Being disallowed from pursuing a proper recording career in jazz due to political affiliations and beliefs is hard to understand. The music form was – up until perhaps the ‘80s or so – flush with believers in causes as vast and plentiful as each stylistic derivation of the genre. Clifford Thornton, though, apparently had a hard time finding imprints to release his work.

The trumpeter, who had studied under Donald Byrd during the fifties, eventually endeavored to found his own label – a way by which to skirt dealing with the suits and do as he pleased musically. This business and artistic decision yielded Thornton the to opportunity to release his first date as a leader in 1967. Freedom & Unity had its message scrawled out on the cover. And the music it purports is just as obvious.

Thornton is now regarded as some sort of lost grail to the free jazz scene from the ‘60s. His playing can be found elsewhere on works from Sam Rivers and Sun Ra, but on the few dates that the trumpeter leads himself, there’s supposed to be a certain direction that differs from those other player’s work. It’s not to denigrate the Rivers or Sun Ras of the jazz, but to define them differently. Neither reveled in overt politicism – the latter not even thinking that he was from this planet – whereas Thornton’s work, or the titles at least, displayed noting but that.

After the 1967 album, Thornton released a single work, Ketchaoua, through the French BYG label. Aurally, it wasn’t detached from the label’s other incursions into the jazz genre and sported a good many players that had released work via BYG. Coming just a year after that disc was a live album. But what separates this work – apart from the fact that it was recorded in a live setting – is that fact that the players who make up Thornton’s were band mostly all European.

Growing ever disenfranchised with the social environment in the States, Thornton high tailed it to France, only to be denied entrance as a result of his past political associations. Prior to attempting to gain citizenship there, though, the trumpeter recorded this disc - The Panther and the Lash. Named for the Langston Hughes collection of the same name, which details the poet’s political point of view and was released the same year as John Coltrane’s death, the album, before even playing a note already arrives imbued with a certain intensity.

Seven tracks comprise the album. And while not all of those songs are aggressive free jazz screeds, there aren’t too many pieces of melody to hold on to. “Tout Le Pouvoir Au People” arrives perma-relaxed, but is able to fit into the album seamlessly because of its fervent drum work and Thrornton’s own endless trombone line – the trumpeter also plays cornet, some percussion and piano here.

The first two tracks Thornton is credited as composer, but the remaineder of the disc (save for the two ‘traditional’ songs at the end) are attached to pianist François Tusques. That could account for the shift, but regardless, the music here is all enlightened free jazz stuffs.