Prince Lasha

Prince Lasha (born Lawsha, Fort Worth, 1929) made his name on the 1962 Contemporary album The Cry! with Sonny Simmons, played on Dolphy's Iron Man and Elvin Jones's Illumination!, spent a period in London, and by the 1970s was releasing his own records on a label called Birdseye. Search For Tomorrow was one of them, first issued in 1975 as Firebirds Live at Berkeley Jazz Festival Vol. II; Enja licensed it in 1982 under the present title.

Berkeley, 1974. Lasha on flute, alto and baritone, with a band far above the label's means: Hubert Eaves on piano, Ron Carter on bass, Roy McCurdy on drums, Kenneth Nash on percussion. Three pieces. For the Child and the title track fill side one; Mayflower, at over sixteen minutes, is side two.

London Jazz Collector, who wrote the record up in 2024, notes that the Birdseye originals surfaced rarely and sold for very little, and that Lasha largely left music in the 1970s for real estate. Scott Yanow's AllMusic note on the companion Inside Story calls him one of the best flautists of the avant-garde period. He died in Oakland in 2008.

Japanese CD edition from Solid's Enja Real Jazz Classics series.