All the artists on this CD have been a part of the Leo Records catalogue playing in different combinations. Aura («breath»), moving air, light wind, breeze, the air as a necessary element for breathing and for life, the vital breath. A dazzling journey between light and shadow, between the "grains of sand" in which today falls, the "blades of wind" suspended in a splendid chromatic resonance.

It was a rare moment – the evening of November 18, 2011. A moment of special intimacy. European fans of pianist Cecil Taylor got closer to him than ever before. It wasn’t like a few years ago, when some 1000 listeners gathered in the Prinzregenten Theater in Munich; now only exactly 112 fans gathered in the Birdland Jazz Club in not very far away Neuburg an der Donau. Neuburg is a city dating back to the Renaissance with 28,000 residents, midway between Munich and Nuremberg. For the past few decades the local jazz club, with its unusually well-developed program, has drawn music fans from a wide circle to its current beautiful room in an historic basement vault. Up front – Cecil Taylor, the small, slight man with great energy, the master of free sounds that rumble like thunder but also tinkle like splintering glass. What a contrast! And what a musical experience!

From the same sessions that resulted in Homeless, the free jazz tenor saxophonist Charles Gayle pushes himself and his listeners on this rather intense set. With support by bassist Sirone and drummer Dave Pleasant, Gayle is unremittingly passionate on seven of his originals, including the lengthy "Spirits Before." The themes are discarded quickly, with the music focusing on group interaction, often violent screaming tenor, and fire. Depending on how open one's ears are, the results are either revelatory or unlistenable! However, one cannot doubt Gayle's sincerity, musicianship, and courage.

Slope: Gradual Disappearance is a 1987 album by Tenko Ueno, who simply goes by her first name, Tenko. The album features guest appearances from Arto Lindsay, Wayne Horvitz and Fred Frith. Originally released by Kinniku-Bijo, this pressing was reissued and remastered in 2001 by Shoh.

After "Le Nouveau Jazz" was released in early 1967, I worked for two years with Bernard Vitet, Beb Guérin and a few other friends on a happening loosely based on Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting Of The Snark". There was a strong element of theater to it and we presented it in playhouses, museums, public places, institutions… It never made it to wax and I gave up on the idea soon after when Sunny Murray and Alan Silva showed up in Paris in late 1968. I had meant to upend the conventions of performance with this happening: now I was fully part of a similar revolution, the "New Music", with its very originators.

This smoking album of free jazz leads the New York trio of Steve Baczkowski on saxophone, Brandon Lopez on bass, and Chris Corsano on drums to fiery playing as they burn up the stage at Hallwall, in Buffalo, New York in 2018, over seven concise collective conversations expressing both passion, restraint, and profoundly masterful skill.

Thinking In Stitches is the 2019 album by free jazz trio Green Dome, which features Zeena Parkins, Ryan Sawyer and Ryan Ross Smith. This was released by Casestudy.

BIn This Moment is a 2014 collaborative album between saxophonist Mikołaj Trzaska and drummist Tim Daisy. This is a Relay Recordings presentation.

SooJin Suh, Drummer, composer and educator SooJin Suh has been developing a reputation as one of the most promising drummer in Seoul since her professional career start in 2008. Born in Seoul, Korea in 1984. SooJin studied classical piano from age 5 and have been studying drum at the age of 17. She has a BFA degree from the City College of New York. After she graduated from City College she returned to Seoul and began freelancing with a wide spectrum of musicians. As a sideman she has performed on over twenty recordings. As a leader she released two records [The Moon In Your Hand] 2014, and [Strange Liberation] 2018 which shows her diverse musical spectrum. She is also included Near East Quartet, which is released 2018 august with ECM record, currently touring all over the world.

Rivers' initial recording with Cecil McBee and Norman Connors, Streams (Impulse, 1973), remains for this listener a high water mark in his career, an extraordinarily focused improvisatory performance imbued with a dramatic arc of a well-planned composition. Some excerpts from similar concerts were released in 1975 on Hues, but this is a very welcome and very strong pair of sets from June of 1971. If it doesn't quite match Streams, it comes more than close enough to attain required listening status for Rivers aficionados.

Musica Su Schemi is the 1976 album by Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza. This is the 2007 CD pressing released in Japan by Strange Days/Cramps.

Guitarist Pat Metheny had long expressed admiration for Ornette Coleman's music, had recorded his compositions, and had worked extensively with bassist Charlie Haden, so a collaboration was not totally unexpected, though who would have guessed that it would be on the Geffen label? Metheny's almost rock star status has worked against him in other partnerships from time to time (notably, his overbearing playing on his project with Derek Bailey, The Sign of 4), but here he happily sublimates his showier instincts and works as sympathetic co-leader, deferring to Coleman's experience and genius.

Recorded live at the East: A Cultural and Educational Center for People of African Descent, New Directions in Modern Music is yet another rewarding recording from the Survival archives. "As-Salaam-Alikum" begins with the quick statement of a memorable theme, which fades into a fiery Carlos Ward improvisation ranking amongst the finest moments in spiritual avant-garde playing. In fact, the album calls to mind Alice Coltrane's P'tah the El'Daoud and Franklin Kiermyer's Solomon's Daughter, with Fred Simmons' punchy, sparse chords and Tyner-inspired runs complementing the group well.

This album features members of the Catalytic Sound collective, a musicians' co-op with the mission of developing new economic models for experimental musicians.

John Coltrane's "Live At The Half Note" on the Laserlight label is an excellent look at what is arguably jazz's greatest quartet - the "Classic Quartet" of Trane, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones - in an intimate club setting. It is during performances like these, where Coltrane had the ability to stretch out and play at length, improvising and creating on the spur of the moment, that he further developed his signature, searching style.