Record Store Day Black Friday 2025 Preview: Jazz & Blues

Welcome to The Vinyl Cut’s first installment of our preview of Record Store Day’s Black Friday 2025 event, which comes to independent record stores on—you guessed it—Black Friday (that’s Friday, November 28). We’re going to help you make heads and tails of all the vinyl that’s dropping that day, and look, let’s just get this out of the way: We know that some folks looove to grumble about Record Store Day and all the early-morning lines and online flippers that come with it.

Those folks are tiresome and wrongheaded. The fact of the matter is that every April and November, a ridiculously large batch of records come out—some in frustratingly limited editions, some on silly picture discs or zoetropes, and some containing music so unfathomably obscure that it’s a miracle it’s getting released at all. But every single time, something magical either makes its debut foray on vinyl or gets reissued after being unobtainium for decades, offering new ears to hear wonderful things for the very first time. It’s only a consumer event superficially; far more significantly, it can be an incredibly educational and meaningful event for people who take their music discovery seriously. So screw the grumblers—we support Record Store Day, just as we support all the independent record stores who depend on it.

With each installment of this preview series, we’ll be covering a specific genre or three (although some genres, like rock, will probably require multiple newsletters). We’re kicking off with all of the jazz and blues titles coming out on Black Friday. So yeah, lots more to come—and check out the full lineup on the Record Store Day site—but here’s what fans of jazz and blues (and those who are curious about learning more about jazz and blues) can look forward to. NL

JAZZ

Albert Ayler with Don Cherry: Europe ’64 (Org Music)

The material on this 4-LP set has been released in various official and unofficial ways over the years, perhaps most notably on Holy Ghost, a massive 10-CD set from 2004 that was issued on John Fahey’s peerless Revenant imprint. Europe ’64, though, is the first time these recordings—including a live performance at Copenhagen’s Cafe Montmartre and a session made for VARA Radio in the Netherlands—have been collected together for a vinyl release. According to Org Music, the audio has been remastered, which should only amplify the power and daring of Ayler and Cherry bouncing their dissonant squawks off the rubbery foundation constructed by drummer Sunny Murray and bassist Gary Peacock. This is a limited “RSD First” release, which means a regular release should follow in the coming months. RH

Larry Coryell & the Eleventh House: Riviera ’76 [Culture Factory]

In July 1976, one of the producers of Woodstock threw a jazz-rock festival at a racetrack in Le Castellet in the south of France. Called Riviera ’76, it actually took place a few miles from the coast but drew crowds of anywhere between 100,000 and 300,000, depending on whose account you believe. Jazz-fusion guitarist Larry Coryell played a set with his outfit the Eleventh House, and a recording of it was discovered in the “French Radio Archives,” according to the obi from Culture Factory. Judging by the track listing, my guess is that it starts off with three solo guitar performances by Coryell, followed by some full-band material, which’ll naturally be fusion-y as all get-out. Culture Factory has seen fit to release much of Coryell’s classic material on Record Store Days past, but in my experience their pressings have been really hit or miss. This one comes on “crystal clear” vinyl and should be worth investigating, since it’s a recording that’s not available anywhere else. Maybe we’ll get lucky. NL

Miles Davis: Live at the Plugged Nickel: December 23, 1965 - Set Two [Legacy Recordings]

Miles’s legendary run at Chicago’s Plugged Nickel jazz club has been released in several configurations over the years, initially as a pair of double albums for Japan in 1976 and then eventually as a comprehensive box set that captured all seven sets of the two-night stand. It made an appearance as a 10-LP vinyl set on Mosaic Records in 1995, and this January, Sony/Legacy is reissuing the whole kit and caboodle on vinyl once again as part of the Miles Davis Centennial. This 2-LP release, capturing one of the sets in its entirety, serves as a mere taster, so completists with cash to burn may want to cool their jets until January. What’s here is dynamite improvisation from Davis’s second great quintet, which included Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock, and Tony Williams—a supergroup in retrospect. The musicians are all truly playing on the edge, continually working themselves out of their comfort zones to uncover constant surprises in the material. The box set and this RSD preview are cut from “the high-res Mosaic masters,” which means these won’t be all-analog, I’m afraid. NL

