From Elemental Music comes the long overdue vinyl reissue of one of greatest and most standalone albums in both the legendary Blue Note catalog and the history of American jazz: the longtime Sun Ra Arkestra trumpeter Eddie Gale’s 1968 debut Ghetto Music. A towering hybrid of free jazz, spiritual jazz, and gospel, infused with politics of Black Nationalism and self-determination of its era that culminate in a writhing, heavy sound like nothing else, it’s one of those records that pulls the rug out and leaves you gasping for more.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, Eddie Gale cut his teeth playing with Jackie McLean, John Coltrane, Sonny Stitt, Booker Ervin, and Illinois Jacquet, among others. He studied with Kenny Dorham, and played trumpet in Sun Ra’s Arkestra for significant amount of the 1960s and '70s - his trumpet can be heard carving its way across Ra classics like “Secrets of the Sun”, “Lanquidity”, “The Other Side of the Sun”, and “On Jupiter” - and was a member of Cecil Taylor’s band, appearing on the pianist’s astounding “Unit Structures” in 1966. During a hiatus from the Arkestra in the late 1960’s, Gale ventured out on his own and laid down two records as a leader for Blue Note, the first of which was “Ghetto Music”, issued in 1968 (the second being 1969’s “Black Rhythm Happening”). Neither sit comfortably within the label’s larger catalog (or anywhere), and quickly fell out of pint and were never repressed, becoming among the label’s rarest artefacts on the collectors market.