The works of German-American arranger/composer Heiner Stadler straddle the classical and avant-garde jazz worlds with uncompromising facility. None of the eight cuts featured here runs at under ten minutes, and three extend to over 20, including ‘Love in the Middle of the Air’, a hypnotically out-there duet between Coltrane bassist Reggie Workman and Dee Dee Bridgewater, who was 23 at the time and still largely unknown. You can hear traces of late Trane and Ornette Coleman, not to mention serialism, in the music here, but there's nonetheless a swaggering originality about Stadler's boldness. If you want ambition, try ‘Bea's Flat’, an arrangement of a Russ Freeman composition originally written for Chet Baker. Featuring the big band of the North German Radio Station, it skitteringly captures the sounds and rhythms of fractured urbanism across its almost half-hour running time – they don't make 'em like that any more. This engrossing two-disc set is released by Labor Records, which was founded by Stadler himself, and features three previously unreleased tracks.