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LP - 180 Gram Vinyl / Handnumbered Edition limited to 150 UnitsCritics have described Czech pianist Kristina Barta as "fiery, expressive, eloquent, and stubborn." This new album, "Endless Questions and Answers," features nine original compositions created for her new quartet, in collaboration with the world-renowned tenor saxophonist Jure Pukl. It signifies a fresh chapter in Barta's musical evolution.

Critics have described Czech pianist Kristina Barta as "fiery, expressive, eloquent, and stubborn." This new album, "Endless Questions and Answers," features nine original compositions created for her new quartet, in collaboration with the world-renowned tenor saxophonist Jure Pukl. It signifies a fresh chapter in Barta's musical evolution.

"Sisu" marks the beginning of a new chapter for esteemed Estonian pianist and composer Kristjan Randalu - as his first large ensemble project recording. It"s also the debut outing for the New Wind Jazz Orchestra conducted by Wolf Kerschek and features special guest trumpeter Ingrid Jensen and guitarist Ben Monder.

If you listen to LA LOM's music with your eyes closed, you might find yourself in a world somewhere between shimmering tropical heat and a black and white Hollywood crime thriller. Music with the “twang” of rockabilly, the sensuality of Latin American rhythms and the raw sound of modern independent music, which has already found prominent fans such as Beck and Vampire Weekend. Behind LA LOM, abbreviation for The Los Angeles League of Musicians, are the three LA-born musicians Zac Sokolow (guitar), Jake Faulkner (bass) and Nicholas Baker (drums/percussion). In 2019 they got together to play at the historic Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard, by now they perform concerts in front of thousands of people, released the first digital singles of their Latin and soul instrumentals and attract countless fans to their popular social media profiles. Their album debut on Verve Records was produced by Elliot Bergman (Cage the Elephant, Major Lazer, Wild Belle).

"The Remedy," is I G Culture's latest album under Likwid Continutal Space Motion, Culture draws parallels between the complex world of fungi and London's Underground dance music scene. Both are intricate networks that thrive beneath the surface, connecting diverse elements and influencing one another. The London dance music scene, like fungi, encompasses a variety of styles and genres, from drum and bass to Garage Dance Subcultures may go unnoticed to the casual observer but are musical corner stones in our society. Dance floors and clubs serve as spaces for communal healing, allowing people to let go of daily stresses and connect through music and dance. I G Culture's "The Remedy" celebrates this vibrant underground culture and highlights the interconnectedness of all musical styles. Through his innovative production and thematic depth, he underscores the transformative power of dance music, emphasizing its role in promoting well-being and unity. The idea of Fungi also is expressed in the artwork by Amsterdams 'Machine' with IG's direction, who used fungi in an original collage revealing a secret world.

Nobody had expected the extraordinary success of this album and its funky title track. When Blue Note released trumpeter Lee Morgan's “The Sidewinder” in 1964, the label “only” pressed 4,000 copies, but they were completely sold out within three days. The instrumental album reached number 25 in the pop charts and number 10 in the rhythm'n'blues charts, while the soul-jazzy title track, which was shortened for that, was also successful as a single. The album, recorded with tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson, pianist Barry Harris, bassist Bob Cranshaw and drummer Billy Higgins, is now a classic album that should be in every jazz collection.

Bassist Leroy Vinnegar has gone down in history as the person who popularised the "walking bass" style in jazz. He was worked with Chet Baker, Eddie Harris, Les McCann, Lee Konitz, and Stan Getz. His milestone 1973 album 'Glass Of Water' featuring Dwight Dickerson on the rhodes and wurlitzer slipped into obscurity shortly after release. However, in recent years it has been rediscovered and has become highly coveted as a grail for crate diggers and jazz collectors worldwide. On High is proud to present the first ever reissue of this long forgotten classic. Remastered and pressed on audiophile virgin vinyl to fully capture the wonderful spacey emotion of Vinnegar's classic LP.

180g 2LP 45rpm Gatefold Sleeve

Limpe Fuchs – Amor
When asked about the title of her new record, “Amor”, Limpe bluntly responded, “because it’s everything”. Being a Beatles fan from the very beginning, she’s well aware that “all you need is love”, but there’s more to her sentiment than a corny pun. On the one hand, she’s more than half a century into her musical career, and describes the relationship towards her instruments in terms of an ongoing and deepening love affair. “Be it my piano, my viola or my percussion instruments, they’re all far more than just wooden caskets, they’re living entities, they need to be tended and cared for, they’re resonating with me and when engaging with them while playing I respond to their momentary being – and they alter my body and soul all the same.” So, it’s about time for a love letter to her percussion instruments and the act of drumming and listening to her drums, which can be heard as “Trommeln” on the second to last track on “Amor”. We also get to learn about “Verliebte Autos im Wald” – a poem by Augusta Laar, Limpe recites during the closing track to “Amor”. What may come across as a goofy nursery rhyme at first is indeed testament to Limpe’s longstanding animistic beliefs, her imagination towards everything around her. “It may sound wonky, but it’s as simple as it’s true and it’s important to love yourself and everything around you – at least I try to do so the best I can, and sometimes I fail, sure.” And, again, if you think about it, it’s not much of a surprise, she’s singing about cars, the vehicles that since decades get her and her instruments from gig to gig, all across Europe. But it’s not all just about the material world around her, of course. So, on the other hand and for the most part, “Amor” reflects on love as an interpersonal and spiritual experience. Drawing inspiration from such different authors as Giordano Bruno, Hilde Domin and Serge Kahili King, “Amor” is a record of compositions one could almost call “songs” although they’re far from being performed in a conventional way. It is also Limpe Fuchs’ most openly insightful and vulnerable record to date. As curious as ever, in her light-hearted yet thoughtful manner she explores the upsides and downsides of what it means to be loved or not loved: “At times it’s also sad, that love is the only way, but it is – at least it’s what I experienced and experience to this day.” (Holger Adam)

