A product of what I think was Manfred Eicher's second trip to New York for the purposes of recording, which also produced John Abercrombie's Timeless and Dave Liebman's Drum Ode, this is one to remember. Quietly impressive, the LP-length programme has five tracks of mostly free-tempo playing of considerable urgency, and including the first revivals of Haden's ‘hit tunes’ from the first Liberation Music Orchestra album (to which Motian contributed, of course), namely ‘War Orphans’ and ‘Song For Ché’. Haden is naturally a considerable presence on the other three items written by Motian, as is the acoustic guitar of Brown (Metzke doesn't play on everything, but it's interesting how the full quintet line-up on the track ‘Sod House’ foreshadows Motian's Electric Bebop Band of 25 years later). The underrated Carlos Ward, perhaps most associated with Abdullah Ibrahim, is passionately lyrical on his two appearances, and the whole album is typical of the excellent music that might have been missed at the time by anyone not already sold on ECM.