The first disc, originally issued on vinyl in 1975 as Old/Quartet, presents the core statement. Themes emerge as sharply etched melodic cells, often stated with a kind of dry clarity before being loosened, stretched and reconfigured. Mitchell’s lines are angular yet strangely singable, Bowie jabs and swoops with a theatrical sense of phrasing, Favors anchors and destabilises by turns, and Wilson’s drumming keeps slipping the beat’s centre of gravity, suggesting multiple pulses at once. Even in the more open passages, there’s a strong sense of design: density ebbs and flows, small motives recur in altered guise, and silence is used as a framing device rather than an absence.

The second disc, first heard in the limited box The Art Ensemble 1967/68, deepens that portrait. Alternate takes, additional pieces and extended performances reveal how quickly ideas were evolving within this single year. You can hear the band testing different balances between written material and free play, between tight heads and open expanses, between sparse, chamber‑like textures and full-tilt collective explosions. Favors draws a broad spectrum of colour from the bass - from deep, singing arco to dry, percussive plucks - while Wilson’s drumming fuses swing, marching patterns and pure sound‑oriented abstraction. Bowie moves effortlessly between clarion calls and half‑valved smears; Mitchell switches horns and strategies, sometimes dissecting a motif, sometimes riding a sustained tone until it fractures.

What makes Old/Quartet Sessions so compelling is the way it foreshadows the later Art Ensemble without ever feeling like a mere prelude. Many of the signature elements are already present: the concern with form and pacing, the willingness to let individual voices peel away from the ensemble and then snap back in, the sense that any sound - a brushed cymbal, a bass harmonic, a split trumpet tone - can become structural. At the same time, the stripped‑down instrumentation keeps everything exposed. Without the expanded percussion and small instruments of the classic Art Ensemble years, the music’s skeleton is visible, and the interplay between four musicians has nowhere to hide.

As a complete record of this 1967 quartet, the set offers both an essential historical document and a vivid listening experience on its own terms. It shows Mitchell and his partners at the moment they are working out how to be a band that honours the jazz tradition while refusing its limitations, a group for whom “ensemble” means something more than instruments playing in time together. Old/Quartet Sessions is that process, caught in the act: rough‑edged, searching, and already unmistakably itself.