ALBUM OF THE WEEK FOR 13-19 MAY:

Issued on CD next month by the hallowed label that Aylerians the world over revere - ESP-Disk. With a great new Matthew Shipp album out at the moment that we have playlisted quite often ESP-Disk deliver spinetingling spiritual-jazz with a strong pentatonic feel ('Let There Be Peace') and swinging ('Resilience') core to it new from trumpeter-composer Frank London. The title track led off by stirring piano lines from Marilyn Lerner and haunting trumpet from the man himself - going through a tough time at the moment as he has been diagnosed with myelofibrosis and is going on for a bone marrow transplant soon. We have been fans of Rabbi Greg Wall for a while - Hasidic New Wave that Wall and London belonged to with David “Fuze” Fiuczynski - all hail the micro emperor - and the Potterian Fima Ephron are superb. And the freedom loving saxist pops up on a couple of tracks - the rest of The Elders are the great Hilliard ''Hill'' Greene on bass known for his work with Jimmy Scott. (Hear Hill - and give yourself chills - with Jon Regen in the band on late period Jimmy classic, All of Me: Live in Tokyo.) Greene provides great arco on 'Resistance/Healing'. That cultured drummer Newman Taylor Baker, now in his early eighties, is at the kit. London, Lerner, Greene and Baker are in the Yiddish and klezmer band Neshoma together. And Baker played together with Greene and Shipp on Jemeel Moondoc's The Astral Revelations. The London tunes of Spirit Stronger Than Blood top our listening choice today because we enter that most precious of headspaces arrived at via the precise satnav of this fine recording - a tributary road towards freeness and transcendence itself.