Mat Walerian, Matthew Shipp, William Parker, Hamid Drake.

Ace jazz-funk — somewhere between Herbie and RTF — originally released in Finland in 1976, on Love. Featuring the almighty jazz-dance classic Grandma’s Rocking Chair (later revisited by Kenny Dope and Ol’ Dirty Bastard), with Olli soloing on Fender Rhodes.

Opening in 1973, tucked into a tangle of railway parts scattered across an industrial park at the western edge of Orlando East, Club Pelican was Soweto’s first night-club, and its premier live music venue throughout the seventies.
Pretty much everyone on the scene passed through its doors — to sing, or perform in the house band, or hang out. Schooled in standards, and fluent in the local musical vernacular, the music would take off in different directions at a moment’s notice — SA twists on jazz, funk, fusion, disco — spurred by the sounds coming in from Philadelphia, Detroit and New York City.
One Night In Pelican encapsulates these halcyon times, with a musical roll call of all the key groups and players, besides evocative, previously-unseen photographs, cover artwork by Zulu ‘Batsumi’ Bidi, and notes by Kwanele Sosibo, lit up by a gallery of first-person testimony.

From the 1968 SABA LP Trip To The Mars, with its nods to library music and post bop, and charged, widescreen atmosphere. Blue Dance is a modal waltz dancer; Milky Way trips out into floating brass harmonies and sensuous solos.

‘A collection of canonical, mature acoustic guitar soli to contrast against the fractured downtown conceits of previous acoustic releases… Jump On It, with its living-room aesthetics and big reverb, packs a disarming intimacy absent from the formal starkness of Orcutt’s earlier acoustic outings… Not quite refuting (yet not quite embracing) the polish of revered watershed records by Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, or Bola Sete, Jump On It treads a path between the raw and the refined… Each track is a key to a memory, a building block in a shining anamnesis leading to the recollection that hey, we’re all humans in a shared cosmos, and music is one way we might make that universe go down easy. And who wouldn’t jump on that?’ (Tom Carter)

‘What really impressed was its precision, its 14 guitar miniatures bringing to mind the cascading melodies of Steve Reich, or Malian kora music… There’s so much going on in these dense constructions, you’re likely to hear new layers and combinations with each spin’ (The Wire, Releases Of The Year).

With Louis Moholo and Harry Miller in 1975.

Contemplative, mysterious excursions in the Russian psalms and folk-songs of the Finno-Ugric diaspora, songs of the Udmurtian, Vepsian and Karelian peoples. Drums, trumpet, piano.

‘A never-before-released recording of a performance in Bochum, Germany, in 1992; in its complete glory, mastered from the original tapes. The storied English drummer leads an intriguing quintet: the trumpeter and flugelhornist Manfred Schoof, whose 1969 FMP LP European Echoes stands as one of the great documents of orchestral improvisation; the American bassist Sirone, from the Revolutionary Ensemble; the saxophonist Larry Stabbins, bringing the versatility and mix of ferocity and buoyancy that he added to diverse projects from Spontaneous Music Ensemble and Peter Brötzmann to Weekend and Working Week; and Pat Thomas on piano and electronics, when he was still a relative newcomer to the British scene, rapidly becoming one of its leading lights and most sought-after collaborators.
‘Oxley drew on this crew’s wide range of orientations for this iteration of Angular Apron — a work combining jazz improvisation with the influence of Xenakis, Ligeti and co — exploiting their extremes of timbre and register, calling on their acuity as listeners, and prodding them with his finely-honed junkshop of metal percussion, with which he detonates the hour-long piece.’

Militant jazz, fusion, funk and soul from mid-seventies Manenberg, outside Cape Town, with a set of roots in club dance traditions like ballroom (‘langarm’), Khoisan hop-step and the whirling ‘tickey draai’ (‘spin on a sixpence’) of the mine camps; others in jazz-rock and the New Thing.

‘The eleventh and final concert recorded by Tom Albach at Immanuel United Church of Christ, here is one of the greatest Arkestra live recordings
‘Brimming with intense energy throughout, it culminates in the 1-2 punch of a blazing Leland’s Song followed by a fragile rendition of Tapscott’s As A Child, featuring Adele Sebastian performing her favorite Tapscott composition.
‘This one is not to be missed.’

‘At the Immanuel United Church of Christ on November 25, 1979. This is the eighth in a series of eleven concerts recorded at the church. This month saw the Arkestra stretching out at blissful heights — the half hour of Carnival is worth the price of admission alone, but the same could be said for the monumental Nation Rising, and the deep take on Roberto Miranda’s Faith. The groove kicks off with Horacio and doesn’t let up the whole concert.’

A stunning complement to Theme De Yoyo!
Panou was an activist and actor, in Paris from Benin; he plays a refuse collector in Jean-Luc Godard’s Weekend. His texts here cross existentialism and Black Power like a knockabout Richard Wright, with an extra shot of anti-colonialism. Recorded by Pierre Barouh for Saravah, in the same months as its classic Comme A La Radio LP with Brigitte Fontaine, furthering the AEC’s rowdily brilliant elaborations of Leroy Jones’ Black Dada Nihilismus.
It’s a scorcher; hotly recommended.

His third LP, fronting a septet in 1996. The women’s extra percussion keeps things bubbling; and AACM stalwart Shelton Salley brings a new edginess, on guitar.
Try the Latin groove of the opener, Psalm 37.