Though he’s rarely mentioned by the promoters and guardians of New Orleans culture, free-jazz saxophonist Noah Howard was born and raised here, leaving as a young man for the more receptive shores of the Bay Area’s then-burgeoning creative music scene. Then New York beckoned, and by the late ’60s Howard had recorded two powerful albums for ESP-disk and hooked up with Mississippi native and keeper-of-the-Trane/Ayler-flame Frank Wright to form a potent quartet that took Paris by storm. Wright’s raw testifying was excellent contrast for Howard’s more measured statements and lingering retention of a healthy amount of R&B, which brings us to this session.

Recorded in 1969 and long unavailable The Black Ark is something of a free-jazz holy grail for a number of reasons. For starters, it captures Howard at the peak of his powers, when he mated scorching energy to sizzling grooves without sacrificing the essential qualities of either, and secondly, it contains rare documentation of two of the music’s most elusive and compelling soloists—trumpeter Earl Cross and tenor saxophonist Arthur Doyle.

Cross’ articulate phrasing and clarion tone positively soar over the rhythm section only to be followed by Doyle’s gut-punching onslaughts of nasty grit (imagine those stuck-pig screeches Pharoah Sanders uses to climax a solo—this is where Doyle starts).

The Black Ark is also something of a Southerner ex-pat party—Howard’s from here, Doyle from Alabama, and bassist Sirone from Atlanta—which lends a looser feel to the proceedings than if it had all been New Yorkers on the date. The band is rounded out by pianist Leslie Waldron, drummer Muhammad Ali (also of Wright’s quartet) and conga player Juma Santos, who played with Hendrix at Woodstock the same year as this session. Undoubtedly one of the reissues of the year, The Black Ark is much more than a historical curiosity, it’s a potent reminder of the crucial role of Southerners in jazz’s forward guard. And it rocks.