From 1971, Fire Eater is four l-o-n-g, soul-jazz, blues and funk jams from saxophonist Rusty Bryant’s organ, guitar, drums and horn combo. This is soloing music, songs reconstructed into solid vamps for the players to stretch out on, the musicians providing a rising and falling backdrop while they each take turns to let out whatever was in them that day. It’s all live, a band synced together, riffing off each other and you can feel it in the ebb and flow of their playing. Fire Eater’s crisp funky drums, mammoth Hammond solo and clarion-call brass riff make it the album highlight, Free At Last and The Hooker are both blues, one yearning, the other jaunty, and the album finishes on the semi-funk soul-jazz of Mister S. Intense, spiritual, low-down raw soul-jazz.

– Harold Heath