Although Wadada Leo Smith has created a wealth of adventurous acoustic music in the past half century, he has also made excellent occasional forays into all things electric. Bitches Brew-era Miles Davis is among his noted sources of inspiration and if his collaborations with Henry Kaiser acknowledged that directly this new work also broaches similar territory for a number of reasons. The finished material was assembled in post-production and the centrifugal force of the sound is the guitar. In Brandon Ross (from the brilliant trio Harriet Tubman), Nels Cline and Lamar Smith, Wadada has three contemporary masters of the instrument, and they come into their own in thrilling fashion on ‘Muhammad Ali And George Forman Rumble In Zaire’, a piece in which the pugilistic image of the title is evoked in a maelstrom of fractured chords and pedal-generated sparks and shimmers over a skulking backbeat. Miles would probably have appreciated the boxing reference and may have seen the piece as a compliment and complement to his own eulogy for another heavyweight legend, ‘Jack Johnson’.

This is the finale of the set, and sadly, the other compositions don’t quite match such high standards. Still, there are enticing moments, such as the dreamscape created by Smith’s luminous muted horn and mushy bass on the latter half of ‘Ntozake’, or the overture of ‘Tony Williams’, where the trumpeter’s long tones have a pearl-like dignity, but the spark is missing from a rhythm section in which the doubled up drums and bass are curiously undercooked - a great shame given the quality of A-list players such as Pheeroan akLaff and Melvin Gibbs. The extensive editing may have served a structural purpose, but it could also have taken away from the spontaneity of the initial gathering. On stage, that might change.