There are a handful of catalogs within the history of record music that simultaneously stand as depositories of great art, while also indicating multiple intersections of cultural history. Among the most noteworthy of these is BYG’s Jazz Actuel series, easily among the most important bodies of recording within 20th Century of avant-garde music. Launched in 1969 by Jean Georgakarakos, Jean-Luc Young, and Fernand Boruso, who invited American free jazz musicians to Paris during the summer of that year, over the course of its three year run it issued roughly 50 of the most enduring and beloved albums in the idiom’s canon and beyond (in the case of the inclusion of artists like Gong, Musica Elettronica Viva, Terry Riley, and a handful of others), including landmark releases by The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Archie Shepp, Frank Wright, Sun Ra, Anthony Braxton, Sunny Murray, Alan Silva, Paul Bley, Sonny Sharrock, Clifford Thornton, and numerous others - which doesn’t even begin to account for all the incredible players who were in the mix.

While the Actuel series was top to bottom gold, two of its most celebrated releases are unquestionably its first and thirty-first entries, Don Cherry’s “Mu: First Part” and “Mu: Second Part”. Both astounding duos with Cherry’s longtime collaborator, the drummer Ed Blackwell - with whom he had iconically lay the groundwork for the entire idiom of free jazz in Ornette Coleman’s band, each of these LPs is a monumental statement in creative elegance that was entirely unprecedented in their day. As huge fans of both of these LPs, we’re thrilled to be able to shine some light on brand new, deluxe, 180gr. audiophile editions of both. Fully remastered from the original BYG tapes by Nick Robbins, both “Mu: First Part” and “Mu: Second Part” are issued in a black vinyl edition and special marble vinyl edition, all housed in deluxe matte laminate gatefold sleeves. This is a rare chance to grab meticulously produced pressings of two of the most astounding creative efforts ever to have been laid to tape in the entire canon of late 1960s and early '70s free jazz. As essential as it comes for new and old fans alike.

The BYG’s Jazz Actuel series, among the most important bodies of avant-garde recordings ever produced, was the result of the intersection of multiple streams of happening within the social and political landscape that was the late 1960s. On one hand, jazz, which had begun as a popular idiom within African American communities, had rapidly progressed, during the post-war period, toward the lofty heights of high art, beginning with be-bop and then making a full break, via the ground work by artists like Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Albert Ayler, and John Coltrane (with the members of their bands), into the purest realms of the avant-garde with the inception of free jazz during the late 1950s. While free jazz can be regarded as the purest and most radical sonic expression of the attitudes of liberation embodied by the civil rights movement and the radical ideas of the 1960s at large, by the end of the decade, jazz, particularly avant-garde jazz, had largely lost its audience, leaving many of the most important and groundbreaking artists of their generation simultaneously faced with the stark realities of racism, as the American government and the police effectively declared war on its own people of African descent, and almost no support for their work from within their own committees, as well as outside of them, as the counterculture embraced funk, soul, and psychedelia.

Like many generations of jazz musicians before them, a huge number of those breaking ground during the late 1960s followed the call to France, a country where they were embraced creatively, found new audiences, and faced considerable less racism than they did in the United States. Among these were The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Archie Shepp, Frank Wright, Anthony Braxton, Wadada Leo Smith, The Black Artist Group, Sunny Murray, Sonny Sharrock, Clifford Thornton, and a near countless number of others, many of whom had arrived via the Pan-African Music Festival in Algiers during July of 1969, and simply crossed the border into France looking for work. It is largely this community coming together during that period in Europe that allowed the glories of the Jazz Actuel series to come to be, and at the centre of it all was none other than Don Cherry whose “Mu: First Part” would mark its debut.

Born into a musical family, Cherry got his start as pianist, entered the world of jazz while still living in Los Angeles during his teens, joining Art Farmer’s band, before making the leap to trumpet under the mentorship of Clifford Brown. It was only a few short years later, at the tail end of the 1950s, that he made his first significant mark on the history of music, as a central member of Ornette Coleman's legendary quartet; the band that singlehandedly set the blue print for the emerging idiom of free jazz. Not only did Cherry contribute to an entire rethinking of what jazz could be, but, even more significantly, the entire potential of music itself. Laying down the trumpet parts across the near entirety of Coleman's seminal early output, during the same era he doubled down as a sideman, making equally astounding contributions to the canon of 1960s avant-garde jazz with Sonny Murray, Prince Lasha, Alber Ayler, among others, as well as a member of the New York Contemporary 5, before venturing out on his own as a leader in 1966 and beginning the body of recordings that would leave a permanent mark on the world, and change nearly everything in its wake.

