Joe McPhee - Defiant Jazz: A Joe McPhee Taster / vinyl LP

Who was that masked man?. This question is on many lips having seen and heard the "Defiant Jazz" episode of the hit TV show Severance, the one in which the show's protagonists are allowed a company dance party, accompanied by a light show and increasingly wild, funky, saxophone-driven music. The masked man? None other than Joe McPhee, Poughkeepsie, New York's best kept secret, one of the great figures of contemporary improvised music. A living legend looming large, you might say. And now a presence in households around the globe.

This "taster" is more than a "best of" record. (The "best of" Joe McPhee would be no smaller than a 20-record set!) Defiant Jazz includes "Shakey Jake," the dance party track, a funky upsetter from 1970 that shimmies and rolls at the same time it builds and explodes. The vinyl-only compilation then moves across time, touching on another early track, the spiritual jazz classic "Astral Spirits," from the 1972 CJR LP Trinity and a 1983 version of the Sonny Rollins tune "Oleo" from the hat Hut LP of the same name, with psychedelic guitar outbursts courtesy of Raymond Boni. The second side opens with "I See You Baby Shakin' That Ass," a self-proclaimed "throwdown" with McPhee as emcee and flamethrowing saxophonist, fronting two bands, Cato Salsa Experience and The Thing. A dance floor jack-in-the-box for anyone unlucky enough not to have heard it yet. The program concludes with a sensitive tenor/drum duet between McPhee and Paal Nilssen-Love. The cover features previously unpublished vintage photos of McPhee.

If you already know Mr. McPhee's music, this compilation is designed to fulfill, and if you're new to him, it will thrill and chill. Win-win.