantic trio of UK pianist Alexander Hawkins, NY drummer Kate Gentile and Canadian reedist Francois Houle are heard in four masterful spontaneous improvisations in their live performance at the 39th Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, Houle performing on clarinets (sometimes two at a time) including the early, deep-note basset clarinet.

Satoko Fujii's Min-Yoh Ensemble brings together Fujii on piano, Natsuki Tamura on trumpet, Curtis Hasselbring on trombone and Andrea Parkins on accordion for original music inspired by the directness and emotional force of Japanese folk traditions, reimagining their simple forms, scales and communal spirit through richly expressive contemporary composition and improvisation.

UK multi-reed master Evan Parker brings an all-star electroacoustic septet to the 2014 Victoriaville Festival for the massive and wonderfully detailed two part composition "Seven", performed with Peter Evans, Okkyung Lee, George Lewis, Ikue Mori, Sam Pluta, and Ned Rothenberg.

Serbian composer and reedist Boris Kovac leads the Ritual Nova Ensemble through an idiosyncratic chamber music blending Balkan and Pannonian folk inflections, ritual atmosphere, minimalism, jazz, avant-rock and improvisation, with saxophones and clarinets set against piano, strings and double bass in music that moves fluidly between lyrical, ceremonial and sharply contemporary forms.

Directed by trumpeter John Korsrud, Vancouver's Hard Rubber Orchestra expands the big band tradition with an adventurous blend of avant-funk grooves, sharp ensemble writing, and free-leaning improvisation, the large ensemble of horns, rhythm section, guitar, strings, and guests Marilyn Lerner and Peggy Lee delivering tightly arranged passages, dissonant brass figures, and atmospheric interludes that balance orchestral scope with the raw energy of progressive jazz.

A live recording from the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville in 2009 of extended improvisations between guitarist Fred Frith, French clarinetist Louis Sclavis, and percussionist Jean-Pierre Drouet.

Andre Duchesne's ambitious 1989 Victoriaville work L' Ou 'L, subtitled "Concerto for a Solitary Composer," combines narration, chamber rock, contrapuntal writing and free improvisation in a large ensemble of strings, saxophones, electric guitars, bass, piano and percussion, moving through ten contrasting sections that frame a surreal science-fiction meditation on the life of a composer-pilot.

Collecting performances recorded between 1996 and 1997 in Toronto and at Quebec festivals including Victoriaville, the long-running Canadian collective CCMC — Michael Snow on piano and synthesizer, John Oswald on alto saxophone, and Paul Dutton on voice and harmonica — deliver free-form improvisations that weave jazz-inflected piano, rapid saxophone lines, and Dutton's inventive sound poetry and vocalizations into playful, texturally rich exchanges linked by Oswald's brief collage interludes.

Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq in a bizarre and amazing performance at the Victoriaville Festival in 2010 with Drip Audio director Jesse Zubot on violin and Barnyard boss Jean Martin on drums, computer, trumpophone.

A ferociously precise live duo from the 2002 Victoriaville festival pairing pianist Satoko Fujii with Ruins drummer Tatsuya Yoshida, both adding voice to an exhilarating barrage of stop-time exchanges, pounding rhythms, abrupt jump cuts and comic theatricality, racing through free improvisation, metal, boogie-woogie, tango and other stylistic collisions with remarkable speed, control and gleeful unpredictability.

Extraordinary and masterful performers Sophie Agnel (piano) and John Butcher (soprano & tenor saxophones) present a live recording from the 40th International Festival of Current Music in Victoriaville, Canada, featuring five improvised pieces that highlight their exceptional interplay and collective discovery of new musical forms while exploring the boundaries of free improvisation.

The first recorded collaboration between Fred Frith and Rene Lussier, originating in a 1986 Victoriaville performance and subsequently expanded in the studio, combining guitars, bass, percussion, violin, piano, rhythm box, tapes and voice into a restless collage of composed and improvised music, with later contributions from Tenko Ueno, Geneviève Letarte and Christoph Anders adding Japanese, French and German vocals to the duo's idiosyncratic, genre-resistant sound world.

Elliott Sharp expands his Carbon ensemble for this seven-movement 1992 work, using strings, bass, drums, electronic percussion and doublebass guitar within an algorithmic framework that guides collective interpretation, balancing dense orchestral textures, extended techniques and volatile improvisation with tightly controlled compositional structure.

