This album makes it impossible not to circle around the well-used cliché about how the texture, taste and bouquet of certain wines improve with the passage of time. Certainly, the artistic stature of Liebman (born 1946) has continued to grow in recent years, with 2016 a particularly creative period with Fire coming from April that year and the excellent Unknowable on the RareNoiseRecords label recorded in July. With a stellar cast of musicians – his association with Holland and DeJohnette going back to 1967 – Liebman wanted to recreate the music they played in New York loft jams back in the 1960s, what Liebman calls: “A heavy dose of free jazz inspired by Coltrane's seminal recording Ascension.” Kenny Werner was invited to join the proceedings because Liebman felt, “he fitted right into the very open and loose scenario I was looking for”. The album has a rough and ready programmatic element based on fire: “Sparks begin the process evolving into flames, progressing into an inferno… finally ashes remain as a testament to fire's destructive legacy, with the understanding that fire is also realised as heat, light and sustenance.” Thus the direction of travel progresses through ‘Flash!!’, ‘Fire’, ‘Sparks’, ‘Flames’, ‘Inferno’ and ‘Ashes’, each with an average playing time of around eight minutes, with the album's centrepiece, ‘Fire’, clocking in at 32 minutes 42 seconds. It is here the essence of the album is to be found. Four master musicians at work in the heat of spontaneous improvisation and interaction – leading, following, supporting – that goes to the heart of music-making in the moment. It reveals an aspect of Liebman's playing personality that has not been given much air. But, in the company of peers, the closet free jazzer proves to be a master.