Lost Recordings

Canterbury is not far from the French coast – less than a hundred kilometres away. Yet if we change our unit of measurement and calculate the distance in wavelengths rather than miles, the proximity becomes far greater, or at least it has been ever since the first arrival of the Soft Machine. One of the many close encounters that followed came about thanks to the second album by guitarist Patrice Meyer: Dromadaire Viennois, released in 1987 and long since consigned to the limbo reserved for out-of-print records. Meyer is a guitarist endowed with a highly personal and remarkable technique. He took his first musical steps in 1973, playing with several Alsatian bands, beginning with his older brother’s progressive rock group at a time when the genre was at its commercial and artistic peak. He subsequently moved into ensembles more closely aligned with the emerging jazz-rock movement, before collaborating with drummer […]

After fifteen inconclusive ballots, on 13 July 1978 the Italian parliament tried once more – and this time succeeded. With an agreement finally reached,...

If you are born an orphan, life starts uphill. In a sense, Mad, by Trevor Watts’ Amalgam, was born with a similar handicap, seemingly...

Canetti devoted thirty-eight years to investigating the most intimate mechanisms of human behaviour. The result of nearly four decades of uninterrupted work was Crowds...

Henry Lowther was the one who found Paul Rutherford’s body, after forcing open the door of his flat with a police officer and a...

There was a good vibe in the air around Woodstock, and not only rock musicians were breathing it in. Mike Mainieri settled near the...

At the age of 87, Mike Mainieri certainly needs no introduction. The American vibraphonist, composer, and record producer, whose father came from Ravello, has...

The 1. New Jazz Festival Hamburg '75 album remains a lost item today. It contains four long tracks from a festival whose lineup, half a century later, is still difficult to reconstruct: Terje Rypdal, Liebman & Beirach, Eberhard Weber, and Tomasz Stańko.

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

Plas Johnson was the first saxophonist to take on the iconic theme—but from then on, it was the British musician’s turn to leave his mark on the later films in the series. Yet Coe did much more