The Magic Triangle

A lesser-known release from Jarman, this 1979 album features Art Ensemble of Chicago percussionist Famoudou Don Moye and powerhouse pianist Don Pullen, and offers some of the most abstract, poetic avant-garde jazz of the era alongside the most floor-stomping, gutbucket blues imaginable. This was Pullen’s great talent; he was a synthesist, drawing from virtually every aspect of jazz and Black music more broadly and showing how, in Neil Young’s words, “it’s all one song.” He brings out Jarman’s squalling, sputtering free jazz side, and Moye provides powerful rhythmic accompaniment that occasionally erupts into full-on percussive apocalypse. Ignore its title; “Hippy Dippy” is so fierce, it points the way toward the explosiveness of Charles Gayle and other free jazz warriors of the ’80s and ’90s.