This 1975 recording was the standout album in the 4CD Archie Shepp compilation set I reviewed in February 2016, and is one of the few Shepp albums to stand comparison with his early work on Impulse!. The repertoire is varied, the arrangements are tight and Shepp plays with tension and focus. The album opens with a blistering cover of Grachan Moncur's ‘Hipnosis’. The composition is built on a single bass riff, rarely changes key and the theme is played 15 minutes in. Yet the tension never lets up. Shepp is the major solo voice, daubing gruff and growly tenor sax abstractions with strong lines and deep roots in the blues. Charles Greenlee adds lyrical trombone, David Burrell percussive tinkles and the rhythm section ebbs and flows over the insistent shake of a tambourine. Lasting 26 minutes, it is an authentic Shepp tour de force. The remaining three tracks take in Shepp poetics, bittersweet balladry and Calvin Massey's ‘Lookin’ for Someone to Love’, a lolloping swinger driven by Cameron Brown's sturdy bass and snappy Beaver Harris drums. ‘Song for Mozambique’ begins with breathy soprano sax, pure-toned Bunny Foy vocals and a pointed poem. Here, Shepp's crisp diction and spacing is ominously Shakespearian as he declaims, “Play that banjo, black boy”. Foy returns in torch singer mode on Aisha Rahman's street-weary ‘I Know About the Life’, supported by Shepp's rippling piano and Greenlee's warm trombone.