Illusions

Illusions features three tracks each by two different bands: an acoustic quartet and a more avant-garde, loft-jazz-ish quintet with James “Blood” Ulmer on guitar, Abdul Wadud on cello, Bob Stewart on tuba, and Bobby Battle on drums. Three of the six compositions are re-recordings of older pieces; “Bush Baby,” from the 1977 disc of the same name, sounds like a bridge between the loft jazz scene and Miles Davis’s On the Corner, while “My Son Ra” is a lush, David Murray-ish ballad and “As of Yet,” once a nearly 13-minute blowout, is a herky-jerky but swinging piece with an almost Ornette Coleman-esque bounce.