Last year the excellent local jazz reissue label International Phonograph reissued the 1969 album Flight for Four by the John Carter & Bobby Bradford Quartet, a crucial document of the LA avant-garde jazz scene. Carter and Bradford were fellow travelers of Ornette Coleman’s musical revolution—they were also Texans who’d migrated to the west coast, and they began working together at his suggestion. I first heard most of that album as part of a 1991 CD called West Coast Hot, which combined it with another 1969 album made for the Flying Dutchman label, The Giant Is Awakened by the Horace Tapscott Quintet. Now International Phonograph has reissued that second album as well, restoring its fourth track and its gorgeous artwork.
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