Now 80, Joe McPhee remains such a vital presence, live and in the studio, that it would be easy to overlook his long history. Black Is The Color helps resolve that problem by issuing three previously unreleased live sets recorded between 1969 and 1970, two of them in McPhee's hometown of Poughkeepsie and the other in New Windsor, New York.

Today McPhee is still processing the ecstasy of Coltrane, the crimped melodies of Dolphy, and his roots in funk and blues. Fifty years ago the stylistic menu was the same, although not as artfully cooked. A set by McPhees Contemporary Improvisational Ensemble, recorded in January 1969, opens with a free blow over a thinly disguised version of the riff from Coltrane's A Love Supreme. Raw ideas tumble free, more in defiance of McPhee's technique than because of it. Only a few months later, however, and he sails through a set that includes Coltrane-fare like ‘Afro Blue’ and ‘Naima’, his lines not only flowing but sparking into life. A blues improvisation opens with the fat, porcupine tone of his trumpet, as Ernst Bostic's vibraphone, more Milt Jackson than Bobby Hutcherson, adds painterly smudges to the harmony.

Although three tracks recorded in 1970 – McPhee with the blues shouter Octavius Graham – might not be the work he'll be remembered for, these funky struts through material by James Brown and Wilson Pickett find McPhee breaking free from the changes as he's playing them. He's grasping at the future like it matters.