Led by Italian trumpeter Pino Minafra, the Sud Ensemble delivers a theatrical blend of avant-jazz, free improv, and Mediterranean-inflected exuberance, with Minafra joined by Carlo Actis Dato, Lauro Rossi, and Giorgio Occhipinti in a colorful program where brass, reeds, piano, voice, and an array of unusual instruments collide in playful, tightly arranged yet wildly expressive performances.

Recorded in February 1995, guitarist-composer Rene Lussier leads the massive Now Orchestra through a bold score that blends rock rhythms, free jazz blowouts and cinematic improvisation; across two days the ensemble of saxes, trumpet, cello, guitar, bass and drums navigates abrupt shifts, dense textures and playful detours, confirming a singular large-ensemble statement that remains vivid and unpredictable.

Captured live at the 1996 Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, guitarist Thurston Moore joins drummer Tom Surgal and percussionist William Winant for a continuous performance of evolving free improvisation, the trio shaping dense waves of guitar noise, driving percussion, and textural resonance into a long-form exploration that bridges Moore's experimental rock sensibility with the festival's avant-garde improvising tradition.

Noted for its live 1999 recording in France, this trio of Michel Doneda (soprano sax), Erik M (turntables, MiniDisc, sampling), and Jean-Marc Montera (guitar, electronics, objects) creates an electrifying mix of acoustic intensity and electroacoustic texture, with Doneda's incisive phrasing pulling guitar noise and manipulated vinyl into agile, unpredictable dialog for sharp collisions and eerie convergences in cutting-edge free improvisation.

Pairing the idiosyncratic guitar styles of Eugene Chadbourne and René Lussier, this live set recorded in Paris and at the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville captures the duo weaving country and folk influences into a playful free improv dialogue, with acoustic and electric guitars and banjo driving a spirited exchange of twang, rapid picking, and irreverent musical wit.

A delicately powerful 2010 Victoriaville trio bringing together Barre Phillips on double bass, Catherine Jauniaux's extraordinary extended voice and Malcolm Goldstein on violin, creating spacious collective improvisations where bowed strings, vocal gesture, silence and sudden bursts of activity form an intimate, highly responsive chamber language.

Celebrating 40 years as a performing ensemble, the West Coast saxophone quartet ROVA of Bruce Ackley on soprano saxophone, Steve Adams on alto & sopranino saxophones, Jon Raskin on baritone saxophone, and Larry Ochs on tenor saxophone, reworked compositions from all members transversing their past 34 years, in an absolutely impressive and diverse album.

Composer/saxophonist Braxton performed "Composition NO 347 + 62'37" " at the 2011 Victo Festival with the "super-group" of Braxton alumni - Mary Halvorson, Taylor Ho Bynum, Jessica Pavone, Jay Rozen, Aaron Siegel, Carl Testa", on their respective instruments + iPods.

Documenting a ferocious live performance from the 2018 Victoriaville Festival with additional recordings from 2025, the trio of Merzbow (electronics), Mats Gustafsson (bass & baritone sax, electronics), and Balázs Pándi (drums) unleash a volatile collision of noise, free jazz intensity, and crushing rhythmic force of towering electronic textures, blistering sax blasts, and wildly inventive percussion.

This mercurial and impressive 2021 Victoriaville Festival concert brought together improvisers from three duos as a quartet: guitarist Rene Lussier, who has a long running duo with turntablist Martin Tetreault; Erick d'Orion on computer and electronics, who also has a experimental sound duo with Tetrault; and frequently collaborator with Lussier, drummer Robbie Kuster.

A wild and adventurous concert and one of the highlights of the 39th Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville from the electric improvising quartet of Elliott Sharp on electric guitar & electronics, Colin Stetson on bass, alto & tenor saxophones, Billy Martin on drums & percussion and Payton Macdonald on marimba, vibraphone & African xylophone.

Diverse aspects of the 2011 disaster at the Japanese Fukushima nuclear power plant brought on by a tsunami orchestrated in sound by composer/pianist Satoko Fujii and rendered in remarkable ways from some of New York finest improvisers, including Tony Malaby, Ellery Eskelin, Oscar Noriega, Herb Roberts, Joe Fiedler, Stomu Takeishi, Nels Cline, &c &c.

