Record Shopping Etiquette
The do’s, the don’ts, and best practices when it comes to shopping for vinyl.
Originally released in limited quantities through Rough Trade Records back in December 2023, and now more broadly released through Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood label, London-based drummer phenomenon Yussef Dayes and his stellar quintet return with another brilliant live session, performing music from last year’s highly acclaimed Black Classical Music album, new originals and a superb cover of Jaco Pistorius’ “Portrait of Tracy”.
Steve Conry’s brilliant Ten Lovers Music kicks off 2024 with a massive cosmic jazz 7inch single release, titled Espresso, from Italian producer and multi-instrumentalist Marcello Cassanelli.
In what is arguably one of the most anticipated releases of early 2024, Paul Murphy’s superb Jazz Room Records will be issuing a must-own 7inch single this month from Japanese producer and bassist Takumi Moriya, featuring his brilliant new take on Joe McPhee’s 1970 soul-jazz classic “Shakey Jake”.
Fresh off their groundbreaking collaborative release with André 3000, the spiritual cosmic jazz trio of keyboardist and Alice Coltrane disciple Surya Botofasina, guitarist Nate Mercereau, and percussionist Carlos Niño have returned to release a brilliant album as a group on the Los Angeles-based Leaving Records, titled Subtle Movements.
As a follow-up to their first European tour in May of 2023, the highly active and talented Tokyo-based trio Nautilus has recently released a live recording, taken from their last date of the trip at the legendary King Georg in Cologne, Germany.
Nik Weston’s superb Mukatsuku label kicks off the new year with a highly-anticipated limited-edition new twelve-inch single of Echoes Of A New Dawn Orchestra covering Kyoto Jazz Massive’s 2001 classic “Substream”.
Before we look ahead to this year’s forthcoming releases, let’s take a look back at another superb reissue from this past Fall from the Italian-based label Eating Standing in vibraphonist Enzo Randisi’s 1979 highly obscured self-titled album.
With the final “best of” list for 2023, I dive into some of our favorite tracks of the year. Out of all of the year-end lists, this is easily the most difficult to pull together given how many great tracks are worthy to be included in such a list. This year, I went about this differently. Instead of just listing the tracks, I also included the album, 12″ or 7″ that the track was associated with in hopes to encourage everyone to be purchasing the vinyl or digital releases (which is important for these artists and labels!). No commentary included with these, we’ll just let the music do all the talking.
Now in the final days of 2023, we take a look back at some of the essential compilation releases over the past 12 months. From tropical grooves to jazz dance, spiritual, soulful house and obscure selections from around the globe, there were many incredible must-own compilations to dive into.
We continue our deep dive into our favorite releases of 2023 with a look at some of the standout EPs. As usual, there were a number of quality releases, including four from legendary UK DJ Colin Curtis on his vinyl-only imprint label. Plenty of jazz dance, cosmic grooves, and all around good vibes to absorb with these selections.