The Descendants of Mike and Phoebe: A Spirit Speaks [Strata-East]

The good people at Mack Avenue have been doing the yeoman’s work of getting the catalog of Strata-East, the spectacular New York jazz label started in the ’70s by Charles Tolliver and Stanley Cowell, back on record store shelves. Much of these efforts have been to get the vast catalog mastered for digital release, but several key titles have also been reissued on CD and vinyl, including the recent repress of Pharaoh Sanders’ head-spinning 1973 album Iphio Zam (My Gifts). For Black Friday, the label is issuing 1974’s A Spirit Speaks, an LP by the Descendants of Mike and Phoebe, an ensemble led by bassist Bill Lee (father of filmmaker Spike Lee) and incorporating contributions from his brother Cliff on flugelhorn and sisters Consuela Lee Moorhead on piano and vocalist A. Grace Lee Mims. The album is a hidden spiritual-jazz gem influenced by John Coltrane’s furious explorations and the righteous post-bop of Sanders and Chick Corea. An “RSD First” release, presumably with a standard release to come next year. RH

Bill Evans: Portraits at the Penthouse: Live in Seattle [Resonance]

The treasure trove of recordings made at Seattle jazz club the Penthouse for radio broadcast continues to yield sonic delights via this much-anticipated LP, produced by the indefatigable Zev Feldman. The music was captured during two dates of Bill Evans’s multi-night stand at the venue in May 1966, and is among the earliest recordings of the pianist working with his longtime bassist Eddie Gomez. And—according to journalist Marc Myers, who wrote the liner notes for this release—it’s one of the only recordings of Evans performing with Eddie Hunt, the drummer who only stayed with the trio for a few months. As with all Resonance’s archival releases, this should no doubt sound spectacular, as the tapes were restored and mastered by Matthew Lutthans at the Mastering Lab in Salina, Kansas. RH

Charlie Haden: Live at the Jazz Record Mart [Delmark]

As of this writing, details about this release are scant. What we do know is that this LP features a solo bass performance by the late, great Charlie Haden that went down at Chicago venue Jazz Record Mart, recorded by Ken Christianson, one of the musician’s close friends and co-founder of Chicago audiophile haven Pro Musica Audio Specialists. With that kind of pedigree and with the careful hand of Haden’s son Josh overseeing the production of this release, all signs are pointing to this being a little gem of the RSD Black Friday lineup. An “RSD First” release. RH

Jazz Sabbath: Live [Blacklake]

There’s been no shortage of Black Sabbath gimmick bands (pass the ketchup, Mac Sabbath), and Jazz Sabbath initially joined that club by pretending to be a jazz combo from the ’60s that Sabbath then ripped off. Of course, Sabbath/Ozzy touring keyboardist Adam Wakeman was revealed to be behind the prank, and now Jazz Sabbath have three albums of Sabbath covers under their belt, delivered in more or less straightforward jazz or jazz-adjacent arrangements. For Black Friday, they’re releasing a double-disc live album recorded at Paradox Tilburg in the Netherlands. It’s an orange vinyl “RSD First” edition that should be followed by a standard pressing in future months. NL

Rahsaan Roland Kirk: Seek & Listen: Live at the Penthouse and Vibrations in the Village: Live at the Village Gate [Resonance]

Among the impressively stacked lineup for RSD Black Friday releases, this might be the pair of titles I’m looking forward to hearing most. Both are live recordings of spiritual jazz titan Rahsaan Roland Kirk working at the peak of his considerable powers. Seek & Listen is, once again, culled from the archives at Seattle jazz venue the Penthouse, where Kirk held court in August 1967, backed up by a razor-sharp ensemble that included drummer Jimmy Hopps and pianist Ron Burton. Vibrations was recorded four years earlier at the New York jazz hub the Village Gate, with a murderer’s-row rhythm section made up of bassist Henry Grimes and drummer Sonny Fortune. As with the Bill Evans reissue, the audio for these two releases was mastered by Matthew Lutthans at the Mastering Lab and the vinyl was pressed at Le Vinylist in Quebec, Canada. RH

