Record Shopping Etiquette
The do’s, the don’ts, and best practices when it comes to shopping for vinyl.
Live 1970 recording of Rahsaan Roland Kirk performing in Paris released
The French label Transversales Disques continues its string of brilliant live ORTF recordings captured at Grand Auditorium’s Studio 104 in Paris’ Maison de la Radio (aka the headquarters of Radio France) with an early 70s session from legendary jazz multi-instrumentalist Rahsaan Roland Kirk. This is the latest in a growing series that has included jazz greats Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, Don Cherry, and Ahmad Jamal.
Gilles Peterson’s Arc Records releases late 1960s unreleased recordings by Roberta Flack
Under the guidance and direction from London-based DJ, radio broadcaster, and music producer Gilles Peterson, his reissue-focused label Arc Records has recently been diving deep into the Atlantic jazz archives, re-releasing mono versions of Max Roach’s 1968 of Members, Don’t Git Weary and Yusef Lateef’s 1969 Yusef Lateef’s Detroit Latitude 42° 30′ Longitude 83°. With the labels latest release of the series, they unearth a collection of tracks recorded by Roberta Flack in the sessions leading up to the recording of her seminal 1969 debut album First Take.
The Yussef Dayes Experience releases ‘Live from Malibu’ session
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”.
Ten Lovers Music releases cosmic jazz 7inch by Italian producer/pianist Marcello Cassanelli
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.
Jazz Room Records releases Takumi Moriya’s rendition of Joe McPhee’s “Shakey Jake” on 7inch
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”.
Cosmic pioneers Surya Botofasina, Nate Mercereau & Carlos Niño release ‘Subtle Movements’
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.
Japanese jazz-funk trio Nautilus release live recording
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.
Mukatsuku releases limited 12″ of Echoes Of A New Dawn Orchestra covering Kyoto Jazz Massive
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”.
Eating Standing label reissues rare jazz fusion gem from Italian vibraphonist Enzo Randisi
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.
BeatCaffeine’s Favorite Tracks of 2023
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.
