Anthony Braxton - Paris 10/25/69

I’ve got a couple discs full of little short shows, usually things I was waiting to partner them with, but ended up giving up and compiling them with, hopefully, similar styles. This Braxton clip is a neat 20-30 minute early event, his band in fine form and really communicating here.

Joachim Kuhn - Frankfurt, Deutsches Jazzfestival 1970/3. Concert 3/22/70

By comparison, this short two or three song Kuhn show sounds remarkably traditional jazz in comparison, even pre-hard bop at times. I know Kuhn’s done a lot of more interesting work than this. A good example of messing up a comp disc. :D

Herbie Mann - “Family of Mann” Montreux Jazz Festival 6/19/70 FM

This completely shocked me with its intensity. I’ve got quite a few Mann albums from the same era, most of them build up to a good two or three minute crescendo, often with Sonny Sharrock there to put it over the top, but few of them have Mann himself in this fine of form, and his flute solo has to be one of the coolest I’ve heard. I wonder where the rest of this is?

Magma - FM 1972 (ORTF 3/13/72 + Inter-France 6/72)

I’ve had one or both of these on cassette in the past, they’re both early versions of MDK and are fairly standard at that.

Caravan - “Tor”

A very muddy, almost unlistenably muddy early Caravan show from who knows when, but it sounds like the band’s jamming off of some riff similar to the first album. Due to the sound quality I could have imagined that, only to give myself some idea that it might actually be Caravan playing. It’s that different from what you usually here. Don’t even remember vocals.

National Health - BBC Radio “Agrippa”  2/17/76; “Brujo” 9/21/76; “A Legend in His Own Lunchtime” 11/9/77

I *think* these are leftover tracks that didn’t make it to other fine National Health releases, a couple of them in the pre-first album, Bruford and Hillage era, meaning they’re a bit clockwork-y and not as fluid as later line ups. Still, one can barely complain about anything National Health. (Well there is that one modern remake on the Complete set…)