Brilliant work from one of our favorite Japanese jazz artists of the 70s – and a warmly soulful batch of acoustic tunes from pianist Takehiro Honda! The sound here is much more far-reaching and exploratory than most of Honda's other work – a bit in a McCoy Tyner, post-Coltrane mode – with bold lines on the piano that spiral out in a really searching sort of way – and the album only features three long tracks, all of them great and very vibrant. The trio here features bassist Junie Booth and drummer Eric Gravatt – who give the record a lot of spiritual undercurrents – and titles include "Salaam Salaam", "Minors Only", and "Natural Tranquility". CD

Soaring brilliance from McCoy Tyner – one of his first large group outings, and an effort undertaken with key help from William Fischer! There's a sense of soaring freedom here that's very much like Tyner's smaller group albums of the time – but Fischer tunes it with a broader sense of color and tone, really bringing the most out of players that include Hubert Laws, Sonny Fortune, Junie Booth, Alphonse Mouzon, Cecil Bridgewater, Virgil Jones, and Dick Griffin. Tyner's forceful piano is very much in the lead on most tunes, but the album's much more of a group effort than before – and the horn and string contributions on the longer tracks are really tremendous. Titles include "Little Brother", "The Divine Love", "Some Day", "Song Of The New World", and a version of "Afro Blue". LP, Vinyl record album