Now that the legendary ESP-Disk label—home to Albert Ayler, Sun Ra, the Fugs, and a host of other mavericks in the mid-’60s—is back up and running, we’re getting the added treat of previously unreleased material from the artists that defined the label’s aesthetic. One such artist was Frank Wright, a tenor saxophonist following in the footsteps of his mentors Ayler and Coltrane but coming at free jazz from a different angle. Where most of the first wave of free musicians grew out of the sophistication of bebop and post-bop, applying their technical expertise to less restrictive forms, Frank Wright’s roots were in blues, R&B and the church. Growing up in Mississippi and then Cleveland, Wright played bass in blues bands changing to the saxophone as an adult under Ayler’s influence. The big difference this yields is a rawness and soulful character out of the blues and an ecstatic sense of abandon directly rooted in the rituals of sanctified gospel—both the singing and the preaching.

Wright’s two ESP albums are vivid documents of free jazz played like soul music, virtually a garage-rock approach to jazz. Now we have this newly-released concert from 1974 of Wright’s quartet (also known at times collectively as Center of the World) with pianist Bobby Few, bassist Alan Silva, and drummer Muhammad Ali (Rashied’s brother) burning away at full steam like the sky was about to open up and God himself was going to personally welcome them all in to the Kingdom. It’s wild, unfettered playing like you rarely hear anymore, with Few laying down endless ivory cascades like a Cecil Taylor-Jerry Lee Lewis fight, Ali churning and splashing, Silva sawing the horsehairs off his bow. All the while, Wright goes for total lift-off (using tenor, soprano, Beefheart-ish bass clarinet, even his voice). Music like this is often considered to be very of-its-time, but it can be new to you, and this type of joyous explosion can still speak to us now. Maybe moreso.