For aficionados of British jazz, guitarist Ray Russell is a tantalising if not downright frustrating prospect: a formidable talent who released a handful of albums in the late 1960s and early 70s before drifting away from jazz to make a living as a session musician and composer of TV themes. These recently unearthed live jams are awelcome addition to his scant discography, capturing Russell in his early twenties and absolutely incandescent with youthful vigour. Recorded between May 1967 and January 1969, the sessions include tunes from his first two albums, Turn Circle and Dragon Hill, plus previously unheard cuts, and also feature some of the earliest known recordings of the young Dave Holland on bass. There's a stylistic debt to Miles Davis' mercurial mid-1960s quintet in these post-bop belters, on which Russell spits a spiky, brittle and supremely hip attack. But you can also feel him straining to move into more avant-garde territory, lunging into Sonny Sharrock-style paroxysms and urgently barbed clusters. Within a couple of years, as documented on albums like Rites & Rituals and Live at the ICA, he'd fully embraced free-improvisation but these essential dates find him riding a glorious cusp of melodic invention.