was formed from the ashes of Uprising Records by Mike Khoury. Mike started the label in 1997 to make available some of the most important creative music recordings of our time. The label’s goal is to feature work by creative musicians that might not be heard otherwise. The goal is to feature music by improvisational, jazz, free jazz, and challenging music from different artists with diverse backgrounds and experiences. Several people help and have helped to elevate Entropy Stereo Recordings to it’s current status. Ben Bracken designed the logo, contributed layout work, and played guitar on ESR003. Chris Khoury maintains the web page and has contributed layout and design work. Mike Johnston contributes artwork, coordination of the production, photography, engineering, and plays bass on several Entropy Stereo Recordings. Tim O’Brien has contributed mastering and engineering to several Entropy Stereo Recordings. Mark Rudolph and Mike Thoresen have contributed layout and design work.

Please browse through the Entropy Stereo Recordings catalogue by clicking on any of the following covers for more details…

Since Faruq passed away last spring

we’ve received a lot of email sent through our web site from friends and fans of Faruq. The most obvious thing is how deeply Faruq touched peoples lives through his uncompromising personality and musical path. In all of the exchanges with different people a few videos of performances turned up. We wanted to share a couple of pieces that feature Faruq in top form. We also selected pieces that we have quality multitrack recordings of. We mixed the pieces to stereo and Tim O’Brien synchronized them with the videos and prepared them for you tube. The sound quality is excellent on these. “Memories” is from a concert in 2003 at Central Michigan University Library Auditorium. The version is different than the released version on “Asharai Pattern”. Faruq subtly quotes a couple of Tranes lines from a Love Supreme in his solo. Nate Grambeau filmed this tune with a friend using 3 cameras and painstakingly edited it together.

Faruq Z. Bey – tenor  |Mike Carey – tenor | Mike Gilmore – vibes  | Mike Johnston – bass | Nick Ashton – drums

“Vines” was filmed in the fall of 2003 at Delta College.

Tim O’Brien was recording the concert live and set up a small cam corder in the balcony and captured a few pieces. We seldom ever determined solo order for our performances and recordings. Faruq takes 3 solos (counting the intro) during this version of “Vines” ( a different version than was released on “Auzar”). It was rare for anyone to ever take more than 1 solo on a piece.

Faruq Z. Bey – tenor (right) | Mike Carey – tenor (center) | Skeeter C. R. Shelton – tenor (left) | Mike Gilmore – marimba | Mike Johnston – bass | Nick Ashton– drums