Ambient Jazz Ensemble

The AJE ethos is one of instrumental storytelling, a cinematic journey. Tracks begin from a simple idea, a texture, an ambient soundscape that has room to grow, often blossoming into euphoric suites. At the heart of every track is a jazz ensemble, but the music owes much to electronica or orchestral influences rather than jazz, it is merely the palette of sounds & collaborative musicianship that carve the AJE musical landscape. 15 piece orchestra with Kit Downes on piano and Rhodes, Ben Reynolds on drums, Donna Gardier vocals, Finn Peters on saxophone, The Adderbury Ensemble string quartet and many more fine musicians. All music written and produced by Colin Baldry. Mixed by multi platinum award winning engineer George Shilling.

Here & Now Recordings are proud to present the companion release to Ambient Jazz Ensemble's debut album in the shape of 'Suite Shop Reworks : Electronica, Deep House & Disco' a 15 track collection of upbeat, dancefloor and electronic versions of the chilled orchestral originals. In his impressive career composer and producer Colin Baldry (Ambient Jazz Ensemble) has worked with Motown, Warner Chappell & Capitol Records and written music for worldwide hit film Filth (written by Irvine Welsh, starring James McAvoy). For the original 'Suite Shop' album Baldry was joined by Neil Cowley (Adele, Brand New Heavies) on keys, Finn Peters (Chick Corea) on sax, Dominic Glover (Paloma Faith) trumpet, Nichol Thomson (Jamie Cullum) trombone, Tom Kane horns, Ben Reynolds drums and a string quartet…

Following a banner year for Pete Cunningham — best known as dextrous saxophonist Ishmael and leader of the namesake Ishmael Ensemble - 2019 now brings debut album 'A State of Flow.' This new long player builds on Cunningham's work as proud protector of Bristolian heritage, sketching loving sonic pictures of the South West in his Bristol-inspired 'Severn Songs' series, whilst also incubating local visual and musical talent, within the Ensemble. 'A State Of Flow' touches on various styles of jazz, stirring ambient invocations, club-ready percussive workouts, spiralling grooves & hazy psychedelic electronica. This would be a confusing melange, but for Cunningham's excursions as a genre-agnostic DJ - something evident in the real house shuffle of 'Lapwing' - which evokes walking into a smoky afterhours haunt and finding a session in full, forward motion or the organic garage beats of 'Full Circle' and classic trip hop style 'Waterfall' fuelled by Holysseus Fly's honey toned and evocative vocals.

Renowned Finnish jazz innovator and band leader Iro Haarla takes a detour towards progressive rock. Known for her large number of works in the field of acoustic free jazz, Iro Haarla is a notablek Finnish pianist, composer, arranger and band leader. Now, having inked a deal with Finnish cult label Svart Records, Haarla takes an eye-opening sidestep towards progressive rock. Her new band consisting of renowned Finnish musicians, Iro Haarla Electric Ensemble weaves a vastly colourful world of sound around Haarla’s peculiar melodies, and welcomes us to new sonic territory: a vibrant world where black music influenced rhythms, acoustic instruments, analog synthesizers and spacelike, valiant electric guitars converge.

This is the third album by Polish Jazz ensemble High Definition Quartet, which comprises of saxophonist Mateusz Śliwa, pianist/composer Piotr Orzechowski (a.k.a. Pianohooligan), bassist Alan Wykpisz and drummer Grzegorz Pałka (each of the three albums features a different drummer). On this album the ensemble collaborates with five electronic music composers: Polish veteran/pioneer of the idiom Krzysztof Knittel, Igor Boxx (a.k.a. Igor Pudło), Americans William Basinski and Robert Rich and Austrian Christian Fennesz. The album presents ten original compositions, five of which are performed by the ensemble and were composed by Orzechowski and five shorter pieces, each composed and performed by one of the above listed electronic music composers (except for the Knittel piece which was co-composed with Orzechowski and co-executed with the ensemble), which are sandwiched between the ensemble pieces.