The Art Ensemble of Chicago The Spiritual LP (Coke Bottle Clear Vinyl)

The Spiritual, a free jazz album recorded by The Art Ensemble of Chicago in 1974, finds the group of stellar musicians at their creative peak. With various types of percussion, though the absence of a traditional drummer, the ensemble is able to create vivid, freeing compositions without the confines of conventional structure. The quartet, consisting of Joseph Jarman, Roscoe Mitchell, Lester Bowie and Malachi Favors, explore the depths of avant-garde jazz through a means that has yet to be touched on in a comparable capacity.

Previously released on red color vinyl exclusively for Record Store Day, The Spiritual will now be widely available on Coke bottle clear vinyl.

The Art Ensemble of Chicago at their artistic height

In the mid-late '60s boom of experimental jazz groups, the Art Ensemble Of Chicago (AEC) was (and still is) perhaps the most avant-garde of them all. In fact, it's hard to classify them as jazz; sure, they use instruments traditionally used throughout the genre, but their loosely structured music relies more on unusual percussion, atmospheric quiet, and minimalism than it does traditional compositional ideas. Out of print for decades and still unavailable on streaming services, The Spiritual perfectly demonstrates everything the AEC excels at. ORG Music's reissue, limited to 1500 copies for Record Store Day 2019, comes digitally remastered by Infrasonic Mastering's Dave Gardner, cut at SST, pressed at Pallas on dead-silent red vinyl (my copy has not a single surface artifact on side one, and barely any on side two), and is complete with new (and in my opinion superior) artwork. If you can't get the initial red vinyl press, ORG Music recently announced a standard black vinyl run which hopefully will be just as good.