Satoko Fujii leads her 13-piece big band through 5 thrilling and insightful compositions with a who's-who of NY improvisation: Nels Cline (guitar), Ches Smith (drums), Joe Fiedler & Curt Hasselbring (drums), Oscar Noriega, Ellery Eskelin, Briggan Krauss, Andy Laster & Tony Malaby (sax), Herb Robertson, Natsuki Tamura & Dave Ballou (trumpet) & bassist Stomu Takeishi; wow!

The mystifying duo of Axel Dorner (trumpet, electronics) and Mark Sanders (drums, percussion) blurs the line between electronic and acoustic in this enthralling album.

New York-based trumpeter Nate Wooley and London-based saxophonist Seymour Wright in a series of 9 duos using the fringes of their instruments in exploratory and introspective dialog of great depth and intensity.

Two live sets of exemplary improvisation: the first revelatory encounter of pianist Sebastian Lexer and drummer/percussionist Steve Noble from 2011, and a more considered and spacious meeting in 2014, both from London's Cafe OTO.

A meeting between two accomplished saxophonists recorded live at Kernel Brewery, in London in 2014, and at The Studio in Derby, with Seymour Wright on alto saxophone and Evan Parker on both alto and soprano, criss-crossing and combining in exuberant and astonishing ways.

Three superb London improvisers, two from the new generation of free improv--bassist John Edwards and drummer Mark Sanders--in a trio with legendary pianist John Tilbury in a two part work of tension and release, performed live at Cafe Oto in 2013.

Recorded for the release concert of their 2013 album Exta, the trio of John Butcher on saxophones, Thomas Lehn on analog synthesizer and John Tilbury on piano captured this extraordinary live concert at Cafe Oto in London, only the second time the group had performed together, recording in two extended sets but segmented into four exceptional and dramatic improvisations.

After "Exta", where saxophonist John Butcher and electronics artist Thomas Lehn met with pianist John Tilbury, the duo now meet with New York pianist Matthew Shipp for a distinct improvisational entanglement of Butcher's dense streams, Lehn's rich sound floor, and Shipp's thick repetitions.

Marking their 39th year together, pianist Chris Abrahams, drummer Tony Buck, and bassist Lloyd Swanton expand their immersive approach to improv across three discs of evolving intensity, recording in the studio in Australia, where four long-form pieces unfold with hypnotic patience, microscopic detail, and The Necks' hallmark balance of restraint, texture, and boundless improvisational discovery.

The legendary trio Joseph Holbrooke — guitarist Derek Bailey, bassist Gavin Bryars, and drummer Tony Oxley — reunited after decades for one final performance in 2001, captured in this historic live recording that highlights their uncompromising commitment to free improvisation, the set resonating with both the radical spirit of their 1960s origins and the profound artistry of three pioneering voices in avant-garde music.

Following their acclaimed 2024 album Samsara, Painkiller returns with Mick Harris (beats, electronics), Bill Laswell (bass), and John Zorn (alto saxophone) delivering six intense and genre-blurring tracks that fuse jazz, grindcore, metal, noise, and techno into an exhilarating, multilayered sonic journey inspired by the magickal practices of Aleister Crowley.

Featuring some of composer John Zorn's most lyrical work, the duo of guitarists Gyan Riley and Julian Lage continue their collaboration in the series that started in 2015 with The Bagatelles and continues through Midsummer Moons (2017), Book Beri'ah (2019), and Quatrain (2023), as they render Zorn's beautiful merging of eclectic forms inspired by William Shakespeare.

Two spontaneously composed original improvisation from the collaborative partnership of Ike Levin on tenor saxophone and Joel Futterman on piano & Indian flute, their long history together allowing great depth of connection, passionate expression and periods of reflective contemplation, weaving their playing with meticulous detail inside an impressive and masterful journey.

Referencing the collective NY Loft scene of the 1980's, the trio of Jean-Jacques Avenel on bass, Siegfried Kessler on piano, keys & ring modulator and Daunik Lazro on alto sax & tuba sax, are heard in a Béziers Jazz Action concert recorded in the crypt of a Franciscan theater, in two suites of collective improvisation, the 2nd adding unusual electronics from Kessler.

