condition (record/cover): NM / EX

Brown back cover.

A BYG label overview drawing on the astonishing Actuel stable: Art Ensemble of Chicago, Archie Shepp, Clifford Thornton, Grachan Moncur III, Sunny Murray and Burton Greene - which is to say, a fair portion of the American avant-garde as it stood in Paris, 1969, recording masterpieces at the rate of several per week in the wake of the Pan-African Festival and the great exile migration. As series titles go, "History of Jazz" is charmingly grandiose for a volume dedicated to music that was at that moment brand new, but the claim aged into plain accuracy: this catalog did become history, argued over, reissued and revered.

A sampler drawn from it plays like a highlight reel of the new thing abroad - one track per giant, each a door into a whole discography. A fine single-disc window into one of the great recorded moments of the century, and a useful map for anyone starting the Actuel journey.