New York Art Quartet

This short-lived ensemble had free jazz star power: saxophonist John Tchicai and trombonist Roswell Rudd up front, drummer Milford Graves and various bassists (Reggie Workman, Lewis Worrell, Eddie Gomez) in the back. Their sole 1960s album features compositions that chart a middle ground somewhere between Ornette Coleman’s expressionist blues and Albert Ayler’s roared sermons — the music is superficially loose, but has great dramatic tension courtesy of Graves, and when Amiri Baraka pops up to read his poem “Black Dada Nihilismus,” the energy level goes through the roof.