Italian label Red Records is building a formidable catalogue of hidden gems. The early career of Argentine saxophonist Gato Barbieri is associated largely with the avant-garde, due to collaborations with Don Cherry, Steve Lacy and Abdullah Ibrahim, but as this 1968 Rome session shows, he also played modern jazz classics by Miles Davis (‘All Blues’, ‘So What’), Herbie Hancock (‘Maiden Voyage’) and Billy Strayhorn (‘Lush Life’) in the company of a fine Italian group that also has interesting composers in bassist Giovanni Tommasso and pianist Franco D’Andrea.

Barbieri is typically post-Trane fiery, with his explosive, rugged roar recognizable in an instant, and on the modal material he is also happy to push outside the chords and ratchet up the tension, sometimes reducing the theme to fragments. Having said that, the ‘Latino Gato’ of his much-loved 1970s Flying Dutchman period, during which he often played heartbreaking milongas, is also hinted at on the reprise of ‘Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise’, originally a tango, and whose reinvention by John Coltrane surely became a reference for the Argentine in his formative years. A notable historical document.