Monday 28 February 2011

OUT NOW - JEF GILSON 7" EP


It’s always an honour for us to re-release cool & obscure records, but as honours go they surely come no greater than bringing you music from one of the most brilliant and productive jazzmen ever to have lived: French pianist, composer and arranger extraordinaire Jef Gilson.

With his career spanning the best part of a century, Gilson has made music with a who’s who of European and American jazz greats, has written, performed on and recorded innumerable film scores, albums and 45s, ran the Palm jazz record label… yet despite all this the 84 year old Frenchman remains criminally under appreciated by so many jazz fans. Look him up on the internet – there isn’t even a Wikipedia entry! We address this unfortunate situation by releasing 19 songs spanning decades of his recording career in our forthcoming album JMANCD/LP.042 ‘Jef Gilson’. But for now, here is a sumptuous taster in the form of a LTD EDN 4 track 7” EP featuring two of his finest creations, the awesome ‘Chakan’ and ‘Modalite Pour Mimi’. As a bonus the flipside has two more tracks NOT to be found on the album.

· Four songs recorded by French jazz genius
· Hand-printed colour sleeves and hand-numbered 33rpm 7” vinyl limited to 500 copies only
· Watch out for the CD and double gatefold LP ‘JEF GILSON’ coming soon
· Two songs ONLY available on the EP – these will NOT be available on the Jef Gilson album*

A1 Chakan
A2 Modalite Pour Mimi
B1 Jef’s Blues*
B2 Hectorologie*

Jef Gilson EP by Jazzmanrecords

Friday 25 February 2011

OUT NOW - Terea - CD and LTD 500 VINYL PRESS

In the olden days the music business was a torrid set of affairs run by hustlers, sharks and gangsters. Broken promises, deceit and corruption was the order of the day, and to be thrown out of a window was seen as a rite of passage into the business.

Amongst all this hustle and bustle was the murky world of the ‘tax scam’ label. Set up for wealthy individuals to invest in as a means to take advantage of a tax loophole, labels such as Tiger Lilly, Guinness and Baby Grand (upon which Terea was released) released many hundreds of obscure titles. The records themselves never saw a proper release and were often dumped in cut-out bins – or taken straight to the dump itself. As such, many of these LPs, including this album by Californian soul outfit Terea, remain extremely scarce and are now highly-prized collectors items.

In his liner notes to our reissue of the Terea album. producer Dennis Dreith lifts the lid on the shady business of the tax scam labels. Not only that but he tells us the story of Terea and the dedicated musicians who freely recorded the music they wanted to record without obligation to the record companies and A&R men. It was in these circumstances that the Terea LP was recorded, a work of art if only for the utterly joyous ‘Pretty Bird’.

Terea by Jazzmanrecords

Thursday 17 February 2011

OUT NOW... The Greg Foat Group 10" EP


Taken from the forthcoming Jazzman album (The Greg Foat Group - JMANCD/LP.041), this is the debut release from British pianist/composer/arranger Greg Foat. The 3 track 10” vinyl EP contains an intriguing blend of non-contemporary jazz sounds with classic scoring techniques, utilizing an exotic array of unorthodox instrumentation including harpsichord, tubular bells and a 15 piece choir. Recorded 100% analogue in Sweden – no computerised jiggery pokery here! With musical influence from such luminaries as Bruno Nicolai, Michel Legrand and Serge Gainsbourg as well as a firm nod towards UK jazzmen Michael Garrick, Keith Mansfield and Alan Hawkshaw, the result is highly-listenable, enduring and fulfilling for those who like real music played with real instruments.

• Debut recording by outstanding UK jazz pianist, composer and arranger
• Hand-printed, hand-stamped and hand-numbered 10” vinyl
• Limited to 500 copies only
• Non-contemporary jazz recorded in Sweden
• Watch out for the album ‘Dark is the Sun’ coming soon!

The Greg Foat Group 10" EP by Jazzmanrecords