The New York Art Quartet were one of ESP-Disk’s earliest signings; their debut album was only the fourth release on the label, following Albert Ayler’s Spiritual Unity and Pharoah Sanders’s Pharoah’s First. The group featured trombonist Roswell Rudd, Dutch tenor saxophonist John Tchicai, bassist Lewis Worrell, and drummer Milford Graves, and made music that was radically different from the free jazz of the time. It was much more sparse and spacious, almost like chamber music — Worrell’s bowed bass had the emotional resonance of a cello, and behind him, Graves’ drumming was free but highly complex and intuitive. His sticks landed like snow flurries, drifting across the kit in skittering rushes, never worrying about timekeeping but focused on an overall vitality and energy.

The horn players stayed away from volcanic solos, instead allowing their lines to unfold slowly, and interacting with each other like they were composing funeral hymns on the spot. And on the second track, “Black Dada Nihilismus,” they stepped away entirely, allowing poet Amiri Baraka to take the microphone with Worrell and Graves surging and rippling behind him. Living up to their name, the New York Art Quartet proved that free jazz could be subtle and artistic beyond the superficial fire and fury that was its image with the broader public.