Prince Lasha Quintet’s critically adored transcendent avant-guard jazz opus The Cry! lands on August 16, 2024. “Lasha prefers a wooden flute,” remarks All About Jazz, “which gives his passages a dark, earthy tone that contrasts well with the bitter, vibrato-less sax.” (The latter refers to saxophonist Sonny Simmons, a frequent Lasha collaborator who’d finally get his time in the spotlight about three decades later, while signed to Quincy Jones’ Qwest Records.) Songs such as the jaunty “Bojangles” and rhythm-forward “Congo Call” imbued the Quintet’s brand of free jazz, recorded here in 1962, with an identity independent of Ornette Coleman’s influence on them.

This new edition, released as part of the Contemporary Records Acoustic Sounds Series, features (AAA) lacquers cut from the original master tapes by Bernie Grundman and is pressed on 180-gram vinyl at QRP, and presented in a Stoughton Printing tip-on jacket.