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From The A.V. Club Milwaukee:

In Top Five, we dig into the back catalog of one of city’s many independent record labels and get the back-stories on five of the label’s more significant releases. In our second installment, we focus on free jazz label Okka Disk Records, and talk to label head Bruno Johnson.

The label: Started in 1994 by pushing its roots into the Chicago free jazz scene, Okka Disk Records has since become known worldwide as one of the best places to go for modern American free jazz. By championing musicians such as Peter Brotzmann and Ken Vandermark, Okka Disk has carved out an admittedly small but very important corner in the world of jazz, and music as a whole.

The label head: While Okka Disk began in Chicago, label head Bruno Johnson currently calls Milwaukee his home, where he runs both the Sugar Maple and Palm Tavern in Bay View. Both bars have hosted a number of different musicians over the past few years, including the annual Okka Fest, a three-day free jazz fest that heavily pulls from the Okka Disk roster.

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• Norwegian reedist Frode Gjerstad returns to Chicago tonight (chicagoreader.com)

Cover of Mark Dresser

From NYTimes.com:

Small but significant, with a recent track record that includes some of the most acclaimed releases in jazz, Pi is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, in typical style. “The Mancy of Sound,” Mr. Coleman’s sharp new album with Five Elements, was released in late July; “Synastry,” a chamberlike duo outing by Ms. Shyu and the bassist Mark Dresser, is due out next week; and Mr. Sorey will make his label debut as a bandleader in September, with “Oblique 1,” a state-of-the-art quintet album. And from Wednesday through the end of August, Pi has programmed the Stone in the East Village, featuring artists either on the label’s roster or just one degree of separation away.

Related articles

• Steve Coleman and Five Elements – The Mancy of Sound (dustedmagazine.com)
• Steve Coleman – The Mancy of Sound (Pi Recordings, 2011) (jazzandblues.blogspot.com)

Long Song Records is a label based out of Italy that focuses on free jazz, experimental, and other types of music. I recently had the opportunity to hear a good piece of their catalog and was duly impressed. Some of their more recent releases include:

Piero Bittolo Bon feat. Jamaaladeen Tacuma – Mucho Acustica
Nicola Cipani – Klaviermassagen
Giovanni Maier – The Talking Bass
Gianni Lenoci & Gianni Mimmo – Reciprocal Uncles
The Foot Job Band – Porno Jazz
Acoustic Guitar Trio – Vignes
Daniele Cavallanti & Tiziano Tononi – Rings Of Fire
Nicola Cipani – The Ill-Tempered Piano
Plays Monk – Plays Monk

Overall I found the output of Long Song to be quite good. Surprisingly good in many cases. For example, the two Nicola Cipani releases are solo piano, which is not usually something that will stand out to me. However, these releases are such a unique take on the instrument that at times they barely sound like piano at all.

A highly recommended label, and worth a listen or three.

Related articles

• Ellen Fullman’s Long String Instrument (via the Free Music Archive) (issueprojectroom.org)
• In Transit – Shifting Moods (Konnex, 2011) **** (freejazz-stef.blogspot.com)

From the Issue Project Room:

Since 1993, Table of the Elements has spoken that truth. The label has staked its claim on a massive enterprise: It intends nothing less than to rewrite the history of American music in the second half of the 20th century. And beyond. That’s a tall order for even the largest multi-national corporations, whose vaults harbor so much of our cultural data. Imagine, then, the flinty ambition necessary for Table of the Elements to pursue its goal. This modestly funded, cellular organization has thrived on smarts, and pluck, in realizing its projects, which have focused on musicians whose light shimmers outside the frames of convention. The label’s 100-plus releases are a vital contemporary archive, a survey of meaningful eruptions across a broad horizon of improvised, experimental, minimal and outsider musics.

From PopMatters, lots of good words about the prolific Clean Feed label:

Clean Feed, based in Lisbon and founded in 2001, has become nothing less than a force of nature, releasing exciting music in big, fat batches.  Snaring big name artists, yup, and also promoting the little guy, Clean Feed is supernatural.

Related articles

• JazzTimes: Mary Halvorson Quintet + William Parker’s Inside Songs of Curtis Mayfield + Critics’ Poll (improvisedcommunications.com)

Nacht Records is an online label that offers a “pay what you want” model for most of their releases. They have quite a bit of good stuff available. Start with free releases Rhythm is for Gals by MOFODiSHU or Kitchen Sink Improvs by Mike Noordzy & Jon Francis Lucow. If you like what you hear, try out the Jennings / Noordzy / Ware recording Socialized Improvisation.

Against it Records is a relatively new label that focuses on a variety of non-commercial music. Of particular interest are their releases Ralf Rabendorn’s Fragments of Life, Finkster’s Conscience, and Infinitus Ensemble’s Na, Poleon?

All of these recordings can be previewed via online samples.