His two Riverside masterpieces Sunday At The Village Vanguard and Waltz For Debby.
The music sounds better than ever after Ezzthetics’ restoration-work, which removes the accustomed breaks between tracks, so that the concerts unfold continuously and vividly, laced with crowd chatter and clinking glass, and all. You feel like you’re there in the Village Vanguard, in 1961, enraptured. Evans is exquisitely soulful throughout, and the improvisatory trio interplay is famously stunning: check My Man’s Gone Now, featuring Scott LaFaro.
It’s a scorcher. Unmissable.

Three LPs, boldly mapping their own way through Fire Music, with elements of modern classical music and an abstraction of Mingus as their guiding stars: The Archie Shepp-Bill Dixon Quartet, originally released in 1962 on Savoy; the split Bill Dixon 7-Tette / Archie Shepp And The New York Contemporary 5 from 1964, another Savoy, with some ace Ken McIntyre; and the sombre masterpiece Intents And Purposes, by The Bill Dixon Orchestra — devised to accompany contemporary dance, and with some scorching Byard Lancaster — originally released in 1967 by RCA Victor.

While a decent reissue of these two somewhat lesser known albums is certainly welcome, this disc’s main attraction is the inclusion of both sides of an extremely scarce 7” single recorded in Jul 1969 and (for reasons unclear) released by Impulse! in France only. Written to commemorate the Apollo 11 US moon landing that same month, Man On The Moon achieves a suitably futuristic vibe thanks to the contribution of Dr Emmanuel Ghent, a psychologist and pioneer of computer-generated electronic music, here credited with playing ‘electronic devices’.
As drummer Ed Blackwell clatters out an urgent, armour plated free-bop sprint, Ghent’s weird robo-chatters and space whispers meld with Ornette’s alto. Redman’s tenor and Cherry’s trumpet for three frantic minutes. The B side Growing Up is a two minute free ballad with Blackwell lurching around the kit, Haden sawing out a mournful arco and Ornette leading a sweetly wistful call, answered by three-horned responses. A rare cut from the jukebox of your dreams.

The classic Adam’s Apple album from 1965, with Herbie, Reggie Workman, and Joe Chambers, featuring the first time out for Footprints, and the samba dancer El Gaucho. And the questing Super Nova album from 1969, entangled with Miles’ Water Babies, featuring a wigged-out Dindi: three guitarists (John McLaughlin, Sonny Sharrock, Walter Booker) and three percussionists/drummers (Jack DeJohnette, Chick Corea, Airto Moreira), plus Miroslav Vitous.
‘Michael Brändli’s sound restoration and mastering skills take Ezz-thetics’ carefully curated reissues further into exalted territory. Once again, Brändli has woven his magic and for the listener the result is almost like hearing the material for the first time’ (Chris May, AllAboutJazz).

Thornton’s BYG album Ketchaoua: the leader on cornet and percussion, with Grachan Moncur on trombone, Archie Shepp on soprano sax, Arthur Jones on alto, Bob Guerin and Earl Freeman on bass, Sunny Murray on drums, and Dave Burrell on piano.
Plus Arthur Jones’ own Scorpio album, also for BYG in 1969: an excellent, unsung set, new-thing but rooted, with shades of Ornette and ESP, Johnny Hodges and Sonny Rollins.

Strikingly original, still: open and untethered, dreamily ramshackle and provisional, dazzlingly polyphonic.
‘All that is solid melts into air,’ as Marx puts it; ‘all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.’
Tracks 1-4 comprised the eponymous release on ESP in 1964: Roswell Rudd, John Tchicai, Lewis Worrell, Milford Graves, with a walk-on by Leroi Jones (reciting Black Dada Nihilismus).
Tracks 5-9 were released on Fontana the following year, as Mohawk: Roswell Rudd, John Tchicai, Reggie Workman, Milford Graves.

The first time out for recordings in Munich and Helsinki — featuring beautifully succinct renditions of the tunes — plus the Rotterdam concert included in the Holy Ghost box set, all rendered here in the improved quality of sound which is Ezz-Thetics’ raison d’être.

Terrific recordings commemorating three nightclub engagements in 1964-66.
Horace is sparklingly excursive and dead funky; Joe Henderson is grooving, raucous, and reaching. The great Carmell Jones is here, subbed twice by Woody Shaw. Altogether the playing has an immediacy and abandon you only get live.
The repertoire is killer diller; cherry-picked from a string of stone classic LPs — Song For My Father, Tokyo Blues, The Cape Verdean Blues, Six Pieces, and Senor Blues. The sound is superbly restored to the label’s customary high standards by Michael Brändli.

‘Long before his death in 2014, Silver’s reputation had become occluded, or tarnished with the notion that he was a relatively slight figure, more of an entertainer than an innovator… His habit of quoting other songs in his solos, often dismissed as a shallow, crowd-pleasing trick, is a forerunner of sampling culture and hip-hop. It’s also an acknowledgement of how profoundly knowledgeable Silver was about the canon and its evolution. Here’s a line of mine, he might say, and here’s where it came from, but also here and here. His only mistake in this regard was to smile while he was playing… a challenge to the really rather recent notion that jazz should be deadly serious and played with a pained rictus.’

Warmly recommended. Do yourselves a favour.