Throughout a career lasting half a century, Joe McPhee has explored a multiplicity of strategies for improvisation – from original free-jazz to cracked electronics – and these two new albums present a compelling summary of the range of his musical interests. Keep Going can be seen as a belated follow-up to Emancipation Proclamation, McPhee’s previous duo date with drummer Hamid Drake, released in 2000. Whereas the former was a fiery live recording, this studio session radiates calm concentration – and a profound sense of bearing witness to Afro-centric history. The title-track has Drake setting up a simple beat, like the plodding rhythm of a slave ship’s galley, over which McPhee recites lines commonly (though erroneously) attributed to Harriet Tubman, before essaying shrieking Ayler-isms and bluesy asides. There are a handful of old-fashioned sax/drums free-jazz blowouts, such as the gloriously titled ‘Lord, Don’t Let ‘Em Drop Those Goddamn Nukes On Us Lord’ – where Drake gleefully digs into fiendish polyrhythms – but there are more contemplative moments, too. ‘Medgar/Malcolm/Martin,’ for instance, features Drake using his palm on a woody frame drum while McPhee’s pocket-trumpet meanders from mellow moods to extended snicker and shush. Things get pushed even further out on Brace For Impact, McPhee’s duo date with Swedish sax-tough Mats Gustafsson. Opening piece ‘Race Matters’ begins with electronic screech and McPhee’s vocal ululations and epiglottal misadventures giving way to impossibly high, guttural sax wails. Pieces like ‘Just Green’ and ‘Just Blue’ show the duo relaxing into gentle melodicism, but it’s on the more abstract flamers like ‘Blame Game’, with its percussive key slaps and whinnying screams, that the date really comes alive. Bear in mind that McPhee turned 79 at the end of last year and his tireless quest for the new and surprising is all the more heroic.