From August 1965, pitched between the sessions for Song For My Father and Cape Verdean Blues. Both classic numbers are here, in scorching renditions. Twenty-year-old Woody Shaw announces himself in fine style on the helter-skelter opener Kicker. Joe Henderson plays a blinder in Silver’s shows around this time, gloriously cutting loose on the hits. You need this LP plus the Ezzthetics CD Live New York Revisited, which dovetails nicely. Hot stuff.

‘Classic Vinyl’ series.

Home Cookin’, Crazy! Baby, Midnight Special, Back At The Chicken Shack, Softly As A Summer Breeze.

With Jaki Byard, Richard Williams, and Elvin Jones at Van Gelder’s in 1965 — a wildly brilliant mixture of homage and experimentation, New Orleans manzello, noise, Middle Eastern vibes, modal grooving… Unmissable.

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’.

His only recording for Verve, from 1967. Check the lineup: Lonnie Liston Smith, Ronnie Boykins, and Grady Tate. This is where Kirk starts to get his groove on. Next stop, Blacknuss. Terrific version of Alfie.

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.