Jeff Clyne, Ian Carr

The quartet of Ian Carr, Jeff Clyne, John Stevens and Trevor Watts - encounter here in their only recorded document, is among the most important gestures in the history of British free jazz. Issued in 1969, but recorded three years earlier, Springboard  offers a window into the origins of an entire movement - the flowering of change within a music in geographies not its own. Free jazz always had a more receptive audience in Europe than in America. It’s not surprising that indigenous realisations quickly sprang up across the continent. Players in Great Britain - with class war embedded deep in social realities, immediately drew connections between the struggles at the heart of this music’s America origins, harnessed it potential, and set forth a wild sea of sound. Across nearly all of its geographic realisations, this is the great precursor of punk - a fact which is easily observed across both sides of Springboard - an album far ahead of its time. Falling within the polarities charted by Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler - shifting from wild frenetic interplay, and deeply sorrowful and soulful passages, the ensemble establishes a territory yet to be heard. Brittle, sharp, and incredibly thoughtful - its compositions respond and jut forward in wondrous conversation. Almost completely overlooked when it first emerged, it’s one of the rarest documents in the canon of British free jazz, making this pressing an event to celebrate for the brief moment we have it in our hands.