Smiling C shares an intimate documentary on Mexican experimental jazz artist Germán Bringas. For the past few years, the Santa Cruz-based archival project (and one of our absolute […]
Jazz
Contemplating summer with moody guitars, sunset electronics, and vanishing ambience. Hello friends! It’s been over a full month since we’ve started our dedicated listening residency at Neuehouse. Apologies […]
The newly formed Fresh Hold imprint teams up with fellow Melbourne-based label Efficient Space to present a long-lost jazz grail. Michael Kucyk’s always reliable Efficient Space has teamed […]
Watch a brand new colorized version of this iconic performance filmed in Liège, Belgium. There is something enrapturing about black and white film and photography, in that it […]
Maximalist experimental jazz from four heroes of the genre. For eight years starting in 1986, the searing free jazz quartet of Sonny Sharrock (electric guitar), Peter Brötzmann (sax), […]
Thousand-year-old Mongolian music traditions meet folk and jazz on Squama Recordings’ latest. An undeniable magic inhabits the melodies and sounds of our youth. Lullabies, folk songs, the music of […]
A deep dive on our favorite dollar bin jazz man, aka the professor of cool, and a selection of essential songs from his decades-spanning career. When you’re in […]
Shared listening selections from ISC staff including tracks from Melody as Truth, Harold Budd, Lee “Scratch” Perry, and more! Hello friends! We’re back with another staff listening playlist […]
Charles Lloyd and Keith Jarrett push jazz into new territories on Jazz Casual. Ralph Gleason’s TV show Jazz Casual featured some of the most entertaining jazz recordings of […]
Was Rahsaan Roland Kirk the coolest person who ever lived? Rahsaan Roland Kirk unapologetically rode the edge of absurdity his entire life and regularly left audiences gobsmacked in […]
Take a look inside Chokuritsu Enjin, a small, strictly jazz bar named after Mingus’s Pithecanthropus Erectus. Via Chasing the Sun Moments, a documentary travel series telling stories from […]
During a rare heatwave in San Francisco, Bola Sete and the Vince Guaraldi trio give an equally sweltering performance. It wouldn’t be too far of stretch to say […]
Exploring the vast catalog of jazz records pressed in Japan with a selection of our favorite OBI’s. If you have records in your collection with an OBI, you […]
A beautiful portrait of the magnetic artist and educator who played with Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Art Blakey, and many others. Alto saxophonist Jackie McLean is a true […]
Step into the studio with Ornette Coleman and his Trio. Ornette Coleman’s 1959 breakout record The Shape of Jazz to Come legitimized free jazz and lit the match […]
Shared listening selections from ISC staff including tracks from Music from Memory, Joe Zawinul, Selda Bağcan, and more! Hello friends! Excited to announce that we’re bringing back our […]
Third Side Music has announced their signing of tenor sax legend Pharoah Sanders to a worldwide deal. Some more incredible Pharoah Sanders news… Following the release of his […]
Our favorite rarities from the queen of smooth soul jazz and one of the most iconic singers from the 1980s and 1990s, Sade. Born in Ibadan, Nigeria to […]
Fish scales. Video Stores. Jazz. The multi-layered world of Munich-based label Squama Recordings. Martin Brugger is a producer and bass player for the modern jazz quintet Fazer. Max […]
A look into the genius singer-songwriter who explored northern soul, “new folk sounds” and jazz, while always flying just below the radar. Terry Callier seemed destined to play […]
This thirty-minute Monk performance reminds us why we love and miss live jazz. For music lovers that have been starved of concerts and gigs for over a year […]
Tana Yonas speaks to Blue Note’s Joe Harley on his history with jazz and the upcoming releases in their Tone Poet hi-fi series. Blue Note’s recent Tone Poet […]
A new full length-album from G.S. Schray arrives March 5th on Last Resort. We’ve been closely following Akron musician G.S. Schray ever since his album Gabriel was released […]
The final segment of The Broad’s three-part video series dedicated to the famed New York City artist is available now. Time Decorated: The Musical Influences of Jean-Michel Basquiat […]
Filmmaker Robert Mugge profiles Sun Ra, jazz musician, bandleader and self-styled poet and philosopher. “They say that history repeats itself. But history is only his story. You haven’t […]
From Sun Ra to Lena Platonos, here is a selection of songs featuring words not sung but spoken.
Here’s a rare 2.5 hour recording of Herbie Hancock’s Mwandishi band live at the Strata Concert Gallery in Detroit. The performance opens with an incredible rendition of “Hidden […]
Celebrating 50 years of Mwandishi with a retrospective on the albums beyond the group’s legendary trilogy. Herbie Hancock’s electronics-heavy free jazz group Mwandishi has in recent years attained […]
“Some of the sounds that filled the abode of James Baldwin in St. Paulde-Vence, a town in the south of France. These songs document the vinyl records left […]
Jazz’s evolution over the decades has begat a series of subgenres: be-bop, post-bop, free-jazz, spiritual jazz and fusion, to name a few. But by the end of the […]
New documentary shows how six African American women – Lena Horne, Abbey Lincoln, Nina Simone, Diahann Carroll, Cicely Tyson and Pam Grier – changed American culture. American Masters: How […]
Revisiting one of our favorite labels with Aquarium Drunkard’s excellent three part ‘Guide to ECM’ series. To celebrate the anniversary of our ECM Listening Party with Aquarium Drunkard, […]
Essential lockdown viewing and the perfect gateway into “cool jazz” legend Chet Baker. Let’s Get Lost, Bruce Weber’s monochromatic masterpiece on “cool jazz” great Chet Baker, is a […]
Happy Holidays! Here’s a second helping of ISC playlists. Compiled by our newest staff member Tana Yonas, More Christmas Sounds focuses on festive jazz, funk, and soul classics […]
It’s been almost two decades since Sun Ra, the enigmatic artist who reported Saturn as his birthplace, left our planet and yet – the cosmic jazz pioneer’s Afrofuturist […]
