Alto saxophonist Noah Howard assembled a quartet of little-known players for his 1965 debut. Like himself, trumpeter Ric Colbeck, bassist Scotty Holt, and drummer Dave Grant were excellent musicians, but somewhat on the fringes of what had already become a “scene” with stars (Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders) and hierarchies. Only ESP-Disk was willing to take a chance on Howard, and they were right to do so. His music, though it owes something to Ornette Coleman in the way the saxophone and trumpet interact, as well as the loose but bluesy structures, has a compelling energy that never erupts into the kind of screaming frenzy that was rapidly becoming the cliché of free jazz. Instead, it makes a far subtler statement.

The album’s opening cut, “Henry’s Street,” begins with a bowed melody from Holt, and a slow-paced horn intro, only launching into high-speed (and swinging) interaction after a full minute of table-setting. And it’s Colbeck, not Howard, who takes the first solo. Throughout the album, the saxophonist is an equal member of the ensemble, blowing right alongside the trumpeter on the two-part “Apotheosis” and the closing ballad, “And About Love.” Howard would record one more album for ESP-Disk, the live At Judson Hall, but wouldn’t really make a name for himself until a few years later, when his album The Black Ark introduced tenor madman Arthur Doyle to the world. He headed for Paris at the end of the decade, where he paired up with saxophonist Frank Wright for several years, and eventually built a career for himself in Europe and South Africa. But this debut still stands as a major statement, an oft-overlooked gem in the ESP-Disk catalog.