His second ESP, one year after the Trio date, offering ‘passionate explorations of four of his originals, plus Jones’ The Lady. Rather intense at times, these emotional performances still sound groundbreaking three decades later. One of Frank Wright’s finest recordings’ (AllMusic).
Intriguing quartet, with Jacques Coursil and FW’s Cleveland homie Arthur Jones — two BYG mainstays in the making — and bassist Steve Tintweiss and Muhammad Ali both on fire.

The Norwegian-American guitarist — sparsely beautiful — with trumpeter Mathis Eick, and the great drummer Jon Christensen, amongst others.

The jazz organist’s masterpiece — with Woody Shaw, Joe Henderson and Elvin Jones in 1965.
Young’s playing is steeped in the new thing — especially JC — but pulsating, intense, and sparking with a restless, propulsive creativity which would lead him to collaborations with Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana, Bitches-Brew Miles and co, in just a few years time.
Three brilliant compositions by Shaw — including The Moontrane, and an arrangement of Kodaly — a Joe Henderson, a Monk, and Hammerstein and Romberg’s Softly As A Morning Sunrise.

Wow!
Newly discovered radio recordings by the great jazz organist, from 1964-5, alongside Nathan Davis (at the same time as Happy Girl), Woody Shaw, Billy Brooks and co.
Fifteen minute versions of Talkin’ About JC and Wayne Shorter’s Black Nile; twenty minutes of Shaw’s Zoltan (for Bartok’s mate Kodaly)... Luny Tune… Mean To Me…
Handsomely presented, too, with an excellent, 67-page booklet.

‘With a new lineup including multi-instrumentalists Kwake Bass and Wu-Lu, who are also the producers and arrangers. Horns, played by Soothsayers’ founders saxophonist Idris Rahman and trumpeter Robin Hopcraft, are included on just two of the ten tracks…
‘McFarlane’s spellbinding, crystalline voice continues to be acoustically recorded and reproduced and the primary focus of attention. Her lyrics, as before, are strong on message and relate to the experience of being a black person in Britain, touching on race, identity and the legacy of colonialism.
‘McFarlane’s performances aside, what binds Arise and Songs of An Unknown Tongue together is her embrace of her Jamaican heritage. What makes them distinct from each other is how that heritage is referenced in the material, lyrically and instrumentally. Born and brought up in London, McFarlane made an extended trip to Jamaica in 2018, when she penetrated further into the country’s folk culture and spiritual traditions than she had been able to do on previous, shorter visits. She devoted much of her time to researching the African-derived rhythms that shape the country’s folk music. On her return to London she worked with Wu-Lu and Kwake Bass to present them in a modern electro-acoustic context…
‘It looks forward to a brighter future while acknowleding the past and confronting present. It is deep, immaculately crafted and beautiful.’
(Chris May, All About Jazz).

‘In an age when any old modal groove with a tambura drone pasted on is marketed as spiritual jazz, Kingsport, Tennessee born Zoh Amba is the real deal…
‘Opening track Fruit Gathering is a brief aubade to the Holy Spirit, weeping with a tremulous vulnerability recalling Ayler at his most tender and melodic… On the album’s more expansive tunes, her quartet plugs into the tumultuous swells and raging energy of late 1960s US free jazz exemplified by players such as Frank Wright and Noah Howard, which built on the intensity of John Coltrane’s later, spiritually driven exhortations. Here, Amba pushes past low, guttural blasts to altissimo shrieks and the screaming multiphonics pioneered by Pharaoh Sanders during his tenure with Coltrane.
‘On Champa Flower, Amba connects with her Tennessee roots, picking and strumming at an acoustic guitar while cymbals shimmer and bass throbs. Joining the dots between folk, American primitive, pastoral psychedelia and 2000s free folk, she proposes an alternative living continuum of American devotional music. Most affecting, though, are the three solo meditations on which she plays piano with her right hand and sax with her left. Captured in lo-fi on a Zoom recorder, and ending abruptly as though suddenly out of batteries, they’re intimate glimpses of a soul in motion’ (Daniel Spicer, The Wire).