Recordings from 2000 at Instants Chavires in Montreuil, France from the free improvising trio of Peter Kowald on double bass, Daunik Lazro on alto & baritone sax, and Annick Nozati on voice, in a uniquely informed dialog representing the only time this masterful trio performed.

Four free players from the assertive history of French free jazz--Jean Querlier on alto saxophone & soprano oboe, Jouk Minor on baritone & sopranino saxophones, Rachid Houari (the original drummer for Gong) on drums and Joseph Traindl on trombone--are heard in this exceptional and determined set performing two compositions by Jouk Minor at the 1st Massy Independent Festival in 1975.

The duo of bassist Jean-Jacques Avenel and alto saxophonist Daunik Lazro are captured live in 1980 at the Massy Library in France in an essential document of French free music, a marvel of liberated improvisation where Lazro's uncompromising voice meets Avenel's inspired and multifaceted playing, captured with clarity by engineer Jean-Marc Foussat in a performance both intense and deeply authentic.

Reissuing the 2002 Potlatch release of this exceptional free improvising quartet of Daunik Lazro on alto & baritone saxophones, Carlos Alves "Zingaro" on violin, Joëlle Léandre on double bass and Paul Lovens on percussion & musical saw, some of the most notable of European improvisers captured live during the 2001 "Banlieues Bleues" Festival.

Four journeys in passionately rich sound merging synthetics, acousmatic sources, field recordings and acoustic violin from the duo of Anne Foucher, who has worked with the Acousmaki collective, on violin and electronics, and Jean-Marc Foussat on Synthi AKS, piano, toys and voice, captured live in 2022 at rue Floreal, in Montpellier and at rue de Genac, in Bignac, France.

Bringing together two masterful and legendary players from the European Free Improv scene -- French double bassist and vocalist Joëlle Léandre and UK drummer & percussionist Paul Lovens -- heard in this live performance at Les Temps du Corps, in Paris, free playing in two parts with an incredible sense of communication, timing, humor, virtuosity and finesse.

Across six CDs and more than six hours, Kevin Drumm develops a vast electroacoustic environment of drones, micro-acoustic detail and shifting frequency structures, balancing stasis and motion through gradual transformations in density, resonance and spatial depth, for an immersive study in the physical and perceptual qualities of sound; mastered by Jim O'Rourke.

A massive archive of drone & ambient composer Phill Niblock's films and music, from recordings made between 2013 and 2016 in festivals and studios around the world, orchestrated with primarily acoustic instruments using rich and closely related harmonics, paired with moving images of people from around the world engaged in work; hypnotic and engrossing.

IMJ offshoot label Hitorri presents Sachiko M's minial solo work of dual oscillator eruptions.

Core Anode is Otomo's roaring-sound project, 3 pieces recorded live at concerts in Tokyo (2002), Copenhagen (2006), and London (2006).

Masters of tonality, in their 2nd release the dual clarinets of Kai Fagaschinski and Michael Thieke are heard without any guest musicians, making a rich, gorgeous album of tense timbres.

Part of Japanese composer Taku Sugimoto's Solo for Strings series, these works focus on bowed stringed instruments played only with natural harmonics, arranged with clarinets and flute, using long tones and repetition that allow the performer decisions on their length, performed by a Berlin-based octet including Catherine Lamb, Johnny Change, Samuel Dunscombe, &c.

Legendary Japanese free jazz reedist Akira Sakata's first release on the Ftarri label, in a concert with sound artist and synthesist Ken Ikeda, recording live at Fatrri's own Tokyo space in two improvised performances of approximately 30 minutes each of subtle, expressive interactions through even-tempered discourse and spacious patience, punctuated by Sakata's bell.

Impeccably recorded inside the Brønshøj Water Tower, in Copenhagen, Denmark, a highly resonant space built 100 years ago, where UK tenor and soprano saxophonist John Butcher continues his investigations into spaces with natural delay and decay, through 11 improvisations of discriminating pacing as he finds incredible beauty in floating and shifting tones and instrument errata; exquisite.

Chris Watson recorded John Butcher on acoustic & amplified sax and Rhodri Davies on acoustic & electric harp in Routing Lynn in Northumberland, then joined them live at a festival in Gateshead where the duo played alongside Watson's reworked recordings.

At the same event in Scotland that John Butcher recorded his excellent "Resonant Spaces" album, he also joined forces with sound artist Akio Suzuki on a variety of objects and sound devices to record the first 5 tracks of this unusual album of very free improv, the last track by the duo recording at the 2015 Ftarri Festival at SuperDeluxe in Tokyo.

