Triple Point Records preserves timeless improvised creations in definitive physical editions--for the benefit of artists, listeners, and collectors.

Archie Shepp

Derailleur:
The 1964 Demo

 

 

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Previously unissued 1964 studio demo featuring Steve Lacy, Roswell Rudd, and Denis Charles

Archie Shepp’s world has always been filled with fire music, and eventually Fire Music. Before that landmark LP, Shepp made Four for Trane—his August 1964 beachhead with Impulse. And even before that, as it turns out, came this one blip—the earliest Shepp leader project yet on record. Under supervision of the artist, this previously unissued demo recording is now available from Triple Point Records.

As the cover of Derailleur suggests, Shepp tries out some surprising combinations for the session. The playlist includes two of Archie’s earliest documented compositions—the jagged 5/4 statement “Viva Jomo” and a shuffling blues named for his Florida homeland. And an homage to Maestro Ellington of course.

Archie had already defined his voice while a sideman and co-leader; now he was looking for his team. Shepp momentarily adopted the quartet that Steve Lacy and Roswell Rudd led in the Village. This assemblage delivered a spontaneous demo, and engineer Art Crist captured it in a mono studio session. Buried in Archie’s tape archive was this batch of music that was all but forgotten; now Triple Point has polished it into crisp perfection.

Archie Shepp (tenor saxophone)
Roswell Rudd (trombone)
Steve Lacy (soprano saxophone)
Arthur Harper (bass)
Denis Charles (drums)
 
 

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Bill Dixon & Cecil Taylor

DUETS 1992

 

 


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2 LPs of previously unissued studio recordings, strictly limited to 665 hand-numbered copies

Trumpeter Dixon and pianist Taylor, friends going back to their Truman-era school days, associated copiously in nearly every artistic fashion—except making music together. Duets is their only meeting in studio apart from both artists appearing on Taylor’s 1966 landmark Blue Note LP Conquistador. In 1992 they made the briefest summer festival tour to Italy and France, budgeting in two additional days for this recording session. That musical output was prepared for a release that was shelved for more than a quarter century and now comes out as a posthumous release in tribute to both giants. The initiative to release this music began with the Bill Dixon Trust and was approved by Taylor in his final years. Now, a wider public will hear music that they both prized, documenting the extraordinary relationship between their musicalities.

Duets is a remarkable and unique item in the extensive catalogs of both men’s recordings. Fans familiar with Dixon and Taylor’s distinctive styles will approach with curious uncertainty:  How could it possibly work to blend styles of Joyce and Hemingway? Pollock and Kline? Nevelson and Brancusi? Bill Dixon and Cecil Taylor share a fundamental fiber of taste and reaction as the basis for their interaction. The complementary nature of Duets makes the case thoroughly that the project stands apart not just from the numerous duet projects of both instrumentalists, but from the wide field of improvised duets in this sector of the music.

Strictly limited to 665 copies worldwide, this 2-LP set has been scrupulously mastered from the original tape, preserving both the high gloss and the brutal physicality of the recording. Plates cut by Sterling Sound’s Grammy®-winning mastering master Steve Fallone have been pressed into virgin vinyl at QRP, and wrapped in a hand-numbered Old Style Tip-On gatefold jacket that Stoughton has perfected. The package also includes a new contextualizing essay by historian Ben Young.

Triple Point Records would like to thank Miles Bellamy, Robert Bielecki, Joe Walker, Jon Reichert, Mark Lamb, Yannis Lyras, and Bernhard Zaglmayer
 

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dealer and other inquiries:
 

tpr@triplepointrecords.com

 

 

Duck Baker

Spinning Song: Duck Baker Plays the Music of Herbie Nichols

 

 


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To commemorate Herbie Nichols’ 2019 centennial, Triple Point is proud to announce the first-ever vinyl issue of Duck Baker’s 90s classic, Spinning Song. Available exclusively on high-quality, translucent-red vinyl and limited to this one pressing, Spinning Song contains solo acoustic guitar renditions of nine Nichols compositions, meticulously remastered from the original tapes. The set includes all of the original liner notes along with a new Duck Baker essay and two previously unseen photos.

