Once again, the Paris based imprint, Souffle Continu, delivers absolute gold with two stunning reissues from the seminal catalog of Futura Records; Michel Portal's 1970 LP ‘Alors!!!’, delivering some of the best archival free jazz we've heard in years, and the American trumpeter Ted Curson’s ‘Pop Wine’, which gracefully traverses the territories of bop and post-bop, free improvisation, and spiritual jazz in ways that feel so strikingly singular that it left us haunted and desperate for more. When it comes to 70s jazz, both are just about as good as it gets.

Over the years since its founding in 2014, we’ve written a lot about the Paris based imprint Souffle Continu. Springing from one of the city’s great outposts of avant-garde and experimental music, nestled away on a side street in the 11th Arrondissement, the label has made serious waves in the landscape of sound, illuminating some of the most remarkable and neglected historical projects to have emerged from France. So far in 2021 they’ve dropped two killer releases from Malagasy and Jef Gilson, as well as a burner from Sylvain Marc and Del Rabenja. Now they’re back with two more stunning reissues from the seminal Futura catalog, the French reed player Michel Portal's ‘Alors!!!’, originally issued in 1970, and the American trumpeter Ted Curson’s ‘Pop Wine’, released the following year. Both are beautiful beyond belief, offering much needed access and attention to crucial, rarely heard artefacts from the heights of the 1970s French jazz scene.

Michel Portal occupies a rare position within the musical history of France. Active for roughly 3/4 of a century, he’s bridged nearly every musical idiom that there is, performing classical chamber music by composers like Mozart, Prokofiev, and Brahms; recording popular music with artists such as Barbara and Serge Gainsbourg; working with seminal avant-garde composers like Karlheinz Stockhausen, Mauricio Kagel, Jean Schwarz, Bernard Parmegiani, and Luciano Berio; and working within the bands of free jazz giants like Jef Gilson, François Tusques, Jacques Thollot, Alan Silva, and Sunny Murray, all the while sculpting an astounding discography of his own work.

‘Alors!!!’, released by Futura Records in 1970, was only the second album to feature Portal as a leader, encountering him joined by an all-star cast of international players; John Surman on saxophones and bass clarinet, Barre Phillips on bass, Stu Martin on drums, and Jean-Pierre Drouet on percussion. Remaining inexplicably obscure since its original release, it also stands among the greatest neglected artefacts of French free jazz ever laid to tape; a towering work, comprising 8 discrete pieces, executed with a rare sense of power, dexterity, and skill - each player responsive and locked into the interventions of the next with pointed precision, seemingly bordering on the omniscient - that sends the jaw spinning toward the floor and the heart and mind gasping for more.

Arguably more than any other of its many attributes, what sets ‘Alors!!!’ apart from the pack is the versatility and range that features across its two sides without sacrificing any sense of coherency. Each improvised composition, guided by a shared sensibility for the rhythmic, feels totemic and independent - a series of free-standing worlds developing in real time, that range from furious hard blown fire to minimal efforts of sprawling texture and ambience - while seamlessly interlocking into a single, fluid narrative that positions each statement into the same logical universe of sound.

Fresh and vibrant as the day it was recorded and rarely heard since, once again Souffle Continu drops an absolute revelation into our midst. It’s almost guaranteed to be the seed for many love affairs to come, not to mention countless hours of pure listening joy.

Not unlike Michel Portal, the American trumpeter, Ted Curson, was an artist of astounding skill and versatility who played with some of the most important figures in 20th century music, but never entirely got the recognition he deserved, despite having created a stunning discography of his own as a leader. Born in Philadelphia during 1935, Curson started playing trumpet at the age of 10, eventually catching the eye of Miles Davis who encouraged him to move to NY in 1956, where he cut his teeth playing in the bands of Cecil Taylor, Charles Mingus, Andrew Hill, and Archie Shepp, as well as alongside Eric Dolphy, and numerous others over the coming decades.

Pop Wine, released by the legendary French imprint, Futura Records, in 1971, falls toward the end of a fairly prolific period of recordings that feature Curson as a leader - begun with 1961’s ‘Plenty of Horn’ - and encountered him playing on numerous legendary recordings by Charles Mingus, Archie Shepp’s Fire Music, and working as a member of the New York Contemporary 5, alongside Shepp, John Tchicai, Don Cherry, Sunny Murray, and Ronnie Boykins.

Alongside 1965's ‘Tears For Dolphy’ - the album for which he is probably best known - ‘Pop Wine’ is arguably Curson’s greatest achievement as a leader. Recorded with an ensemble of lesser known, but incredibly skilled and experienced French players - Jacky Samson on bass, Charles Saudrais on drums, and Georges Arvanitas on piano - the band is locked in across the album’s two sides that gracefully incorporate elements of bop and post-bop, free jazz, and spiritual jazz, dancing between dense clusters of tonal and rhythmic interplay and sweeping moments of trance inducing modalism, as well as intoxicating lines of the ballad Song Of The Lonely One, that leaves little question about why Miles Davis was so impressed by Curson’s horn.

Early 70s jazz at its absolute best, Souffle Continu’s reissue of Ted Curson’s Pop Wine is as welcome as they come. Pure gold from start to finish, may it be the beginning of Curson’s work receiving a bit more of the attention it has always deserved.