Deep in the Stacks: Your Daily Jazz LP Podcast
Every day, Danny from Kissa Kissa -- the Japanese-style jazz vinyl bar in Crown Heights, Brooklyn -- pulls one album from the stacks and tells you who made it, why it matters, and what to listen for. Three minutes, one record you need to hear. Calendar-driven picks tied to recording dates and artist birthdays, plus deep cuts from the Kissa Kissa collection.
Deep in the Stacks: Your Daily Jazz LP Podcast
Live At Slugs' Volume 1 & 2 — Music Inc. (Strata-East, 1972)
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On this date, in nineteen seventy, trumpeter Charles Tolliver led his Music Inc quintet into Slugs' saloon on the Lower East Side for what would become one of the most important live recordings in avant-garde jazz history. This is Deep in the Stacks. Today's album live at Slug's Volume one and two by Music Inc. Slugs was the kind of after hours club where the real music happened, a cramped basement dive on East Third Street where musicians went to stretch out after their uptown gigs ended. Charles Tolliver had been making waves in the late sixties with Freddie Hubbard and Jackie McLean, but by 1970 he was ready to lead his own revolutionary unit. Music Inc. featured Stanley Cowell on piano, Steve Novazell on bass, Jimmy Hopps on drums, and Nathan Davis on saxophone, five musicians committed to pushing jazz into uncharted territory. The Strata East label, co-founded by Tolliver and Cowell, would release this double album in '72 as their flagship statement. This wasn't just another live recording, it was documentation of a new movement captured in the sweaty intimacy of New York's most uncompromising jazz room. The energy that night was electric, with the quintet feeding off the crowd's intensity and the room's legendary acoustics. Start with Peace with Myself, where Tolliver's compositional vision becomes immediately clear. Notice how the ensemble creates space within complexity, building tension through collective improvisation rather than traditional solo comping structures. That's the music ink sound, structured freedom, where every voice matters equally. Cowell's piano work throughout this set redefined what rhythm section playing could be, moving beyond accompaniment into full partnership. When they shift into on the Nile, you hear how they've absorbed everything from hard bop to free jazz and synthesized it into something entirely their own. The recording quality captures every detail. Live at Slugsval 1 and 2 by Music Inc. The sound of avant garde jazz finding its voice in the most honest venue possible. I'm Danny from Kissakissa in Brooklyn. Go put on a record. We'll see you tomorrow.