One of the missing pieces from 2020 music is the always forward-looking and philosophically probing Vision festival, a New York institution that has been directed musically by the great bassist William Parker and often features the exemplary presence of New Orleans elder, tenor saxophonist Kidd Jordan. Both of those players worked together on last year’s Garden Party album under the leadership of master drummer Alvin Fielder. The record was made in New Orleans and turned out to be Fielder’s final project before his death.

Fielder, born in Meridian Mississippi, moved to New Orleans where he studied drumming with Ed Blackwell. After moving to Chicago he played with Sun Ra in 1959 and 1960 and went on to be a founding member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. After moving back to Mississippi, he joined forces with Kidd Jordan in 1975, with the two appearing together frequently at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

The 2019 Vision festival included a tribute to Fielder that brought Jordan and Parker together again along with drummer Hamid Drake and pianist Joel Futterman, another longtime associate of Fielder’s. Their 45-minute set was a transcendent exercise in musical meditation that seemed to elevate the players up from the stage at points. I usually take notes during shows but at this performance I could only sit there and let the music—such a powerful tribute to a departed friend—flow through me. I felt cleansed after it ended. It’s a great benefit to have this recording available so I can go back and re-listen to what happened that night. All four players were on some kind of supernatural plane of understanding, often engaged in total free blowing simultaneously yet completely in each other’s orbits. Jordan in particular played from the deepest well of his soul on every register of his tenor—from the highest pitched shrieks and squalls, through the hot summer day of his mid-range, to the depths where mortality and consciousness meet, mingle and take their separate ways.

“I realize I’m on my way out,” said Jordan when the set concluded. “If I never play again, I had a ball tonight. As they say, I’ve had my fun if I don’t get well no more.”