Cherry was a player of astounding touch and sensitivity, - he reportedly could play anything back, note for note, after hearing it once - who was far more interested in where music could go and what it could emote, than technique. His playing is raw, profoundly human, and direct, tapping something basic and human that strips all artifice as it dives toward the heart, drawing countless traditions from across the globe to create a music that stood beyond the locating forces of place, time, or aesthetics. Nowhere is this more apparent than his two LP within the Actuel series, 1969’s “Mu: First Part” and 1970’s “Mu: Second Part”, both recorded during a single session on August 22, 1969, at Studio Saravah in Paris as a duo with his longtime collaborator, the drummer Ed Blackwell.

By the time Blackwell and Cherry had entered the studio for the “Mu” session, the pair had already collaborated on numerous seminal LPs, including Ornette Coleman's “Free Jazz”, “Ornette On Tenor”, “Ornette!”, and Cherry's “Complete Communion” and “Symphony for Improvisers”, as well as the trumpet player’s LP with John Coltrane “The Avant-Garde”. Nearly a decade of working together had clearly brought the two into close alignment. From the first sounding of their conversation as the first part finds its groove, it’s clear that there’s rarely been two artists so linked by a sound: “Mu” was built entirely on improvisation, envisioning itself as a single piece, unfolding between the two musicians without any preconception.

The first part of “Mu”, beginning with the composition, “Brilliant Action”, begins as a stripped back gesture of hard bop, writhing and rethinking the idiom with purely improvised terms, before slipping into the groove-heavy, “Omejelo”, a hypnotic dance that features Cherry on flute. From there the duo move into the realms of more driving free improvisation with “Total Vibration” and then depart toward engrossing lyrically of “Sun of the East”, before concluding the LP with the eastern flavoured, almost minimal piano and drum duet, “Terrestrial Beings”.

So visionary, unique, and diverse in its approach and voicing, had only the first part of “Mu” ever seen the light of day, this session would still be regarded as among the most moving and creatively striking statements in the history of jazz. It’s hard to believe that the world was so lucky to get more the following year, in 1970, with the Actuel series’ thirty-first entry, “Mu: Second Part”.

Beginning with the playful piano and drum duet, “The Mysticism of My Sound” - flirting with touches of Monk and funk - “Mu: Second Part” pushes into the session further with a stunning medley, also on the same instruments, conceived partially in homage to the South African Dollar Brand, that spits the difference between states of profound abstraction and hypnotic grooves. From here Cherry and Blackwell move into two stripped back and deeply inspired conceptualisation of spiritual jazz on flute and percussion with “Bamboo Night” and “Teo-Teo-Can” before ripping out with the engrossing, hard driving free improvisation “Smiling Places Going Places”, and diving it back with “Psycho-Drama”, and then concluding with another profoundly moving medley with Blackwell behind the kit and Cherry on piano and vocals that move across an astounding range of territories, from the soulful to the completely abstract as it goes.

Singular and distinct, sounding like little else in the canon of jazz, while reduced to the almost barest means, the music that Don Cherry and Ed Blackwell made together during the “Mu” sessions occupy centre stage in perception, moving beyond the earthly plane, while entirely grounded in the social, political, and intellectual pursuits of the late 1960s. “Mu: First Part” and “Mu: Second Part”, are, in the simplest terms, the sound of great art and among the most important LPs in the legendary Actuel series, as well as in the entire history of jazz. More than half a century on, they remain among the most moving and captivating records we can call to mind. These two brand new, deluxe, 180gr. audiophile editions of both have been fully remastered from the original BYG tapes by Nick Robbins, and are issued in black vinyl editions and special marble vinyl editions, all housed in deluxe matte laminate gatefold sleeves. Absolutely stunning, as essential as they come, and not to be missed.