Three solo tracks by Zhao Cong, who develops suspenseful sonic environments over which she inventively and patiently adds daily objects, sounds from her mixer, condenser microphone, her voice, a cardpaper tube, no input feedback, contact microphones, and a home ballroom light, each piece evolving with a unique disposition towards certain associative sounds; fascinating.

Assembled in London to improvise music for Stewart Morgan's film Eddie Prevost's Blood, this release adds much more material beyond the soundtrack, in a superb example of free and charged creative improvisation seeking unique combinations of expression, from Jennifer Allum on violin, John Butcher on saxophones, Ute Kanngiesser on cello and Eddie Prevost on percussion.

A singularly beautiful and quirky album of electroacoustic improvisation from long-time collaborators and organizers of Japan's "Meeting at Off Site", Tetuzi Akiyama on acoustic guitar and Toshimaru Nakamura on no-input mixing board, their second duo album since 2009's Semi-Impressionism on the Spekk label, here recording in the studio for five dialogs of lovely eccentricity.

A rich and unusual interpretation of Ornette Coleman's "Lonely Woman" recorded in Boswil, Switzerland in 1981 with McPhee, Pierre Favre, Irene Schweizer, Radu Malfatti, Daniel Bourquin, &c., in its first-ever release.

Unreleased for more than 39 years, these remarkably creative live solo performances on trumpet, flugelhorn, flute, steelophone, percussion and gongs from improvisor and composer Wadada Leo Smith were recorded in Los Angeles in 1977, during his visionary Kabell Records years.

Founded in 1967 by pianist Misha Mengelberg, drummer Han Bennink, and saxophonist & clarinetist Willem Breuker, this double CD documents the earliest years of the ICP collective through live & studio recordings from 1966-71, with an impressive cast of jazz and contemporary compositional players creating a delightfully diverse set of approaches to improvisation.

Cornetist Josh Berman's trio with Jason Roebke on bass and Chris Corsano on drums brings Chicago's jazz lineage into sharp contemporary focus, balancing compact composition and expansive interaction through playful, adventurous music that draws on early jazz, AACM-rooted invention, melodic swing, textural abstraction, and volatile rhythmic exchange.

Calling his music jazz and not jazz, bassist Brandon Lopez demands of his listeners to dance, as the quartet of Lopez, Steve Baczkowski on saxophones, Gerald Cleaver on percussion and Cecilia Lopez on synthesizer are heard in this energetic live concert at Roulette Intermedium in Brooklyn, blurring free jazz with experimental sound that never loses its strong grooves.

In 1978 after recording his acclaimed solo album Monoceros, saxophonist Evan Parker embarked on a solo tour of the US and Canada, in New York City performing at the legendary loft space Environ, his first-ever solo performance in NYC and a masterpiece of extended techniques, circular breathing and spectacular control on the soprano and tenor saxophones.

A dynamic trio session from Frode Gjerstad on alto sax & clarinet, Alexander von Schlippenbach on piano, and Dag Magnus Narvesen on drums & percussion, their first collaboration unfolds in seven spontaneous improvisations that balance fierce intensity with lyrical openness, revealing a seasoned interplay that blends deep exploration with collective free jazz sensibility.

Recorded at Nevessa Studio in New York, Camila Nebbia joins Marilyn Crispell and Lesley Mok in a fiercely intuitive trio session blending open scores and full improvisation, where elastic group interplay, textural sensitivity, and eruptive momentum allow the music to breathe as a single organism while leaving space for sharply defined individual voices to emerge.

A fierce, spontaneous duo of Camila Nebbia on tenor saxophone and Chris Corsano on drums, recorded in Berlin in 2025, merging Nebbia's searching lines, breath-driven textures and unstable lyricism with Corsano's explosive, highly detailed percussion language, moving between delicate abrasion, surging intensity, fragmented melody and raw improvised exchange.

The third recording from this group of long-time collaborators, with Golia on soprano, alto and tenor sax, Bobby Bradford on cornet, Ken Filiano on bass and Alex Cline on drums in a set of Golia original compositions.

