Jazz Recommendations April 2013

Review: This compilation of obscure, rare and little-known French jazz was put together by the people behind the Digger's Digest online store - record dealers with a particularly deep knowledge of weird, wonderful and frankly rather expensive avant garde European music. Listening to the selections, you can tell. Seriously, only the most dusty-fingered Gallic jazz-heads will have come across any of the tracks before. Stylistically it gives a good overview of trends in French jazz from the late 1960s to early 1980s, taking in spiritual jazz, free jazz, modal, hard-bop and Caribbean flavours. Picking out individual highlights is tough, though today we're mostly enjoying the haunting flutes and clarinets of Michel Rocques' "Ricardo" and Rupture's gorgeous "Israel Suite".