Spiritual Jazz 3: Europe

A wonderfully eclectic collection of European jazz rarities from the Jazzman imprint, Spiritual Jazz 3 gathers 16 hopelessly scarce recordings, many of which may be unfamiliar to even the most diehard jazz collectors. The term "spiritual jazz" is notoriously slippery. Though these selections are united in their debt to the exploratory spirit of Coltrane’s later work and the wild modal improvisations of his American disciples, they're otherwise an incredibly eclectic bunch, embracing everything from the dense chorale arrangements of Hermann Gehlen’s “Kyrie” to the small-group variations on Eastern European and Central Asian folk melodies offered up by The Crescendo Quartet and Dusko Goykovich. Though the influence of major American players like Pharaoh Sanders, Miles Davis, and, of course, Coltrane can be felt throughout, all of these selections have a distinct regional style, each seeming to exist in a musical universe unto itself. The sheer variety and unfamiliarity of styles on display make Spiritual Jazz 3 a valuable and enlightening collection.