Joe McPhee is here mainly on tenor saxophone, sometimes on percussion and in the third track on flugelhorn supported by Reto Weber also on percussion.

In the first track Glasses you may understand how seminal Joe McPhee’s style has been. Listen to the emerging Colin Stetson or to Håkon Kornstad but also to long and rightly appreciated artists as Mats Gustafsson and Ken Vandermark (and despite the obvious differences I like them all, for everyone of these players - even paying tribute to tradition - has clearly developed a personal and unique style). Here you have extended techniques, the player sings in his instrument, groan and blow in it, hiss and plays with noises. In the end of the composition he mimics the typical noise of a car leaving and you can hear someone from the audience laughing.

Then he plays Naima by John Coltrane. What can I say? It’s just like Cartier-Bresson taking a picture of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. It cannot be less than a masterpiece.

In the closing New Potatoes McPhee starts on flugelhorn, then - as soon as percussion grows - he’s back on saxophone and with his sonic scratches he faces bells, dings and toys all around him.  He roars and claps his hands to challenge a tambourine.

The answer to my previous question is - obviously - yes, free jazz has evolved. And this is because some artistic figures as Joe McPhee have been the joining links of such a development and progress. Certainly he was not the only groundbreaking sax player in those furious years. Just to name a few and not to go too back in time: Roscoe Mitchell, the already hyperactive Anthony Braxton and a guy named Peter Brötzmann were all already screaming and shouting in their instruments. His restless and constant cooperation with younger musicians as Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, Paal Nilssen-Love and Eli Keszler proves that Joe McPhee is still seeding in the flourishing field of free jazz.