Free America

As the previous posts have demonstrated, France was a thriving home for the American free jazz scene in the late 1960's and early 1970's. Several artists recorded sessions for the BYG Actuel series, and yet more were involved with Free America, who have recently been subject to a reissue program, all with lovingly reproduced sleeves, such as the in the above picture. Click on the title above to go to the official site which features some excellent videos - footage of civil rights demonstrations and Vietnam set to a honking free jazz soundtrack.

Also worth a read are the reviews of these albums at allaboutjazz.com, which are split into 3 parts - part 1, part 2 and part 3. The albums are further discussed in these two threads from the allaboutjazz forums - here and here.