condition (records/cover): NM / EX+

Gatefold sleeve.

The odd item out, and the one whose presence on a krautrock shelf needs a word of explanation. This is a live document of the Heidelberg jazz festival, issued the following year by MPS, the Black Forest label that was West Germany's great jazz institution. The bill is straight modern jazz and big band: the Kurt Edelhagen orchestra with Benny Bailey aboard, the Art Farmer quartet, Michael Naura, and Association P.C., the last of these a hinge between worlds, since Pierre Courbois's group was pushing jazz toward rock at the very moment Can and Embryo were pushing rock toward jazz.

That overlap, more than any genre label, is the reason it belongs here. Recorded live and mastered with the clarity MPS built its name on.