Collective improvisation from Ho Bynum's Book of Three with bassist John Hebert & drummer Gerald Cleaver, following their RogueArt CD with this exceptional album of original compositions plus works from Bobby Bradford, Salim Washington, and Jim Hobbs.

A tour de force saxophone duo between two masterful New York players--alto saxophonist Tim Berne and drummer Nasheet Waits--recording live at The Sultan Room in Brooklyn NY in 2019, in two impressive dialogs: "Tensile" for nearly 40 minutes of articulate expression and powerful rhythmic interaction; and the more introspective "5See" of impressive technique and intention.

The debut of the advanced and innovative collaboration between improviser and prominent double bassist Barre Phillips, British saxophonist John Butcher and Norwegian drummer, percussionist and improviser, Stale Liavik Solberg, recording at the Blow out Festival in Oslo, Norway in 2019, and at Offene Ohren, Einstein Kultur, in Munchen, Germany in 2018.

The 2nd release from Magda Mayas' Filamental octet of Mayas, Zeena Parkins, Michel Thieke, Christine Abdelnour, Angharad Davies, Rhodri Davies, Aimée Theriot and Anthea Caddy, is a fascinating studio composition developed from individual recordings provided by each musician, assembled into two detailed and cohesive works of impressive contours and almost ceremonial beauty.

Using viola, effects, and on one track, voice, New York improviser and Anthony Braxton ensemble member Jessica Pavone presents a uniquely voiced solo album, approaching the instrument through simple means that become increasingly twisted and unforseen as they advance.

A strikingly restrained side of Albert Ayler emerges on this 1964 session of spirituals and devotional songs, with his tenor and soprano saxophones joined by Call Cobbs Jr. on piano, Henry Grimes on double bass and Sunny Murray on drums, emphasizing melody, blues-inflected tone and deep vibrato while revealing the gospel and New Orleans roots underlying his more radical later language.

Pianist Myra Melford's Fire and Water Quintet with Mary Halvorson on guitar, Ingrid Laubrock on tenor and soprano saxophones, Tomeka Reid on cello, and Lesley Mok on drums, continuing Melford's Cy Twombly-inspired balance of cellular composition, collective improvisation, lyricism, counterpoint, and rhythmic momentum in a richly interactive studio recording.

A four-CD survey of Sonny Rollins' formative Prestige years, collecting eight albums recorded from 1951-1956, with Rollins' tenor saxophone joined by Miles Davis on piano, Clifford Brown and Kenny Dorham on trumpet, John Coltrane on tenor, Thelonious Monk, Red Garland and Tommy Flanagan on piano, and rhythm sections featuring Max Roach, Art Blakey, Philly Joe Jones and others, tracing Rollins' rapid emergence as one of modern jazz's defining improvisers.

The first duo recordings from fellow New York jazz musicians, trombonist Steve Swell and pianist Matthew Shipp, having brushed shoulders together with Whit Dickey, Dom Minasai, Jemeel Moondoc, Allen Lowe &c., they bring a wealth of familiar knowledge and language to their binary concentration, through twelve concise dialogs themed around the dark expanse of space; masterful and intimate.

Recording in the Merkin Concert Hall on a Steinway Grand Piano, New York pianist Matthew Shipp's seventeen numbered tracks of "The Data" takes listeners through a virtual history of jazz and contemporary improvisation, from beautifully lyrical moments to rapidly complex matrices of expression, balancing his approaches into an absorbing and rewarding album.

39 tracks make up this compelling 3-part solo percussion work from Swiss improviser and composer Christian Wolfarth, using a game approach where some sequences are determined by the roll of a dice for note values, rest and tempo, Wolfarth performing on dead wood, a drum or 39 pine cones, augmented with recordings of stones, water, footsteps, church bells, &c.

Closing Christian Wolfarth's three-part 39 cycle, this solo work for percussion and field recordings transforms numerical constraints, repetition and chance into a spare study of resonance, texture and silence, where skin, metal and environmental sound gradually blur the line between composed structure and pure sonic perception.

Composer and reedist Henry Threadgill reconvenes his long-running Zooid quintet with Liberty Ellman on acoustic guitar, Jose Davila on tuba and trombone, Christopher Hoffman on cello, and Elliot Humberto Kavee on drums, extending his interval-based language through shifting meters, compact forms, and non-hierarchical interplay in music that balances structural rigor with elastic, conversational improvisation.

