STEVE TINTWEISS AND THE PURPLE WHY, Live in Tompkins Square Park 1967

Nearly two decades before Prince commandeered the color and earned his nickname “The Purple One” with the multi-media success of Purple Rain, there was an exciting purple aesthetic going on in 1967 – the year of Jimi Hendrix’s classic “Purple Haze,” and for those into wild, freewheeling avant-garde jazz, bassist Steve Tintweiss’ dynamic collective The Purple Why.

Six years after releasing the first album from his decades old archives on INKY DoT MEDIA, he blesses the world awith the free jazz bliss of the group’s Live in Tompkins Square Park 1967, a concert happening that summer a continent away from San Francisco that truly captures the chaos restless energy of the era in spectacular, often cacophonous ways.

There’s some powerful melodic content – dig the fiery trumpet and clarinet duality on the hard bustlin’ “Waltz of Eternity,” for instance), but this gem thrives on its free-form, anything can happen vibes, which often sounds like the six piece band is just warming up and searching for melody and rhythm, sometimes finding it (as on the percussive, honking sax-fired (via Joel Peskin) N.E.S.W. Up/Down) but most often, and very much by design, not.

The one consistency throughout is the mesmerizing mood setting, often relentless drummer Randy Kaye, who booms and bangs with abandon, to hypnotic effect. As I wrote when I heard the later Tintweiss concert CD Live at NYC 1980 by the Steve Tintweiss Spacelight Band, this kind of music isn’t for everyone – but those who appreciate the kind of unrestrained music he made in his heyday will love the opportunity to revisit a memorable and spectacular moment in his and his bandmates’ lives.