Marion Brown

Featuring: Rashied Ali

condition (disc/cover): EX / EX+

1965, New York: Marion Brown's leader debut on ESP-Disk', recorded in the immediate orbit of Ascension - Brown was on that session, hand-picked by Coltrane himself, and this quartet date carries the same season's charge while revealing a completely different temperament. Where others screamed, Brown sang: the alto lines are burning but lyrical, the freedom always melodic at its core, the intensity achieved through concentration rather than volume - a path through the new music that too few followed and that sounds wiser every decade. The band digs in behind him with the hungry commitment that marks all the great mid-sixties ESP dates, when the label was simply handing the movement a microphone and stepping back. This is the gentle radical of the new thing announcing himself, with a catalog number collectors of the label know by heart.

CD edition, the convenient way to own a foundational document. One of the great debuts of the era, still underrated, still perfect.