(Jazz / Modal / Soul Jazz / Avant-garde Jazz / Free Jazz ) VA - Spiritual Jazz vol 1-12 (2008-2020) [MP3, 319-320 kbps]

As the ‘60s progressed, cultural and political revolutions occurred both in the US and in Europe. Jazz was both a victim and a saviour, with radical developments in the music occurring in both continents. In the US, artists took control of their own musical destiny as small labels broke away from the mainstream, expressing new and creative visions of freedom and peace against a backdrop of civil unrest, repression and war. Be sure to check the first volume of this series, Spiritual Jazz.
In ‘60s Europe the jazz community forged ahead with a different revolution; that of breaking away from mere emulation of their American counterparts. A distinctive, European jazz sound began to develop that combined traditional music from across Europe and around the world with the creative freedom so abundant in American jazz. Over time the most forward-thinking creative talents of the post-Coltrane European jazz generation crafted and nurtured sophisticated and multi-faceted styles of jazz that were as radical as they were beautiful, giving modern jazz a characteristically European flavour.
THE MUSIC
A heady mix indeed; stirring jazz overtures with orchestra and choir, festival performances recorded live from the grassy heartlands of central Europe, modal montages inspired by pilgrimages to Asia and Africa, experiments in rhythm and sound where modern jazz meets traditional Balkan and Flamenco folk music. This is Spiritual Jazz – European style.
We dedicate this album to Michael Garrick, who died shortly before its release. His contribution to UK jazz was profound, and we’re proud to include one of his previously-unreleased tracks.
- All tracks fully licensed and digitally restored from the original master tapes
- Most tracks never before reissued – previously only available on rare LP’s that change hands for hundreds of dollars.
- RARE and FINE music heard only on Jazzman – all because WE DIG DEEPER!
credits
released February 6, 2012

'Esoteric, modal and deep jazz from the European undergound, 1963-72'
At the end of the '50s, Miles Davis' Kind of Blue heralded the revelatory arrival of modal jazz. As the vibrations of these giant steps resonated across the world, European jazz musicians reassessed their bearings and began to steer a new course. Across the continent they sent roots down into the rich soil of the European folk and Christian liturgical traditions, extended their music along ancient routes of communication and trade to the Middle East, and reached across the crumbling ramparts of the European empires to the music of Asia Africa and Latin America.
The music collected here follows the richly tangled threads of meditative, modal and religious European jazz. Picking up where Spiritual Jazz 2: Europe left off, with volume 3 continuing our excavation of private releases, underrepresented artists and visionary one-offs that stud the European jazz landscape like standing stones. Just as it had waxed, so the cult of American jazz waned, and these recordings are the compelling documents of a musical world in imaginative transition and virtuoso transformation - a second trail of determined footprints on the pathways of European jazz.
THE MUSIC
Sublime choral jazz in an ecclesiastical setting, revolutionary sounds deep within the USSR, radical modal experiments inspired by excursions to the Asian continent and Latin America, advances in rhythm and sound where modern jazz combines with Balkan and Scandinavian folk traditions. This is Spiritual Jazz - European style.

It's well known that throughout the 20th century, fed up with poor working conditions and racism in their home country, many American jazz musicians chose to leave the US in order to live and work in Europe. What's less well known is how their music developed and evolved during their time on the continent, and how the experience of being a musician in Europe was to shape their lives.
Over the years countless jazz concerts, festivals and recordings featuring American jazz musicians have taken place all over Europe, yet it's remarkable how few of these musical artifacts have been evaluated by the jazz community. We seek to assess the European experiences of the American jazzman, with a specific focus on the progressive sounds of modal jazz and the avant garde. We examine the recordings made by those who crossed the Atlantic just to take in a short tour, as well as those who made more frequent trips, and of course those for whom Europe ultimately became their permanent place of residence.
THE MUSIC
Radical new jazz sounds created as renowned ex-pat American jazzman mingle with the crème de la crème of their European counterparts. Early developments in world music inspired by trans-global cultural excursions to Asia, Africa and beyond. Exchange of ideas and a cultural meeting of minds as revolutionary jazz festivals take place behind the Iron Curtain. Advances in rhythm and sound where modal jazz and the prophetic music of John Coltrane merges with European folk traditions. This is Spiritual Jazz – as played by Americans in Europe.
credits
released March 4, 2013

