Held in July 1969 in the city of Algiers, the inaugural Panafrican Cultural Festival was a melting-pot event that was as important to late 1960s jazz as the year’s other three musical touchpoints – Woodstock, Altamont and the Harlem Cultural Festival – were to rock, soul and pop.

Described by Jazzwise’s Kevin Le Gendre in his illuminating sleevenotes as “a band of brothers united on home ground” the festival attracted musicians from all over the continent – including African megastar Miriam Makeba – but also intellectuals, activists and musicians from the USA; Nina Simone, Stokely Carmichael and Archie Shepp among them. It was an historic moment.

Thankfully, Shepp’s two performances, with US jazz compatriots and a large group of local singers and reed and percussion players, were captured on tape by French saxophonist Barney Wilen and excerpts from them presented on this LP, originally released in 1971.

To the casual ear, Live at The Panafrican Festival’s lengthy extemporisations – which bring the US avant-garde to the mother continent – may sound like little more than parps, squalls and wails atop polyrhythmic clatter. But this is music that requires persistence and concentration. What emerges for those with ears to hear, are a series of ever-shifting densities, rendered with a celebratory looseness and a primal energy, most strikingly on the 31-mimute, two-part ‘We Have Come Back’ whose tight-but-loose, trance-like grooves are given political heft by the spoken word poetry of Joans and Lee. And the album is hugely evocative too. You can really feel the atmosphere: as you immerse yourself in the music you’ll be seduced by the glories of the North African sunset, breathe in the desert dust of old Algiers and be dazzled by the white robes, red turbans and green headdresses.

An important document, beautifully packaged, and a must for Shepp buffs.