Free Jazz and Improvisation on LP and CD 1965-2024 is a hefty volume detailing a monumental research project from Johannes Rød that will be regarded as a major contribution to the documentation of improvised music.
Described by Swedish jazz giant and 'discaholic' Mats Gustafsson as 'a deep well of knowledge and music', the book spans six decades of adventurous sound, reaching into avant-garde, experimental composition, spiritual jazz, abstract electronic work and noise. It also maps 185 labels central to this history.
The book runs to almost 400 pages with almost pages of colour art and sleeve imagery. Forewords come from Mats Gustafsson and Joakim Haugland of Smalltown Supersound, who frames free jazz as a core structural influence on the label’s identity.
Smalltown Supersound, 386pp, 23cm x 17cm, illustrated paperback, 2025