If you make your first recorded appearance on the dense-dense-dense album The Panther and the Lash by Clifford Thornton, that’s about all of the background you need. That disc’s melding of all things political, socially conscious thought and plain ole free improvisation made it an underrated and ignored classic of the late ‘60s jazz scene. The disc was received in such a manor that Thornton quite the States and headed to Europe for a while. Folks here don’t always get the message, but that’s how it goes.

Much the same could be said for Joe McPhee’s Nation Time. After taking part in a recording like Thornton’s it’s not too surprising that the trumpeter cum saxophonist would make use of some free improv. But the setting in which it’s all framed is drastically detached from much of whatever else was being issued at the time and referred to as forward thinking jazz.

The Allmusic Guide write up of the disc concludes that McPhee’s album aptly combines theoretical backing with enough groove to get the disc over. That may well be true, but that’s not what happened. McPhee’s work, even in light of the new thing in jazz during the ’60s, wasn’t well received. Nation Time didn’t get panned anywhere – or at least anywhere that maintains an online archive – but the album wouldn’t ever do too much in the way of raising McPhee’s visibility.

Making use of approaches to saxophone pioneered by John Coltrane and subsequently Pharaoh Sanders, McPhee wails and bleats his way through three extended tracks. But what distances this particular effort from McPhee’s avowed heroes are the various musical settings that the skronk and dance of his horns are placed. It’s not a jazz groove so much as a hard funk that propels portions of each of the three compositions – “Scorpio’s Dance” being the most rooted in jazz, but of the funky variety with bombastic percussion all the way through. Of course, it could be figured that this final track, which was also the shortest, grants listeners some of McPhee’s most noisome and adventurous playing. Either way, it seems that the earlier two tracks, with at least nominal foundations in funk, hold more for every listener.

Opening with the title track – beginning with McPhee shouting the question, “What time is it?” and receiving the answer, “It’s nation time.” – the quick comping on piano belies the track’s endlessly fast tempo. There’s a bit of a drawing back on the thick layering of instrumentation as the pianist works out not just an acoustic keyboard, but an electric one as well. The dichotomy is pleasurable enough for listeners to sit through as each should be awaiting some massive explosion from McPhee’s horn.

It finally comes a few minutes further into the track as one might confuse the mess of notes for some former bop player making the shift to new musics. It’s all rendered in the most visceral of terms. And even while the title track is nothing short of subservient to “Shakey Jake” in its funkiness, everything represented on Nation Time begs to be played loud.