Yusef Lateef: Golden Flower: Live in Sweden [Elemental]

As a jazz fan, it is a constant source of joy to know that there are rare recordings of some of the greatest players of all time still being found in the wild. This RSD release, for example, highlights two never-before-released performances by multi-instrumentalist Yusef Lateef captured on tape by the engineers at Swedish Radio. One disc comes from a 1967 performance by Lateef at Mosebacke, a theater in Stockholm, with a pair of locals (pianist Lars Sjösten and bassist Palle Danielsson) and his pal, drummer Albert “Tootie” Heath, while the second disc features a 1972 set from the Åhus Jazz Festival featuring Heath, pianist Kenny Barron, and bassist Bob Cunningham. Yet again, Matthew Lutthans restored and mastered the audio from the original tape reels at the Mastering Lab. An “RSD First” release. RH

Longineu Parsons: Longineu Parsons [Luv N’ Haight]

Self-released in 1980, the debut album as a bandleader by trumpeter Longineu Parsons has lately become a grail for rare groove and jazz collectors. For good reason, too. The seven tracks run the gamut from dizzy spiritual jazz to Latin-tinged funk grooves that would mesh well with some of Santana’s best work in a DJ set. Somehow this disc has never been officially reissued, apart from a few tracks appearing on a compilation released by Luv N’ Haight in 1999. Blessedly, the folks at that Ubiquity-associated imprint have worked with Parsons on a fresh vinyl re-release of this gem, with the trumpeter remixing the material from the original master tapes. RH

Lester Young: Lester Leaps In: Live at Birdland 1951–1952 [Liberation Hall]

According to the notes for this release, these live dates by bop saxophonist Lester Young, performing at vaunted New York jazz venue Birdland, were apparently recorded for ABC Radio’s program Jumpin’ with Symphony Sid. But as original tapes of those shows were, I’m assuming, lost to the world, Liberation Hall is making do with a bootleg. The footnote on the Bandcamp page says it comes from a “high-quality audience-taped recording,” but from the sound of the one track available to stream as of this writing, it sounds to me as if it could have been taped directly from the radio broadcast. Whatever the provenance of these tapes, it sounds remarkably good, with all the players and some audience reactions coming through as clear as can be. It’s not going to blow your doors off, but it will certainly be a nice addition to your jazz library. An “RSD First” release. RH

Various Artists: Jazz Dispensary: Green Bullets [Craft Recordings]

This might more accurately fall under the “funk” genre, but hey, there’s the word jazz in the title and Dizzy Gillespie’s got a track on it, so we’ll stick it here for sanity’s sake. (Any other Black Friday funk titles will be covered in a future newsletter.) Green Bullets is a comp from Craft’s 420-friendly Jazz Dispensary line, the criteria for which, as far as I can tell, is “jazz and funk that sounds cool when you’re high.” For all intents and purposes, this particular release isn’t anything more than a playlist—and one that you can easily recreate on your streaming service of choice—but it’s a darn fun one, evoking an imaginary ’70s heist movie through a series of boom-chicka funk and silky-smooth disco tracks (Dizzy, we didn’t know you had it in you!). Highlights include “Blackbyrds’ Theme” by the Blackbyrds and a 1976 synth-heavy scorcher by Philly funkers Catalyst, whose 1973 album Perception is getting an all-analog Kevin Gray cut from Craft in November. NL

BLUES

John Lee Hooker: Chill Out [BMG]

