Lasse Marhaug - Actions for Free Jazz (2021)

AFJ-Series is short for Actions For Free Jazz. This was the slogan for Smalltown Superjazzz, borrowed at the time from Don Cherry & Penderek's The New Eternal Rhythm Orchestra track “Actions For Free Jazz Orchestra” from the 1971 album “Actions”. AFJ Series will be a series and a subsidiary label within the Smalltown Supersound label. The inspiration for the label is BYG Actuel, Incus, Freedom and ESP-Disk.

AFJ-Series is proud to release this compilation which features music from 40 releases, spanning almost 20 years on Smalltown Supersound, Superjazzz and the AFJ-series. The idea with the compilation is to bring the Superjazzz era into the AFJ-Series, but also to leave it behind - and start fresh. A requiem and rebirth combined. The idea came from Mats Gustafsson and was inspired by the famous 1964 ESP Disk sampler, which with its hard edit approach has become a classic in its own right.

The task of selecting, editing and structuring the material was given to Lasse Marhaug, who has been part of the Smalltown family for more than 20 years. Marhaug spent months plowing through the entire catalogue, and while the main goal was to give a total overview of Smalltown's wide range of releases in the improvised/jazz/free music field, Marhaug's choices and juxtapositions almost plays as a new piece of music.

So here it is – 40 tracks of total freedom. Or the universality in music of improvisation as Derek Bailey called it.