This column is dedicated to albums and entire series that have been unavailable for some time. They are out of print and circulate in the parallel market of second-hand records. This is an area in which internationally renowned and lesser-known musicians find themselves.
Lost Recordings
A sound laboratory: Trevor Watts’ Amalgam
If you are born an orphan, life starts uphill. In a sense, Mad, by Trevor Watts’ Amalgam, was born with a similar handicap, seemingly destined for limited discographic fortune: it had no cover. The Dutch label Synton released it in 1974 in the most spartan fashion imaginable. The album only acquired its own – and rather unattractive – sleeve in 2008, when Future Music Records (FMR) organised a reissue, perhaps transferring an untouched vinyl source, much as it did when issuing another CD-R reprint of Deep, also by Watts’ band. Another fine record whose traces, like those of Mad, have largely vanished. Lost objects – not only the original editions but also the phantom reissues. And yet Amalgam was a substantial chapter both in the history of the York-born saxophonist and in the broader story of British and European jazz. The group’s discography remains in fragile condition. Complete availability is […]
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A Lost Item in Hamburg: The 1975 New Jazz Festival Album
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Barry Altschul: sounds from another space/time
A member of some of the most innovative groups of the seventies, a faithful partner of Dave Holland in an unforgettable rhythm section, Barry Altschul left us some important records
Tony Coe and the Pink Panther: A Canterbury Tale
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Joys and sorrows of self-management: “Groups In Front Of People”
From Guus Janssen to Evan Parker, through Maarten Altena, Günter Christmann, Paul Lovens, Terry Day, Peter Cusack, Paul Termos and Paul Lytton.
Martin Davidson’s orphans: records from the Emanem catalog
Over the years, the British producer and his wife Madaleine have built a monument to improvised music that is now in serious danger of being lost