Air Lore

Taking a remarkable conceptual detour, this avant-garde jazz trio applied their fiercely free-improvisational approach to the earliest roots of American jazz. The brilliant saxophonist Henry Threadgill and his rhythm section boldly deconstruct foundational ragtime and Dixieland compositions by Scott Joplin and Jelly Roll Morton. The record serves as a wildly joyful, highly intelligent bridge spanning seventy years of African-American musical evolution.