Over the last couple of decades the balance has tipped in Anthony Braxton's work away from formally-constituted groups towards a looser network of ensembles built around a pool of younger players whose instincts he trusts. Back in 1977, with a gig to fulfil in Basel, Braxton similarly knitted together a ‘for one night only’ ensemble by leafing through his phone book and he unwittingly opened the way for one of his most accessible albums. George Lewis had replaced Kenny Wheeler in Braxton's recently disbanded quartet, which Muhal Richard Abrams, Mark Helias and the perpetually undervalued Charles ‘Bobo’ Shaw (who died earlier this year) had contributed to other Braxton projects, but together their disparate voices located a strain of exuberance and joy in Braxton's charts which instantly communicated itself to the audience. I read in the sleeve notes about how ‘Composition No.69J’ is a “single line structure that re-seats itself into open light improvisation” before “thematic generating spatial tactics” begin; but, in the listening, the music sounds like a doubled-jointed, loose-limbed marching band and the directness of the harmony uncorks a magisterial Braxton sopranino solo that bumps heads with time and changes like a fly trapped inside a jam jar. Subsequent mutations of ‘Composition No.69’ – we hear N overlaid with G, then M – put you in mind of high-velocity bebop derivatives, and throughout the density of information carried by Abrams' piano takes the breath away. Walls of atonality suddenly clear and you hear the harmonic blueprint underneath; hints of stride piano are occasionally acted upon which, for the Mingus-like encore ‘Composition 40B’, feels reassuringly apt.