Until it was swept aside by the pop explosion of the 1960s, jazz was the most popular modern sound on earth. From the New World and the Caribbean to Africa, across the Soviet Bloc and the British Empire to the Far East, jazz music was embraced, adopted, played and enjoyed.
Having examined spiritual jazz as it was expressed in the US, and followed its messengers and influences in Europe, this fifth installment of our Spiritual Jazz series presents jazz from the rest of the world: a collection of jazz messages hailing from the four corners of the world that are united in their diverse treatment of the jazz idiom. Jazz might have been the music of America, but in its beginnings it was not a purely American creation.
The long story of its development stretches across the Atlantic, from Africa to the crucibles of slavery in the Caribbean and the Americas, both North and South. It was a music that ultimately emerged from the varied and resilient cultural achievements of Africans brought to the New World in bondage, and who brought with them a multiplicity of musical traditions.
Evolution and development continued and, like a dandelion dispersing its airborne seeds via the wind, the sounds of jazz were carried around the world on the airwaves, record sales and by travelling musicians. In whichever continent the form took root, the individual, ethnic and cultural circumstances of the musicians decided the flavours and nuances of the jazz they created.
This volume of Spiritual Jazz presents some of the rarest and most extraordinary global jazz recordings. We have covered some of the wider world's best known yet still underexposed jazz scenes - places such as Argentina and South Africa, as well as some of the world's most obscure. There are recordings here made for major labels, and recordings issued privately.
Very few of them have seen any release outside of their country of original prior to this collection. But all of them speak of a period when jazz was a global musical lingua franca, spoken with ease by musicians who headed out into the night to produce their own distinctly local translations.
This is esoteric jazz, modal jazz, spiritual jazz - as played by musicians from around the World.
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released August 25, 2014

The power of the human voice, especially when held in song, has long been known to be immensely influential, potent and emotive across all of humankind. When conveying a message, the spoken word - whether in speech, poetry or song - is infinitely more evocative than that of written. And when that message is voiced in the realm of jazz, amidst the open and dramatic freedom that only jazz can provide, the message can be all the more poignant.
Having examined spiritual jazz as it was expressed in the US, and then followed its messengers and influences in Europe and beyond, our sixth instalment of our Spiritual Jazz series showcases jazz vocals: a collection of jazz messages that are united in voice.
The majority of tracks here are as political as they are theological, but it’s the inner sanctity of the music that is the defining factor. These are songs that concern themselves with the universal condition of this world, as well as the next. In fact, as the distinction between the theological and the humanistic is blurred, so is the definition of a song – many of the tracks are atypical in that they do not possess lyrics with a beginning, middle and end. Likewise the voices that convey them often can't be said to be 'singing' in the usual sense of the word; we hear solemn chanting, intense wailing, earnest poetry and ardent recitation in between bouts of singing, the quality of which is often nothing short of exquisite. The styles of performance encompass modern jazz, the avant-garde and jazz fusion, and include elements of styles from the long and winding path of the African diaspora, including Cuban, Brazilian, Caribbean and other Pan-American rhythms.
Spiritual Jazz 6: Vocals examines some of the rarest and most extraordinary vocal jazz recordings. We have included some well-known songs, as well as some of the most obscure. There are tracks recorded made for major labels, and some that were issued privately. But all of them speak or sing of a better place or a better world, and the world can only be a better place when they are played.
This is esoteric jazz, modal jazz, spiritual jazz – as performed with the human voice.
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released March 9, 2015

