Perhaps best-known as an Albert Ayler sideman, here is alto saxophonist Tyler's first offering as a leader from February of 1966. This album finds him in the company of other Ayler alumnus Henry Grimes, Joel Freedman, and Ronald Shannon Jackson along with percussionist Charles Moffett on "orchestra vibes". Ayler's spirit hangs over these tunes pretty heavily, especially during the opener "Strange Uhuru", a wailing lament for Tyler's wavering vibrato-laden long tones enforced by sorrowful bowing from Grimes and well-chosen interjections from the percussionists.

A cousin to Ayler's "For John Coltrane". "Lacy's Out East" has a loping short head that resembles Giuseppi Logan more than Lacy, and leads the way to some satisfying drums-bass-alto interplay, followed by a music-box gone haywire solo from Moffett and more beautiful bowing from Grimes until the sax re-enters and they ramp-up for the final repetition of the drunken head. "Three Spirits" almost directly quotes Ayler, a singsong companion to "Ghosts". Read what you will into this, but I suspect it would be hard to play in a band with Albert and not be influenced by him at least a little.

The closer "Black Mysticism" is the "fastest" tune here, with the gaps in Tyler's phrasing leaving little windows where individual gestures from the others interject, a bed of boulders for the alto to hop over. This one reaches a frenetic peak that the other tunes aspire to but somehow never quite attain. A nice set of "free jazz" from some of the people who were there in the beginning, marred only by slightly poor production � Jackson's drums sound a bit like cardboard here � but that's a minor quibble.