“Let us advance our mortal bodies up Where hearts and minds will go Let’s walk, let’s roll.” So sings Madeleine Peyroux on the upbeat title track of her captivating tenth album, Let’s Walk, the acclaimed singer-songwriter’s most assured, courageous work to date. Powered by the distinctive, honeyed croon that delivered her from the Paris streets to concert halls, these ten unabashedly personal songs, all co-written by the versatile Peyroux, deftly interweave jazz, folk, and chamber pop, with themes ranging from the confessional to the political, from whimsy to yearning. In every note, Peyroux digs deep, rendering this exquisite work with the disarming grace and gravitas of an artist in peak form. Let’s Walk was a long time coming, but well worth the wait. Following Peyroux’s 2018 album, Anthem, the enforced isolation of the global pandemic made any real-time community gathering impossible. From a creative standpoint, however, Covid offered Peyroux a silver lining: she seized the opportunity to hunker down with longtime collaborator, multi-instrumentalist Jon Herington (Steely Dan, Lucy Kaplansky). The pair reflected on the seismic era at hand and wrote and re-wrote in what Peyroux calls “a shadow of reckoning.” When multi-Emmy-and-Grammy-winning producer Elliott Scheiner (Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles) heard a sampling of the new material, including “Let’s Walk,” he mandated “no covers” for the album. The longtime studio veteran knew the time was ripe to highlight Peyroux’s incisive, often topical lyrics meshed with Herington’s ear for melody and arrangements.

Who is Maia Wackernagel when she plays? At the grand piano, she flays the skeleton out of the darkness of space. The music takes her away and leads her back to herself. Her pieces are memories of the one, never found, never lost, longing sound. For her, everything is about the mathematics of feelings, about the logic of one's own abysses, about the pure beauty on the surface. Created in the agony of pandemic silence, she never ceases to hear the echo of modern classical music. With her interpretations of themes from the Great American Songbook, the pianist fearlessly connects masculine urbanity with filigree feminine elegance. Or she follows the songline of her soul in her own compositional pieces. The album takes the listener on a slow, quiet walk through an inner landscape

After playing with Mingus, Coltrane, Lady Day and Abbey Lincoln, inventive jazz pianist Mal Waldron moved to Europe and first reached Japan in 1970, where he met Idahoborn double-bassist Gary Peacock, who had played with Art Pepper, Bud Shank, Bill Evans and free-jazz giant, Albert Ayler before moving to Japan to study zen buddhism. First Encounter, recorded in Tokyo in 1971 for French producer Herve Bergerat, shows that the intense pairing was quite natural, the harmonic dissonance of Waldron’s “She Walks In Beauty” contrasted by the up-tempo groove of Peacock’s “What’s That”; future Native Son founder Hiroshi Murakami makes important contribution on drums.

On The Sport of Love, seasoned collaborators Asma Maroof, Patrick Belaga and Tapiwa Svosve consider the language, competition and contradiction of modern romance: its yearning, incomprehensible vastness and the inevitable darkness and fleeting fragility. For the trio, love is the emotion that propels all of us whether we acknowledge it or not, and its expression can be realized in many forms.

An avant-garde masterpiece, a vocal-instrumental suite, a work of collective improvisation, directly addressing the racial and political issues of it’s day, We Insist! Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite is one of the most important artistic statements of Civil Rights Movement and one of the most groundbreaking jazz albums of all time. Max Roach was already almost a decade into his career as one of the most influential jazz drummers and composers when he teamed up with lyricist Oscar Brown Jr. to collaborate on a piece they planned to perform at the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1963. Recorded just months after the February 1960 Greensboro sit-ins, the album stands as an early musical testament to the burgeoning rage, anger and passion that would take the Civil Rights Movement from its early victory in Montgomery in 1955 into a future that would dramatically alter race relations in the United States.

The second release from the newly launched New York City based jazz label Candid Records, and produced by label co-founder, famed music critic and social activist, Nat Hentoff, the album is a bold statement, focused on civil injustices in black history ranging from slavery to contemporary racial prejudices, and featuring some of the finest jazz musicians ever, including Abbey Lincoln, Coleman Hawkins, Eric Dolphy, Booker Little, and Michael Babatunde Olatunji.

The five movements of the work are organized as a historical progression through African-American history, a shape similar to the one in Duke Ellington’s Black, Brown and Beige. The Freedom Now Suite moves from slavery to Emancipation Day to the contemporary civil-rights struggle and African independence.

The LP includes extraordinary liner notes written by Hentoff himself, giving a context and insight that adds to the experience of hearing these magnificent performances.