100 CDs provide you with the most exciting, most beautiful and most swinging recordings from this period. All-Star Swing groups with their most famous recordings. Mit Henry Allen, Roy Eldrige, Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Johnny Hodges, Benny Carter, Fats Waller, Art Tatum, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Red Norvo, Teddy Wilson, Buck Clayton, Django Reinhardt, Jack Teagarden, Rex Stewart, Chu Berry, Charlie Christian, Louis Armstrong u.a. 100-CD-Box with original recordings.
During the 70s, the Japanese jazz scene was in an incredibly intense phase - one that had players breaking out of older modes that were often strict copies of American jazz, and working in newer styles that often blended soul, modal, and spiritual jazz with freer-thinking ideas and more Eastern-inspired modes. The result was an incredible batch of music that was probably more strongly recorded by the Three Blind Mice label than any other Japanese imprint - because unlike some of their contemporaries, TBM didn't fill their catalog with work by American players, and often focused exclusively on Japanese artists.
"To Cy & Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1" has a suitably individual genesis. Alabaster DePlume was working for Ordinary Lifestyles, a charity in North Manchester UK which supports people with disabilities to live in their own homes and to live fulfilling lives. Specifically, he was working with the titular Cy and Lee. His job was to get the guys socializing and he did this by making up songs with them.”
The second instalment from London Odense Ensemble digs deeper into the group’s vision of what modern psychedelic jazz should sound like. Cut from the same sessions as Jaiyede Sessions vol. 1, released last summer, vol. 2 presents a more nuanced approach to the material. On this set the ensemble focuses on shorter, layered pieces – travelling from deep spiritual jazz grooves to gorgeous free-flowing minimalism to full-on acid jazz. There’s echo-drenched flutes being absorbed into layers of analog synth pads and guitars, bossa beats and double bass sequences merging with electronics. It’s an intoxicating mélange of sounds and styles, spanning wide temporal and geographical distances.
Following the sell-out success of our landmark compilation, J Jazz: deep modern jazz from Japan 1969-1984, BBE Records is thrilled to present another exploration into the very finest Japanese modern jazz.
The second instalment from London Odense Ensemble digs deeper into the group’s vision of what modern psychedelic jazz should sound like. Cut from the same sessions as Jaiyede Sessions vol. 1, released last summer, vol. 2 presents a more nuanced approach to the material. On this set the ensemble focuses on shorter, layered pieces – travelling from deep spiritual jazz grooves to gorgeous free-flowing minimalism to full-on acid jazz. There’s echo-drenched flutes being absorbed into layers of analog synth pads and guitars, bossa beats and double bass sequences merging with electronics. It’s an intoxicating mélange of sounds and styles, spanning wide temporal and geographical distances.
The lightning rod for Alabaster DePlume’s luminous follow up to the widely-acclaimed 2020 release To Cy & Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1 was personal. “Someone was going through a thing,” says the Mancunian poet-performer. “I said, ‘go forward in the courage of your love’. And then I thought 'yeah, that's what I need to hear as well’.”