Esoteric, Modal and Progressive Jazz inspired by Islam 1957 - 1988
Songs ancient and divine - the seventh volume of our acclaimed Spiritual Jazz series examines the influence and impact of Islam on four decades of jazz innovation.
Through Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali, the civil rights era in America saw African American liberation politics famously associated with Islamic belief. This was not the first time that radical developments in African American cultural life had been widely and famously associated with Islam - that distinction belongs not to political or sporting giants, but to the progressive jazz musicians of the bebop generation.
Kenny Clarke, Art Blakey, Sahib Shihab, Gigi Gryce, Idrees Sulieman, Ahmad Jamal, Yusef Lateef; all these legendary jazz pioneers - and countless more - were early converts to the spiritually charged Ahmadiyya school of Islam. Their faith profoundly influenced the music that they made, and the presence of prominent and innovative Muslim musicians at the heart of jazz culture in America has been recognised ever since.
The tracks on this collection follow the story of Islam and jazz from the 1950s to the 1980s. Recorded by Muslim jazz musicians, they often draw specifically on Middle Eastern or Islamic music, dream of an esoteric or spiritual Afro-East, or invoke the landscape and sound worlds of Islamic Africa. Spiritual Jazz 7 presents a selection of visionary music – inspired by faith, powered by jazz.
released April 6, 2017

Our latest examination of Esoteric, Modal & Progressive Jazz of the 20th Century has taken us to Japan. The liberating force of jazz has been created and felt all around the world, but few nations on earth embraced the jazz message with the passion and intensity of Japan. From the dawn of the jazz age to the present day, Japanese audiences have been renowned tastemakers, enthusiasts and champions of the music – in the 1980s, Japan was the biggest per capita market in the world for jazz records, and it has even been said that Japanese jazz fans kept the jazz record industry alive through the lean years of the 1970s, when the music fell from commercial favour in the land of its birth.
But while the jazz aficionados of Japan are celebrated as sophisticated fans and consumers of the music, comparatively little is known outside Japan of the remarkable and abundant music produced by generations of Japanese jazz musicians. Numerous Japanese jazzers have found enormous success on the international stage – Toshiko Akiyoshi, Sadao Watanabe, Teramasu Hino, and many others are household names among jazz listeners all over the world, and with good reason. But if such global figures are put aside, the stunning heritage of Japanese jazz remains poorly understood outside Japan. As a result, the work of many celebrated Japanese jazumen has remained largely unknown to international audiences, and the extraordinary scope and depth of Japanese jazz has not been widely recognised.
Compiled for the Spiritual Jazz series in collaboration with the celebrated collector and DJ Yusuke Ogawa (Deep Jazz Reality, Tokyo), this 2CD/twin set of double LPs aims to correct that omission by uncovering the uniquely deep sound of esoteric, modal and progressive jazz from Japan – music of the heart, soul and Japanese spirit!
Our extensive liner notes extend onto printed inners, and are in both Japanese and English.

The Blue Note Record label needs little introduction. Musically, graphically and sonically iconic, the label created and defined the golden age of modern jazz on record. Founded in 1939 by German émigré Alfred Lion, the label's roster of artists is a litany of giants – Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, Horace Silver, Lee Morgan, Art Blakey, Lee Morgan, Herbie Hancock and many more. With peerless musicians in the grooves, the legendary Rudy Van Gelder behind the boards, and graphic design genius Reid Miles creating emblematic artwork for every release, Blue Note – 'the Cadillac of the jazz lines' – was outstanding in every way.
Volume 8 of Jazzman's Spiritual Jazz series takes a close look at the deeper side of Blue Note – from the experimental avant-garde explored by younger musicians such as Bobby Hutcherson, Joe Henderson and Pete La Roca, to the exciting new developments in modal sounds put forward by stalwarts Hank Mobley, Jackie McLean and Duke Pearson. The music we have selected shows how musicians working with the label responded to a period of dramatic social and sonic change, charting the route toward the esoteric and spiritualised sounds that would dominate the deepest jazz of the 1970s.
As ever, Blue Note had lit the path, and this new Spiritual Jazz collection shows that the progressive and underground jazz sound of the 1960s was not only the preserve of obscure artists and private pressings. Blue spirits and heavy sounds on Blue Note – the finest in jazz since 1939, brought to you by Jazzman.
released March 8, 2019

