Gunter Hampel, The 8th of July 1969 (side A)

The 8th of July 1969 is a pretty typical, and generally strong, late-60s free-blowing affair. It features a mix of Europeans (Hampel, Breuker, Gorter) and Americans (Braxton, McCall, Jeanne Lee) wailing through compositions credited to Hampel (though they're often hard to distinguish from free playing). Given the talent on the album, the playing is consistently great and interesting. I generally have problems with vocals on free albums from this era, and Lee's vocals here rate at least above average for the genre. The players of different backgrounds mesh pretty seamlessly. Perhaps the biggest surprise is when Hampel makes interesting contributions on bass clarinet, an instrument which I'd never associated him with. The sound quality is at least better than many comparable recordings of late-60s free sessions.