Air was a radical concept: a collective trio featuring Henry Threadgill on alto and tenor saxophones and flute, Fred Hopkins on bass, and Steve McCall on drums. On some releases, Threadgill would also play the hubkaphone, a series of tuned hubcaps hanging from a rack. This disc, their sixth overall, featured their versions of two compositions each by Scott Joplin and Jelly Roll Morton, and one short Threadgill piece. They turn ragtime and early jazz tunes into utterly modern, outward-bound explorations, proving unequivocally that “past” and “future” are highly relative concepts.