Raw, blue, and sensational, with Kirk playing the tenor sax, manzello, and stritch simultaneously. Originally released by King in 1956, entitled Triple Threat.

A quartet featuring Andrew Hill, stretching out on selections from Kirk’s recent LPs Domino and We Free Kings. The original WKCR-FM broadcast, properly restored and remastered.

From one of his most creative periods, leading the Vibration Society — Ron Burton, Dick Griffin, Jerome Cooper and co — through one-of-a-kind, freewheeling, radiant wonders like The Inflated Tear (about his going blind) and Volunteered Slavery. Stevie’s My Cherie Amour pops up, trailering next year’s Blacknuss LP.
Kirk called it all ‘black classical music’.

A lovely set from 1965 — taking its own path away from Fire Music, but forwards nonetheless — featuring the under-rated pianist Georges Arvanitas, and the drummer James Black, trumping his brilliant contributions to the Live At Pep’s sessions.
Bamboo Flute Blues and Satie’s First Gymnopedie are ravishing stand-outs.
‘Verve By Request.’

Recorded during a 1983 stint teaching at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, northern Nigeria. ‘Lateef leads a nonet of African musicians in seven compositions that fuse his deep blues and jazz roots with native Nigerian instruments, drums and chants. The sounds stretch from meditative and melancholic to urgent and unrelenting.’
Warmly recommended.

Terrific, uproariously outernational LP from 1969, with Roy Brooks, Kenny Burrell, Blue Mitchell, Hugh Lawson, Sonny Red, Bob Cranshaw, and a very young Cecil McBee. The Sweet Inspirations are in full effect. Besides tenor and flute, Lateef plays bamboo and pneumatic flutes, tamboura and koto.
There’s a rocking blues (Othelia) and a Japanese freakout (Moon Cup). Back Home is a modal wig-out. The soulful eastern sounds of Like It Is are essential Lateef.

A gorgeous reissue of his first LP, from 1957; with Curtis Fuller, Hugh Lawson, Ernie Farrow, Louis Hayes, and Doug Watkins. Beefy, alive, and exploratory, with Lateef’s Eastern trajectory flagged already, in the thrilling argol introduction to the opener, Metaphor. On the flip, Morning is ravishing, unmissable Lateef.

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.

Fresh from his stint for Miles, the saxophonist with Tony Williams, Ron Carter and Jaki Byard in 1964 — meshing the great jazz tradition and the avant-garde in his own path-breaking way.
‘Classic Vinyl Series’.