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The problem with jazz's popular young lions is they rarely roar. The older cats on this CD come in screaming--as if they've stepped on the hot coals of inspiration. Horn man Roy Campbell, reed player Daniel Carter, bassist William Parker, and drummer Rashid Bakr have all tangled with the likes of free-music pioneers Cecil Taylor and Roscoe Mitchell and come away burning. They blaze through the polyrhythmic flowerbeds and sunshine and hailstorm textures of these spontaneous improvisations. Pocket trumpet, sax, and flute melodies make frequent cameos on this fully liberated blowing session, with Carter and Campbell often swinging like prizefighters. And Bakr gets deep on the beat with Parker making his upright's strings putter like a peripatetic drum kit. The AUM label claims to document the highest level of human musical expression. Here's proof. --Ted Drozdowski