It’s a Christmas album but fear ye not. It’s from the same six months as How Insensitive and Now Hear This, with Airto running between these sessions and the recording of Bitches Brew. Try the grooving opener, with DP alternating on piano and celeste.

‘Classic Vinyl’ series.

‘Classic Vinyl Series.’

Funky soul jazz from 1969, featuring guitarist Melvin Sparks, and including covers of Knock On Wood and Twenty-Five Miles.

With Freddie Hubbard trumpet, Herbie Hancock piano, Ron Carter bass, Joe Chambers drums. 1965. Miles Smiles kind of thing.

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’.

‘Classic Vinyl’ series.

‘Classic Vinyl’ series.

‘Classic Vinyl.’

‘Classic Vinyl Series.’

1964 masterwork with Freddie Hubbard, Herbie, Elvin Jones and Ron Carter, tersely melding avant, modal and bop. “Wild flowers and strange, dimly-seen shapes… I was thinking of things like witch burnings, too.”

‘Classic Vinyl.’