Although the legacy of John Coltrane, Phaorah Sanders and Yusef Lateef has been well documented in the past few decades, making ‘spiritual jazz’ a very visible subgenre, there is a wealth of music made under that banner that still awaits discovery.

Based in Chicago in the early 1970s, The Awakening wore their name well insofar as their consciousness-raising message was fully encoded in a sound that drew equally on Trane and Sanders' Impulse! glories, meaning that the music is entrancingly modal and invigorated by strong soloing, But it is the way the electric piano is woven into the acoustic fabric of the arrangements that really makes the material special, The chords glisten beautifully among the dark hues of the horns, producing an enticing, misterioso beauty not dissimilar to what Freddie Hubbard created on the epochal ‘Red Clay.’ A deserved new lease of life for a catedigger's delight.