One of several records devoted to the music of Herbie Nichols that appeared independently in the mid-1990s, Duck Baker’s Spinning Song has been regarded as a milestone by guitarists ever since. Baker had made his reputation over the previous two decades as a master fingerstyle guitarist working mostly in folk, ragtime, and swing, but this was his first real entry into the world of jazz guitar, and his background gave him a unique approach to Herbie Nichols. The jazz press gave Spinning Song a warm reception, and Acoustic Guitar magazine proclaimed it "one of the best guitar records ever recorded — by anybody."

 “Nowadays a lot of people are giving Nichols’ music the attention it deserves, but only Duck Baker’s playing makes me feel Herbie in the room.” — the late Roswell Rudd

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The enigmatic pianist and composer Herbie Nichols (1919–63) has forever been one of Jazz’s insider figures. Though he was the composer of “Lady Sings the Blues” for Billie Holiday, Nichols' compositions were little known, circulated, or performed in his lifetime. Two records for Blue Note made from several 1955–56 trio sessions are the central repository for Nichols’ very personal original music. He died in obscurity, but in the 21st century Herbie Nichols is rightly hailed for a profound and offbeat writing style comparable to that of his contemporary, Thelonious Monk.

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Bill Dixon

Odyssey

6-CD boxed set

 


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  • Strictly limited to 1000 hand-numbered copies
  • Few remain; we are pleased to offer the very last copies for sale
  • Five CDs of music chosen by Dixon and meticulously mastered for CD
  • One CD of Bill Dixon's enigmatic spoken commentary
  • A full-color folio containing high-quality reproductions of 13 previously unpublished visual artworks
  • A second full-color folio with analysis and history from Ben Young, Stephen Horenstein, and Jason Zappa as well as an interview with Bill Dixon conducted by Graham Taylor-Lock

Odyssey is the definitive compendium of the solo trumpet music of Bill Dixon (1925–2010). Known primarily for his small and large ensemble masterpieces of the decades between Intents and Purposes (1967) and Tapestries (2009), Dixon was continually evolving a remarkably nuanced and powerful solo music in the studio through these years. Small offerings of these gems were published relatively obscurely in the early 1980s in Italy, and a larger batch were hand selected by the composer for a 2-LP collection in 1985.

In 2000, Bill Dixon gathered the entirety of his oeuvre for solo trumpet into Odyssey, adding more than two hours of further solo pieces and a small number of additional duet recordings. The tracks were selected and sequenced by Mr. Dixon, who curated the entire project for release on his own label, Archive Edition. Veteran engineer Kevin Reeves (Capitol, Universal; Grammy-nominated also for Revenant projects) mastered from original tapes exclusively, achieving unprecedented clarity.

The recordings span 1970–92, made primarily in Dixon’s studio In Bennington, Vermont, with earlier examples from New York and a later solo performance from Israel. Also included are Dixon’s only released works for solo piano, the full set of “Relay” duets for his own piano and trumpet, an excerpt of the 1971 magnum opus “Summerdance”, featuring drummers Laurence Cook and David Moss, and one example of Dixon’s duets with keyboardist Leslie Winston.

 

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Duck Baker

Duck Baker Plays Monk

 

 


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On this new LP, recorded at studio sessions in 2010 and 2015, Duck Baker delves deeply into the thinking of one of our most challenging composers and renders guitar interpretations that are true to the original intent. That Baker's experience playing blues, gospel, ragtime, and swing serve him well on this project goes without saying. Available exclusively on high-quality vinyl and limited to this one pressing, Duck Baker Plays Monk contains solo acoustic guitar renditions of nine Thelonious Monk compositions and new essays by Duck and the late Roswell Rudd.

In a way, Duck Baker Plays Monk is a companion piece to Spinning Song, the CD John Zorn asked Baker to make in the late 1990s devoted to the music of Herbie Nichols. Certainly Nichols, like Thelonious Monk, was a brilliant and significant pianist/composer, and the music of both men presents similar challenges for solo guitarists. But there's an important difference, which is that Baker had never arranged any of Nichols' music when he took on Spinning Song, but had been working with Monk's tunes for most of his musical life when he made the new record. Baker reminds us through his playing that the idiosyncracies of Monk's composing are further dimensions of the Americana continuum (and source musics) that has been his turf for years.

Especially in Monk's centennial year, many will address Monk's oeuvre: Hundreds will in fact interpret the texts, but very few can inhabit this music in the way that the mature Duck Baker can.

