The Jewel In The Lotus (reissue) vinyl

Bennie Maupin's contributions to many a groundbreaking jazz record - Miles Davis's Bitches Brew, Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi and Headhunters, and Marion Brown's Afternoon Of A Georgia Faun - all cemented his long-harked reptutation as an inventive jazz dynamo. His own releases as a bandleader were relatively sparse, but his debut album remains a standout; described by Down Beat in 1975 as "selfless", The Jewel In The Lotus heard Maupin instead focus his instructive efforts on his bandmates, whose one rule, issued by Maupin himself, was to "keep it seamless". You'll mostly hear the chops of musicians closely connected to Hancock's circle from late 1970s New York, where talent beamed and popped like cinders on brimstone.