Steady now. John Lee Hooker’s album Chill Out isn’t going to make anyone’s list of classic blues recordings, and in fact, at times it’s scarcely blues at all. With guests like Carlos Santana, Van Morrison, and Booker T. Jones, Chill Out is a sort of a mainstream rock thing that probably got Jann Wenner all het up when it originally came out in 1995. (“All that’s missing is Clapton,” Wenner mused.) Hooker sounds bored stiff here, even re-recording “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer” for reasons unknown—a song he had already laid to tape in a classic rendition back in 1966. But on the album’s solo acoustic tracks, such as “Deep Blue Sea” and “Tupelo,” Hooker’s authenticity and grit shine through like lighthouses in the storm, and all is forgiven. To celebrate its 30th anniversary, Chill Out gets its first vinyl release in the US, and it’s “sourced from the original tapes,” a description so vague as to be entirely meaningless. NL

B.B. King: Broadcasting the Blues: Live from Germany and Sweden [Time Traveler]

Any B.B. is good B.B., and previously unreleased B.B. is the exact kind of thing Record Store Day is all about. Zev Feldman’s new Time Traveler label continues its launch with a set that features a pair of live B.B. King gigs unearthed from the archives of European television. The first set was recorded in Cologne on January 19, 1968, with King fronting a five-piece, while the second set features a larger band for a show in Stockholm; there are conflicting reports about what date the Swedish date was recorded, which was either on October 29, 1973 or June 22, 1974. My suspicion is that the 1973 date is when it was recorded and the 1974 date is when it aired, but I don’t have anything to back that theory up. The set comes with liner notes galore (hooray!) and is “transferred from the original tapes and restored and mastered by Matthew Lutthans at The Mastering Lab” (which I take to mean involves a digital step somewhere), with pressing done at Quebec’s Le Vinylist. NL

Charley Patton: The Father of Delta Blues: Selections from Paramount Recordings, Vol. 2 [Org Music]

Following up their first volume of classic Charley Patton recordings, Org Music continues with a second batch: one dozen sides of deep Delta blues recorded between 1929 and 1931 by perhaps the originator of the form—Patton of course went on to be the defining influence on Robert Johnson, Howlin’ Wolf, and countless others. This is the wellspring from which country blues was born, and while these sourced-from-shellac tracks are veritable antiques in terms of recorded sound, they’ve been restored and remastered by Dave Gardner, who did excellent work on the recent Funkadelic reissue. In other words, they should sound as clear and natural as possible, and could well rank as the finest vinyl presentation these recordings have yet received. This is not marked as an “RSD First” release, but Vol. 1 was eventually re-released in a standard edition, so if this sells like hotcakes, you could potentially get your hopes up about Vol. 2 getting a re-release too. NL

Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee: Live from the Ash Grove [Liberation Hall]

Released on CD in 2024 via Liberation Hall, a curious label based in Kingston, Massachusetts, this live recording of longtime musical partners Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee was captured in 1973 at the Ash Grove in Los Angeles. Though it frustratingly begins in medias res, with opening track “Trouble in Mind” fading up already in progress, the set is otherwise crystal-clear, capturing the indelible chemistry between these two players and their virtuosic command of their chosen instruments. This set, which oddly also includes a pair of tracks by the duo from 1965, makes its vinyl bow for RSD Black Friday on purple wax. RH

T-Bone Walker: T-Bone Blues [Rhino]

This 1959 long-player from Texas blues trailblazer T-Bone Walker collects various recordings from 1955 through 1957, but functions as a classic album in its own right, finding the intersection of jump blues, rock ’n’ roll, and the mainstream pop of the day to result in a party-ready record characterized by Walker’s personable voice and no-frills pickin’. Originally released by Atlantic Records, T-Bone Blues has suffered no end of ignominious rip-off pressings in recent years by fly-by-night European labels, but it was recently given the royal treatment by Analogue Productions via an all-analog 45-RPM double disc as part of the Acoustic Sounds/Atlantic 75 series. Now it’s back as a single 33 RPM disc on Rhino, albeit with an accompanying 10-inch record of four additional songs from the period. NL