Recorded for Futura in the spring of 1971 — soon after the veteran saxophonist arrived in Paris — with his spar Art Taylor and local musicians including Siegfried Kessler.
Singer came up through numerous swing bands, and then team-ups with bop luminaries like Don Byas and Roy Eldridge, before joining Duke Ellington’s orchestra.
A long look back, blues and news, keenly open to the new thing, this is superb, generous, upful jazz — with dashes of modal, r&b, swing, soul jazz — book-ended by tributes to his time with James Brown. It’s My Thing is JB by way of Cannonball; the limber, extended, new version of Malcolm X, with Kessler whipping up a storm, is simply unmissable.
“I get something out of listening to Coltrane, Shepp and Coleman; I’m really pleased that young players are trying to change things. If they go back to the roots and come up with something new, that’s fantastic.”