St. Louis alto saxophonist Luther Thomas always sought out the no man’s land between genre and its conventions. He was a played on New York’s early ’80s fusion of punk and funk with Defunkt, but was also a crucial cog in the St. Louis’s Black Artist’s Guild, a loose assemblage of up-and-coming jazz players indebted to the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) and their example. BAG and the likes of Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake, Charles ‘Bobo’ Shaw, and the Bowie brothers all hoped to break out of the confines of the form, seeking a place where free jazz, funk, rock, and rhythm & blues might meet. Funky Donkey, credited to Luther Thomas Human Arts Ensemble, is where the onslaught of free jazz meets the relentless drive of funk. Recorded live in a St. Louis church, it’s a ferocious slab of shrieking, snaking horn lines and upstroke guitar work, powered by a delirious backbeat. Each raucous, celebratory 18-minute blow out will leave you breathless.

Alto saxophonist Luther Thomas led the Human Arts Ensemble, an umbrella group featuring many of the Black Artists Group’s biggest names, on this hard-charging live outing, recorded at Berea Presbyterian Church in St. Louis in 1973. The horn section included BAG trombonist Joseph Bowie and his AACM member brother, trumpeter Lester Bowie, as well as saxophonist J.D. Parran and two other trumpeters, Floyd LeFlore and Harold Atterbury; Marvin Horne and Eric Foreman played guitar and Fender bass, respectively; and Charles Bobo Shaw was on drums, with Abdella Ya Kum and Rocky Washington adding congas and other percussion. The record consists of three long pieces: the Thomas-penned title track, Shaw’s “Una New York,” and a 26-minute version of Oliver Lake’s “Intensity.” “Funky Donkey” lives up to its title, sounding like the 1969 JB’s crossed with Miles Davis circa Agharta; “Una New York” is mellower and slicker; and “Intensity” is a blowout that lives up to its title and then some.