‘There are relatively few places where members of the two great Arkestras — Ra’s and Tapscott’s — cross paths… As you might expect from such a line-up, Voyage From Jericho does not have a wasted note. Every light is most definitely on, the band are running hot, and the spirits are live in the set. Tyler’s compositions are ruggedly carved, heraldic and open; he leads on baritone, sculpting the songs, growling out blue-flamed multi-phonics, the flow in full spate. Boykins steps lightly with his familiar elasticity and glowing presence; Blythe and Cross duck and weave, and Reid clatters and baffles, following and leading, echoing and supporting, always right there in his sui genesis super-precision time-beyond-time. Top-tier fire music.’ (Francis Gooding, The Wire)

The Alabama-born saxophonist and clarinettist in 1966, with Sonny Sharrock, Byard Lancaster, Clifford Thornton, Karl Berger, Henry Grimes and co.

Scientist, Roots Radics.

Terrific big band music from 1970. What a lineup— built around a core of Tolliver, Stanley Cowell, Cecil McBee and Jimmy Hopps, but also featuring all-time greats like Clifford Jordan, Jimmy Heath and Curtis Fuller.

The first album in thirteen years by this great trumpeter (and founder of Strata East).
A quintet — with US veterans Jesse Davis, Keith Brown, Buster Williams and Lenny White — joined by Binker Moses on a couple of cuts.

The great trumpeter with Cecil McBee, Stanley Cowell, and Jimmy Hopps, at Slugs’ nightclub in New York City, on May 1 1970.
‘Tolliver, McBee and Cowell (in that order) each contribute a composition to this superb, compelling set; though very much distinct, each is equally strong. Drought is the kind of dark-hued, well-honed burner which Tolliver routinely produced in his fertile years. Felicite is a more contemplative affair, a deeply felt and empathically performed piece. The unit here is in particularly sublime form, merging considerable skill with a staggering emotion. Orientale falls somewhere in between the pace of the two, with Cowell’s Eastern scales establishing an austere, industrious tone throughout its seventeen-and-a-half minutes.’

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.

Dawn Le Faun with Billy Le Bon, co-singers of The Letting Go and Wai Notes, digging up a modern(ish) parable from deep in their Everlys sack, afore getting down and sliding around on the flip.

Ace version of The Stylistics’ smash.

Legendary, underground French rock from 1980, ranging from lo-fi fuzz to full-blown prog. Each song is presented as the hallucination of a possessed six-year-old. Featuring the fourteen-minute Theme Guerre.

Horse Sacrifice was performed on Danish TV in 1970, as a protest against the Vietnam War.
It hinges on a haunting, fragile song entitled My Dead Horse, with Lene Adler Pedersen accompanied by Bjørn Nørgaard on piano, and HC on violin. This beautiful, sad lullaby is as simple, precious and unusual as anything in Christiansen’s output. Previously unreleased.