What began as a DIY operation by two jazz visionaries to release their music became a home for bold young talent, avant-garde masters, experimental eccentrics and middle-aged mavericks. After years of stratospheric Discogs prices and zero streaming presence, the Strata-East label has returned, with an extensive physical and digital reissue campaign. Aquarium Drunkard talked to co-founder Charles Tolliver and current CEO Ched Tolliver about the label’s difficult beginnings, unlikely rise, continuing relevance and majestic catalog.
Category: Jazz
Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra :: Après La Marée Noire – Vers Une Musique Bretonne Nouvelle / Jo Maka
Parisian-based Souffle Continu Records continue their gracious excavation of the catalog of the Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra, the “people’s jazz workshop” created by French jazz pianist François Tusques. Following last year’s reissues of 1978’s L’Inter Communal and 1983’s Le Musichien, come releases of two more equally spirited documents from the same period – 1979’s Après La Marée Noire – Vers Une Musique Bretonne Nouvelle (After the Oil Spill – Towards a New Breton) and 1982’s Jo Maka.
Teo’s Bag: Constructing Bitches Brew
55 years on, Miles Davis’ 1970 opus, Bitches Brew remains as mind-bending as ever, but its most enduring influence may lie in its innovative construction. A deeper look at Teo Macero’s methods and madness, paired with a 2-hour collection of unused session reels expands its universe.
In Walked Herbie :: On The Outward Spiral of Herbie Nichols
In July, 1946, a 28-year-old Herbie Nichols visited the apartment of the 30-year-old Thelonious Monk. Nichols was there on 63rd Street to interview Monk for the Black-owned entertainment periodical Rhythm: Music and Theatrical Magazine, a visit which culminated in Monk performing his “Ruby, My Dear” on his Klein piano, which Nichols wrote was, “one of the greatest pleasures I’ve had listening to jazz.”
Beverly Kenney :: Born To Be Blue (1959)
Once championed to eclipse the likes of June Christy and Chris Connor, Beverly Kenney was found dead a few months after the release of Born To Be Blue (1959), wearing only a pink nightgown and surrounded by empty bottles and scattered pills. With this in mind, the album takes on a haunted quality, and Kenney becomes an enigmatic figure whose legacy exists in the twilight of myth and verity. If there were a Mount Rushmore of “Midnite Jazz” artists, Kenney would be on it, her short life as bittersweet as the songs she sang.
Phi-Psonics :: New Pyramid
Phi-Psonics is a spiritual jazz collective headed by Los Angeles-based composer and acoustic bassist Seth Ford-Young, whose prolific session work can be heard on releases such as the recent stunner by Takuro Okada. The uninhibited, meditative soundscapes of previous studio offerings The Cradle and Octava quickly made waves after catching the attention of Manchester jazz label Gondwana, flashing nods to A Love Supreme and a lush framework playing off of Ford-Young’s Mingus-inspired upright bass, lifting woodwinds and the Wurlitzer piano of Mitchell Yoshida.
Keith Jarrett: No End, Newness and the Power of the Low-Key Jam
Keith Jarrett didn’t have to make a rock album filled with noodly guitar and muted boogie. But he did, and in its unusually obvious imperfections, eccentric choices and rambling longueurs, it shows the famously demanding pianist at his most mercurial and relaxed. In his perpetual hunt for wells of inspiration and rivers of feeling, Jarrett’s curious detour still leads to some fascinating backwaters and rewarding reservoirs.
Midnite Jazz :: The Tommy Flanagan Trio (1960)
The Midnite Jazz column returns with The Tommy Flanagan Trio (1960): a purely laid-back rendezvous into classic jazz ballads and standards. With a sprightly runtime of just over a half-hour, it’s the perfect soundtrack for late-night strolls after last calls, when the streets are as hushed as the trio’s dynamics.
John Coltrane :: A Love Supreme (60th Anniversary Edition)
In 1966, an interviewer in Japan asked John Coltrane what he hoped to be in five years, to which he replied, ‘a saint.'” Whether you’re an audiophile, record collector, or Coltrane-fanatic (or all of the above), the sixtieth-anniversary edition of A Love Supreme is a welcomed addition to any vinyl library. One small recording session for jazz musicians, one giant leap for all music.
Eric Dolphy :: Last Date (Documentary, 1991)
The documentary’s title Last Date is lifted from an album of posthumous live recordings from a Netherlands radio session in the summer of 1964 (the Dutch trio from the session feature prominently in the film). Just a few weeks later, Eric Dolphy tragically passed after slipping into a diabetic coma during a performance in Berlin.
Pangaea Deluxe: Live Miles in Japan, 1975 (Mixtape)
Drifting from spiraling psychedelia into frightening soundscapes and ecstatic funk, the Miles Davis septet built a universe unto itself across its 1975 tour of Japan. This tour-spanning mix gathers some of the choicest cuts and most experimental moments from the unissued tapes.
Total Blue :: S/T
The Los Angeles-based trio of Nicky Benedek, Alex Talan, and Anthony Calonico have been making music together in various configurations for well over a decade. Their newest project, the outstanding Total Blue, takes the ingredients of smooth jazz and world fusion–fretless bass, muted horns, piles of synthesizers, global rhythms–and vaporizes them into a shimmering mist. The result is one of the most alluring things to come out of LA’s adventurous post-jazz scene.
Jakob Bro :: Taking Turns
Recorded in 2014 but somehow only released late last year, this multi-generational session delivers ensemble playing and collective improvisation at an extraordinarily high level. Danish guitarist Jakob Bro is joined on Taking Turns by a murderer’s row of talents — Lee Konitz (alto/soprano sax), Andrew Cyrille (drums), Bill Frisell (guitar), Jason Moran (piano) and Thomas Morgan (double bass) — for seven marvelously moody pieces.
Agharta Deluxe: Live Miles in Japan, 1975
The Miles Davis septet’s 1975 tour of Japan produced the bandleader’s final definitive statements of his electric era with the Agharta and Pangaea double live LPs. Until a Bootleg Series entry celebrates the tour with a much-deserved box set, unofficial tapes of the 3-week run remain our deepest look into this expanded universe. Here’s a primer on the best of the lot. The shows that burned the hottest and those that explored the furthest reaches of terrain to which no artist has returned.
Lamentations: Twenty-Two Songs about John Coltrane
In the nearly six decades since his untimely passing, musicians from all over the world have never stopped honoring John Coltrane. And not just artists in the jazz tradition, those in rock, funk, prog and soul as well. We put together a compilation of twenty-two of our favorite tributes to the visionary saxophonist. In the extraordinary variety of ways musicians have chosen to honor him, you can see an outline of the magnitude of his impact on modern music.