The sounds of an age

Outside of the great jazz inventors of the US, no group of musicians had such an impact upon British jazz as those who arrived on our shores as refugees from South African apartheid in the 1960s. Among these, the freest and most original were the bandsmen of the Blue Notes, led by the son of a white preacher, Chris McGregor.

In 1970, McGregor formed the Brotherhood of Breath, which assembled frequently in the early 1970s and occasionally into the '80s, with McGregor, altoist Dudu Pukwana, drummer Louis Moholo (pictured) and pocket trumpeter Mongezi Feza from the original Blue Notes plus the Johannesburg-born bassist Harry Miller and some of the most talented British free musicians, saxophonists Gary Windo, Mike Osborne and Alan Skidmore with Barbados-born Harry Beckett on trumpet.

In November 1971, they played at the Berliner Philharmonic during the Berlin Jazztage and the huge and spirited sound of their performance has now been issued by the US label Cuneiform. The recording is introduced by Ronnie Scott, who had originally welcomed the South African expatriates to London by offering them the first Gerrard Street venue of his Soho jazz club when he moved it to its new premises in Frith Street.

Pukwana's composition Nick Tete begins the proceedings, a jivey horn-emphatic piece led by Beckett's buoyant trumpet topping the composer's wailing undercurrents of sound and the chugging ensemble which builds up to a climax of concocted frenzy.

Then it is directly into the response. Do It! is a free extravaganza of sound collectively nourished, out of which Skidmore bursts with a subliminal tenor solo, with the altos of Pukwana and Osborne breaking into his wake.

The 15 or so minutes of Pukwana's The Bride begins with verve and pace, with Miller's bass jumping continents and Window's caustic, irascible alto delivering a parched and desperate commentary.

The performance, almost without pause, ends with the elated sound of the band's signing off anthem, the Funky Boots March. The Berliner's applause is exultant, Scott calls out the musicians and McGregor gives a blessing to all. "Bless you a thousand times," he declares.

The sounds of an age, with its music in the heat of struggle. Go out and get it, it will inspire you even now, nearly four decades on.