The tenth edition of our Spiritual Jazz series takes a closer look at the music Prestige was recording at the start of the 1960s. This was the period when the modal jazz sound pioneered by Miles and Coltrane was starting to percolate through the jazz underground.
In its heyday, Prestige was the only jazz label that could hold a candle to Blue Note. Prestige was always quick off the mark to record new artists, and in the years after Kind of Blue the label was quick to release some of the most innovative early explorers of the new style.
Founded as New Jazz in 1949 by 20-year old jazz fan and entrepreneur Bob Weinstock, Prestige was the only other imprint besides Blue Note to capture the iconic jazz sounds of the 1950s, and like its rival it grew to be an icon itself.
If Blue Note documented the sound of hard bop in its most carefully crafted and beautifully presented form, the low-key, jam-session approach that Weinstock preferred meant that the music captured by Prestige has a tough, unfiltered energy that was a lot closer to way it was being played live, night after night, by New York's most prominent jazz musicians.
Featuring Afro-Eastern visions from Yusef Lateef and Ahmed Abdul-Malik, deep modal excursions from Mal Waldron and Walt Dickerson, and essential spiritual jazz grooves from Gary Bartz and Idris Muhammed, Spiritual Jazz vol. 10 documents the sound of modal jazz in full flight, unabashed and authentic from the pioneers!
released November 29, 2019

Founded in 1972, SteepleChase Records is one of the most significant and prolific European jazz record labels. With a catalogue running to well over 200 titles, the Copenhagen-based imprint has recorded and released music from some of the greatest names in jazz, including Dexter Gordon, Andrew Hill, Jackie McLean, Horace Parlan, Chet Baker and Stan Getz.
Starting out by recording visiting Americans when they performed at the legendary Café Montmartre, founder Nils Winther was encouraged to start the label by none other than the great Jackie McLean, who was the first artist to release a record on the new imprint.
From there, Steeplechase rapidly grew into one of the foremost labels to document European jazz with all its distinctive originality and style. With a particular emphasis on recording front rank American artists who had chosen the expatriate life in Europe, Steeplechase was first in line to document the sounds of the greats as they developed in exile.
Featuring in-demand tracks from the likes of Billy Gault, Johnny Dyani and Khan Jamal, and unearthing deep cuts from greats like Jackie McLean and Mary Lou Williams, our Spiritual Jazz 11: Steeplechase pays tribute to one of Europe's most important jazz labels.
released April 10, 2020

In our latest chapter of Spiritual Jazz, we return to the source – the Impulse! label, and the monumental influence of its most prominent artist, John Coltrane.
Since the first release in the series back in 2008, we have mapped out the growth of the spiritual sound in jazz. Spiritually energised and politically conscious, the spiritual sound in jazz music is one of the most important currents in the music. Our series has charted the growth of the style from early experiments at Blue Note and Prestige to European excursions, exiled experimentalists, and sounds from across the globe. But whenever you think of spiritual jazz, it’s a fair bet that the double exclamation mark and orange and black spine of Impulse quickly comes to mind.
Home to John and Alice Coltrane, Pharaoh Sanders, Yusef Lateef, McCoy Tyner and countless other musical pioneers, Impulse! was the most important and forward-thinking jazz label of the 1960s. With the music-first attitude of an independent but the clout of a major, producers Creed Taylor and Bob Thiele made Impulse the defining imprint of a crucial decade of social upheaval that still resonates today. They hand picked the top players of the moment and gave them freedom to record the music they wanted, setting out their stall with a bold slogan – ‘The New Wave Of Jazz Is On Impulse!’
Here we dive deep into the Impulse! catalogue, bringing celebrated masterpieces from Alice Coltrane and Pharaoh Sanders into the arena, together with lesser known cuts from Phil Woods and John Klemmer as well as straight-up classics such from Yusef Lateef and Elvin Jones. Fifty years on and the new wave of jazz still sounds fresh, vibrant and as relevant as ever.
released September 18, 2020