Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre: Live From Studio Rivbea

Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre is in some ways the forgotten man of Chicago's pioneering Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). He appears on two of the first albums to come out of the collective: Roscoe Mitchell's Sound (Delmark, 1966) and Muhal Richard Abrams' Levels And Degrees Of Light (Delmark, 1968); and was the leader of two other early AACM dates: Humility In The Light Of The Creator (Delmark, 1969) and Forces And Feelings (Delmark, 1970). But his discography thereafter is scant. All of this is to say that the release of an unissued 1976 live set from the archive of Sam Rivers' storied Studio Rivbea is an event worthy of celebration.

Having moved to NYC in 1976, McIntyre became a fixture at various loft jazz festivals, and even contributes one track to the legendary Wildflowers (Douglas, 1977) compilation. Here, on three unidentified titles totaling just over 40 minutes, he leads a quartet completed by Chicago trumpeter Malachi Thompson (who went on to be a stalwart of Lester Bowie's Brass Fantasy), fellow AACM founding member drummer Alvin Fielder, and electric bassist Milton Suggs (who held the bass chair in Elvin Jones' contemporaneous bands and was the father of the jazz singer of the same name).

From the start, McIntyre had his own sound. He combined a tough grainy tenor saxophone tone, which owed much to forebears such as Gene Ammons, with a searching spirituality that evoked John Coltrane's later years. Indeed, with a sometimes-feverish approach, McIntyre seemed as much aligned to the New York City school of unfettered free jazz as he did to the Windy City embrace of space, silence and texture. Although he did not develop a unique compositional voice in the manner of his peers Henry Threadgill, Wadada Leo Smith or Anthony Braxton, his charts nonetheless take sometimes-idiosyncratic turns.

But whether head-solos-head or more unconventional, the joshing interplay between McIntyre's squalling tenor and Thompson's punchy declamatory trumpet distinguishes every cut here. Suggs free-ranging melodic counterpoint, particularly in the upper register of his electric bass, also adds a distinctive flavor, leaving Fielder's precise clatter largely responsible for the forward motion of the date. The first unidentified title incorporates brief a-cappella spots for all except the drummer, an omission rectified on the following track, where a well-orchestrated feature reveals Fielder's place in the lineage that extends from his onetime teacher Ed Blackwell.

The closing "Unidentified Title 3" demonstrates some of McIntyre's writing and arranging chops. Based around a celebratory unison riff, each of the horns alternates, stepping out while the other maintains the motif. When both finally do leave it behind, Suggs resurrects it as an underlying bass vamp that maintains the drive. The result is simultaneously exciting and cohesive. Thereafter, the piece moves into unbridled territory, offering more solo opportunities, including some squeaky timbres from Thompson (perhaps derived from his mouthpiece only) before a conversational bass-drums coda.

Such a vital and engaging performance should help fuel further appreciation of the undersung McIntyre, who died in poverty in New York in 2013.