Now, the world can hear Duck's take on these nine Monk compositions--framed by Rudd's essay, which may be his last published musical analysis.

We at Triple Point think Duck Baker Plays Monk is his best record yet.

Triple Point Records would like to thank Reginald Barclay, Tom and Catherine Baker, and Barton Evans

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Frank Lowe Quartet

OUT LOUD

Strictly limited to 550 hand-numbered copies, this deluxe 2-LP edition presents the complete recordings by the hitherto invisible 1974 quartet of Lowe, Joe Bowie, William Parker, and Steve Reid.

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For what would have been his second album as leader, Frank Lowe captured this cataclysmic quartet in-studio at Survival and in performance at Studio Rivbea. Lowe called it Logical Extensions. These 1974 tapes went unreleased and are heard only now in this rediscovered and expanded volume. OUT LOUD gathers the only known recordings of this combustible band, with trumpeter Ahmed Abdullah guesting on one track, and a link to landmark video footage of the quartet live at Rivbea.

  • OUT LOUD's 38-page, full-color brochure and old-school, tip-on gatefold jacket are lavishly designed by the award-winning Svenja Knödler
  • Ed Hazell explains the music's genesis and fits the group into a loft-scene perspective
  • Photographers Val Wilmer and Omar Kharem pluck choice visuals from the rubble of Watergate-era NYC
  • J.D. Parran's recollections give you director's-cut insight into Lowe's saxophony
  • 40-minute sync-sound video offers a revealing peep through the keyhole of 24 Bond Street

 

Triple Point Records would like to thank Jon Reichert, Herb Van Alst, and Mark Lamb for the bedrock support that has enabled this project.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

tracklist

photos

 

 

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New York Art Quartet

call it art

 

$340.00 plus shipping

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Rudd Tchicai Graves

Worrell Moore Cunningham  Gomez Workman Baraka Shorter Moses

five LPs of uncirculated music from 1964-1965

 
  • strictly limited to 665 hand-numbered copies
  • 156-page clothbound book 
  • complete history of the Quartet and its members along with a full itinerary
  • dozens of photos, manuscripts, and other memorabilia
  • custom birch wood box  
  • first 100 copies include a card personally signed by key artists (NOTE: we are completely sold out of signed copies)

Nominated for 2014 Grammy® awards in Best Historical Album and Best Album Notes categories

"Transcendental Joy! An amazing work of research and tape-archaeology brings us all the missing links in the life of the NYAQ ... one of the key developments in the history of our music." - Evan Parker

 "this year's most significant release for partisans of free jazz." -  Nate Chinen, New York Times, November 29, 2013

"With call it art, the NYAQ has finally gotten the treatment it deserves." - Andrey Henkin, NYCJR, June 2013

 "an extraordinary, redefining set” - Clifford Allen

"a phenomenal work...you need to get your hands on this set." - Hank Shteamer

full tracklist

photos from büro svenja

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Triple Point Records would like to thank Mark Lamb, David French, Fred Cohen, Stuart Gaats, Matt Herman, Jan Ström, Tom Greenwood & Svenja Knödler, Fearless Chris Tomson, Andy Rasmussen, Carlos Kase & Liz Mahoney, David Seidenberg, and Bernhard Zaglmayer for the bedrock support that has enabled this project.


 

 

 

ailanthus

ailanthus/altissima

Cecil Taylor's latest record:
An 80th birthday commemoration.

AILANTHUS / ALTISSIMA is being sold in numbered order.

LAST CHANCE: WE ARE SELLING FROM THE FINAL CRATE

 

$110.00 plus shipping

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81 minutes of duet recordings with Tony Oxley, selected by the musicians from ten hours recorded during their two weeks at New York's Village Vanguard in 2008.

This deluxe collector's item has been issued in a very limited, numbered edition--475 copies worldwide--on vinyl LP only. A 2-disc gatefold set, the record features the cream of the duo's two runs at the Vanguard. An accompanying museum-grade folio includes exclusive original poetry by Cecil Taylor and paintings by Tony Oxley.

 

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Triple Point Records would like to thank Laura Welikson, Mark Lamb, and Robert D. Bielecki for the bedrock support that has enabled this project.