An extended electroacoustic piece recorded in 2011 and named as an apt description of the bubbling, dense and intense flow of sound Chrysakis generates using electronic devices, acoustic sounds and field recordings, an absorbing work of audio flux and percolation.

A fascinating double album uniting guitarist Gene Torchia on amplified classical guitar and John Stowell on electric guitar, recorded in the studio between 2023 and 2025, blending composed works written for modern classical guitar and flute with Stowell's improvisations to create a rich and stylistically diverse dialogue spanning blues, Latin, Irish, baroque, and avant-garde forms.

After 25 years, saxophonist, flutist, and pianist Sam Rivers reunites his groundbreaking trio of Dave Holland on bass and Barry Altschul on drums for a fully improvised concert at Miller Theatre.

Marc Ribot's highly anticipated debut as a leader in a band with Henry Grimes on bass and Chad Taylor on drums, performing at the iconic Village Vanguard, with material including Albert Ayler, John Coltrane, &c.

Marking 50 years for Chicago's most important and innovative ensembles, formed in 1969 to advance creative musicians as part of the AACM, is this tribute to and based on music written by late members Lester Bowie, Malachi Favors, and Joseph Jarman, performed by 15 innovative musicians young and old, and presented in 2 CDs: one in the studio and one live at the 2018 Edgefest.

Three CDs in a beautifully constructed fold-out cross with liner notes and recording data from NY drummer Kate Gentile, in a set of 41 studio recordings with her working band of Matt Mitchell on piano & keys, Kim Cass on acoustic & electric bass and Jeremy Viner on reeds, each disc exploring a distinct yet connected approach to her fascinating compositions and group interaction.

Great record from Threadgill's Zooid ensemble, an all-acoustic group with guitar, cello, oud, tuba and drums, along with the leaders saxophone and flute. Beautiful compositions, nicely played.

Threadgill's 2nd Volume with Jose Davila, Liberty Ellman, Elliot Humberto Kavee, and Stomu Takeishi, intelligent and cutting-edge music exploring the boundaries of composition & improvisation.

Henry Threadgill and his Zooid band follow up the 2 part "This Bring Us To" series with this exceptional album of NY jazz, abstracting the jazz idiom in persuasive and stunning ways through great writing and playing.

Welsh composer Secondson reduces his electroacoustic palette to tape recorder and turntable for two extended works exploring repetition, degradation, vinyl surface noise and analogue resonance, creating slowly evolving environments between musique concrete, drone and minimalism from a 2023 session at Sail Loft Studios in Cardiff, UK.

Marty Ehrlich directs a rotating cast of leading reed players through the forty known saxophone quartet compositions of Julius Hemphill, combining works written for the World Saxophone Quartet with previously unrecorded pieces recovered through Ehrlich's archival research, revealing Hemphill's singular language of layered counterpoint, blues-rooted melody, rhythmic invention, and chamber precision.

Five years after their debut, co-leaders Anna Webber and Angela Morris return with a 19-piece large ensemble recording that showcases their next-level compositional voices, unfolding through the "Just Intonation Etudes for Big Band" suite and a series of richly orchestrated works that balance drones, contrapuntal density, rhythmic blasts, and lyrical themes in an adventurous exploration of sound and structure.

Launching Sylvaine Helary's tenure as artistic director of the Orchestre National de Jazz, this expansive 17-piece ensemble revisits twelve Carla Bley compositions through Remi Sciuto's inventive arrangements, blending brass, reeds, strings, rhythm section and improvising soloists in a vivid orchestral tribute that preserves Bley's wit, formal daring and stylistic breadth through new contemporary perspectives.

Meeting in the studio in Germany, Fred Frith's electric guitar & effects combine with Johannes Tonio Kreusch's classical & prepared guitars and brother Cornelius Claudio Kreusch's piano & keyboards in an expansive trio improvisation balancing drones, atmospheric textures and volatile interaction, moving fluidly between meditative restraint, abstract sound exploration and explosive free improv.

Meeting in the studio in Germany, Fred Frith's electric guitar & effects combine with Johannes Tonio Kreusch's classical & prepared guitars and brother Cornelius Claudio Kreusch's piano & keyboards in an expansive trio improvisation balancing drones, atmospheric textures and volatile interaction, moving fluidly between meditative restraint, abstract sound exploration and explosive free improv.