I’m checking out Elvin’s set at Newport, just a few years after he left the fabled John Coltrane Quartet. He’s leading a quintet featuring the great Japanese pianist Masabumi Kikuchi, bassist Wilbur Little and the dangerous two-tenor frontline of George Coleman and Frank Foster. Elvin, of course, fuels the proceedings with his inimitable over-the-barline traversing of the kit while Kikuchi feeds the soloists subversive chordal voicings. Coleman sounds particularly strong here and gets into some of his signature circular breathing. And Foster, who is still in fine form today at age 86, is in peak form here. Great set of heightened modal excursions by a band that was rarely, if ever, documented. This set in July of 1970 came just a few months before the release of the completely psychedelic film, “Zachariah,” which featured some significant screentime by Elvin as a gunslinging cowboy who also plays the drums (check out the mindblowing YouTube clip!).
