Founded in 1965 by Carla Bley and Michael Mantler, the Jazz Composer’s Orchestra created several star-studded extravaganzas during its 10-year lifespan, including a self-titled free-jazz summit from 1968, featuring Cecil Taylor and others, and Escalator Over The Hill, Bley’s peculiar mix of jazz, rock, operatics and ethnic sounds from 1971. Clifford Thornton’s lesser-known opus from 1975 retains much of the grandeur and ambition of both these landmarks – and boasts a typically heavyweight cast of performers – but thrives on a loose, instinctual spontaneity and energy. With large-scale interpretations of tunes from Jamaica, Cuba and West Africa, there’s a heavy percussive imperative throughout, presented with some of the ragged spiritual sincerity found in the deepest roots reggae invocations of, say, Count Ossie’s Mystic Revelation of Rastafari. Even so, the thrilling intensity of heavy free-jazz runs throughout, and Thornton’s astonishingly ‘out’ shenai solo on the Arabic-tinged ‘Aïn Salah’ is a grade-A monster.