Quartet and sextet sessions led by the flautist and saxophonist: Midnight Oil, Roamin’ With Richardson and HJ favourite Going To The Movies, plus the rare and interesting 10” album Meeting In Studio, recorded in Belgrade during Quincy Jones’ 1960 European tour, by a mix of American and Yugoslavian musicians.

Spectral, nostalgic, highly evocative, sometimes-desolate reflections — alone on the piano, and together with saxophonist and flautist Finn Peters —  soaked in Satie, Ravel, and Mompou. Expressive and enchanting, but mournfully distracted, with a tentative, exploratory wonderment which reminds you of Paul Klee’s well-worn idea of a drawing as a line taking a walk. Easy to recommend to those of you who recently enjoyed Mashu Hayasaka’s Etudes LP, on All Night Flight. This is lovely stuff from Jesse, in an unexpected departure from his work with Elmore Judd, the Gorillaz, Nyege Nyege Tapes…

The saxophonist Jesse Sharps took over from Arthur Blythe as leader of Horace Tapscott’s Pan-Afrikan People’s Arkestra. ‘He became the Ark leader…he was hardcore,’ the pianist recalls. ‘They’d all be quiet and listen to him when he talked.’
This was the period of such classic PAPA recordings as Flight 17, Live At IUCC and The Call; lit up by the funky, deep spirituality of Sharps compositions like Desert Fairy Princess, Macramé and Peyote Song II.
His own Sharps And Flats album was recorded in 1985 for Tom Albach’s legendary Nimbus West imprint, adding a stunning sixteen-minute bonus cut by the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, featuring Horace Tapscott, recorded in 1979. 
A lost classic of the Los Angeles jazz underground, on wax at last!

Cecil Taylor collaborators Jimmy Lyons and Sunny Murray alongside the String Trio of New York bassist John Lindberg, giving the Willisau jazz festival what for, in August 1980.

‘We proceed along a musical timeline in the same time as we are all making it up, the musical references being around us both in the past and the present as we share what we are doing in a new situation with others who are doing the same but differently and thus continually modifying our own continuum.’

‘In August of 1961, the John Coltrane Quintet played an engagement at the legendary Village Gate in Greenwich Village, New York. Coltrane’s Classic Quartet was not as fully established as it would soon become and there was a meteoric fifth member of Coltrane’s group those nights — visionary multi-instrumentalist Eric Dolphy. Ninety minutes of never-before-heard music from this group were recently discovered at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, offering a glimpse into a powerful musical partnership that ended much too soon. In addition to some well-known Coltrane material (My Favorite Things, Impressions, Greensleeves), there is a breathtaking feature for Dolphy’s bass clarinet on When Lights Are Low, and the only known non-studio recording of Coltrane’s composition Africa, from the Africa/Brass album. This recording represents a very special moment in John Coltrane’s journey — the summer of 1961 — when his signature, ecstatic live sound, commonly associated his Classic Quartet of ‘62 to ‘65, was first maturing. He was drawing inspiration from deep, African sources, and experimenting with doubled-up basses both in the studio (Ole) and on stage. This truly rare recording of Africa captures his expansive vision at the time.’

Luminessence series.

Solo double-bass, recorded in Rio.
Versions of Nardis and Love Theme From Spartacus — two favourites from his time with Bill Evans — plus Eddie Harris’ Freedom Jazz Dance, alongside five Johnson originals.

With Amina Alaoui and Jon Hassell.

His Batagraf percussion project with Helge Norbakken from Jon Hassell’s group (playing djembe, talking drum, sabar, garong) — inspired by Wolof, Yoruba, Cuban, Arab music — with singing and poetry. Check it!