Gil Scott-Heron · 1971 · Bernard Purdie, Ron Carter, and a man who refused to sing.

John Lee Hooker · 1966 Spin it Again - Bob Thiele put John Lee Hooker in a Chicago studio with Muddy Waters' rhythm section and got out of the way. This is what came out.

John Coltrane · 1961 Spin it Again - A 1961 record from John Coltrane that rewards close listening.

Pharoah Sanders · 1973 Spin it Again - A soprano saxophone and four musicians who understand that the point of free jazz is not freedom from structure but freedom to mean something.

Pharoah Sanders · 1969 Spin it Again - Pharoah Sanders and Leon Thomas made an album in 1969 that asks you to stop listening and start believing.

John Coltrane · 1965 Spin it Again - Coltrane in '65, past the point of needing your approval, just him and Pharoah Sanders letting something ancient and uncomfortable move through the room until it was done.

Pharoah Sanders · 1974 Spin it Again - Pharoah Sanders in '74, still chasing that frequency Coltrane pointed at, and some nights he actually touches it.

John Coltrane · 1966 Spin it Again - Coltrane brought Pharoah Sanders in and stopped worrying about whether you could follow him.

John Coltrane · 1965 Spin it Again - Four movements, one theme, and Coltrane playing like a man who had already settled the argument with God and just wanted you to hear how it ended.

Pharoah Sanders · 1974 Spin it Again - Pharoah Sanders in 1974, still chasing something cosmic but letting the silence do more of the work this time.

Duke Ellington & John Coltrane · 1962 Spin it Again - Duke Ellington playing like a man with nothing left to prove, Coltrane playing like a man with everything still to say, and somehow they both ended up in the same room on the same night.

Charles Mingus · 1963 Spin it Again - Six musicians playing like they're mourning something they can't name, recorded in one day because Mingus knew it wouldn't get better than that.

Leon Thomas · 1973 Spin it Again - Leon Thomas yodeling over spiritual jazz like he's trying to contact something the rest of us stopped believing in a long time ago.

John Coltrane · 1964 Spin it Again - The Coltrane quartet in the year before everything broke open, playing like they already heard what was coming and decided to take their time anyway.

John Coltrane · 1963 Spin it Again - John Coltrane slowing all the way down in 1963 and proving he didn't need to burn anything to make you feel it.