Lords of extended blues into jazz-rock improvisation, the Allman Brothers' finest hour was their 1971 double album Live At Fillmore East, often named as one of the greatest live recordings, after which the band lost their visionary guitarist and leader Duane Allman and bassist Berry Oakley, who both died tragically young in motorbike mash-ups. Allman was the hottest guitar gunslinger in 1971, combining the blues grit of Muddy Waters and Otis Rush with the soul of Aretha Franklin, with whom he recorded, and a deep-rooted love of John Coltrane and Miles Davis. Fellow guitarist Dickie Betts was no slouch either, combining a bittersweet melodic grace with stinging sustain, while Gregg Allman's Hammond B3 leaked the juice of Jimmy Smith and Jack McDuff. Like Cream, the Dead and the Mothers, the Allman Brothers were unique in an era when extended improvisation and the jazz vernacular were becoming more widespread among underground blues and rock bands. Not only did the Allmans have superior chops and a road-hardened empathy, but they swung big time, with the turbo charge of two jazz-trained drummers to boot. And they knew, like their jazz heroes, how to build lengthy solos of spine-tingling imagination and penetrating intensity, stoked by fierce contrapuntal currents that erupted into blistering peaks. Now their finest hour just got finer with the release of The 1971 Fillmore East Recordings, an immersive six CD and book package that brings together all four complete shows from their two-night stay at the venue on 12-13 March 1971, including 14 previously unreleased performances, plus their set from the closing night of the Fillmore East on 27 June 1971 – previously released on Eat a Peach – Deluxe Edition – all remixed from the original multitracks. The unreleased takes, including a handful of blues standards, all make their mark with noticeable shifts in intensity and improvisation in front of a head audience craving more, particularly the two additional 18-minute plus versions of their own opus, ‘Whipping Post’. These are galvanic excursions bursting forth with the propulsive 11/8 opening sequences, long, tension-cranking solos and a mournful impressionistic middle sequence that swells to a scorched-earth coda. But the real revelations are the two additional versions of Betts' lengthy latin-flavoured, ‘In Memory of Elizabeth Reed’, with saxophonist Rudolph ‘Juicy’ Carter sitting in. The way he weaves mystic threads around the theme's long-lines before launching into snaking, often double-time solos that push out towards Yusef Lateef and Pharoah Sanders, makes you wish they kept him on for more. Duane Allman wanted to but producer Tom Dowd, with an eye no doubt on potential sales, thought otherwise. If you dig the original then you're going to be in heaven here.