While a number of leading contemporary pianists, from Jason Moran to Craig Taborn and Vijay Iyer, are happy to cite Abrams as a major influence his oeuvre is not celebrated anywhere near as much as it should be. This 9CD box set thus shines a welcome spotlight on a pivotal figure in the history of the AACM, black cultural self-empowerment and independence in America. In a wide variety of musical settings Abrams' unremittingly personal, mercurial approach to composition and improvisation shine through, and the unpredictability of the creative directions taken by the work is well sustained. While the duets with Anthony Braxton, Leroy Jenkins and Malachi Favors crackle with conversational electricity it is the group sessions that reveal Abrams' skill at bringing together exactly the right players to create a whole that is greater than the sum of the not inconsiderable parts. 1-OQA +19 is a highlight in this respect, a summit meeting in which Braxton, Henry Threadgill and Steve McCall perform with a verve that makes a mockery of putative boundaries between swing, bebop and avant-garde. Abrams has managed to draw from all of these schools without being beholden to them and in the process created music that has a dawn-of-time gravitas as well as futurist propulsion. In particular, the interaction of his keyboard playing with the excellent drumming of Steve McCall, best known for his work in the trio Air, is joyous for the focused subversion both bring to their use of high and low registers in the music, making the point that a bass drum can really be the ‘top’ rather than the bottom of an arrangement and a left hand as much the lead as the right. Abrams' 1980s output was also consistently daring, and 1997's Song For All showed no signs of any creative dip.