Don Weller, the titanic Sonny Rollins and Coltrane-inspired tenor saxophonist whose guest appearances with Gil Evans' UK touring groups have gone down in the nation's jazz folklore, died at 79 on 30 May. In his memory, early Weller champion Malcolm Mills' The Last Music Company has rescued an old cassette tape of the saxophonist's jazz-rock band Major Surgery in full cry onstage – thereby creating only the second album of that trenchantly original and overlooked group's six-year life, alongside their 1976 Mills-recorded studio set, The First Cut. The lineup is augmented here, as it often was on gigs, by the late multi-talented pianist Pete Jacobsen; the audio quality is also unexpectedly good, and Major Surgery's status as one of the most creative outfits in early English jazz-rock goes up several notches. Guitarist Jimmy Roche, a little subdued on The First Cut, sounds scythingly Claptonesque and loose on Weller's soul-jazzy ‘Fred Bear The Threadbare Bear’, while ‘Old, Useless and White’ (the composer liked phlegmatic titles) reflects Weller's natural inclination to hitch circuitous idiosyncrasy to a familiarly bluesy form. The cinematic ‘Shrimpboats’ turns from spacey, seabird-wailing tenor trills to a slyly modulating groover, and the saxophonist is at his most yearningly Coltranesque on the ‘Naima’-reminiscent ‘Beans’. Pete Jacobsen's unaccompanied lyrical-to-free acoustic piano piece ‘A Touch of the PJs’ is a virtuosic standout, and drummer Tony Marsh's rhythmic ingenuity lights a blaze under the rapturously muscular ‘Six Nine’. Older jazz-rockers will be fascinated by this set, but some startled newcomers might be too.