Free Jazz Quartet

Memories for the Future is a live set by the Free Jazz Quartet. In this group drummer Eddie Prévost played with trombonist Paul Rutherford, reed player Harrison Smith and cellist Tony Moore. Recorded at a Bristol concert in 1992, it surfaced on Matchless many years later as the band's second CD after Premonitions. It is also one of the last documents of Rutherford in a jazz-based setting.

According to Michael Rosenstein, the four first got together in 1988 to play conversational, polyphonic improvisations driven by Prévost's drumming. Smith had worked with Mike Osborne, Kenny Wheeler and Chris McGregor and in the South African inspired group District Six. Moore's interests reach into collaborations with dancers and visual artists. The eight pieces, from A Fertile Valley to Blurring of Boundaries, move on a relaxed free swing. Rutherford brings wry phrasing and blues bluster laced with acrobatic smears. Smith answers with a more considered, open melodicism, and the contrast between the two horns shapes the whole set. Moore's cello shifts between propulsion and linear counterpoint, bringing out the rhythmic detail of Prévost's hyperactive kit. In the liner notes Brian Morton reads the word "for" in the title as a conscious decision to store something up for later use. He recalls that the titles on Premonitions were all cast as warnings, and that each player later took a step away from jazz: Prévost into writing, Moore into the visual arts. Reviewing the disc in Paris Transatlantic in 2010, Rosenstein called it "a vital reminder of what a great player Paul Rutherford was".

Issued by Matchless Recordings as MRCD 76 on CD in 2009, recorded in concert at St George's Brandon Hill, Bristol, in 1992, with liner notes by Brian Morton.