Heckstall-Smith was an active member of the London jazz scene from the late 1950s. He joined Blues Incorporated, Alexis Korner's groundbreaking blues group, in 1962, recording the album R&B from the Marquee. The following year, he was a founding member of that band's breakaway unit, The Graham Bond Organization. (The lineup also included two future members of the blues-rock supergroup Cream: bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker.)
Dudu Pukwana grew up studying piano in his family but in 1956, he switched to alto sax after meeting tenor sax player Nick Moyake. In 1962, he won first prize at the Johannesburg Jazz Festival with Moyake's Jazz Giants (1962 Gallo/Teal). Chris McGregor then invited him to join the Blue Notes; the interracial sextet, increasingly harassed by authorities, went into exile in 1964, playing in France, Zurich, and London.
An unlikely but fortunate meeting of two avant-jazz heavyweights came about in the early 1970s during an extended holiday trip to London made by trumpeter Bobby Bradford. Arranging an impromptu session with drummer John Stevens (a founding father of British free improvisation) and his group, Spontaneous Music Ensemble, Bradford appeared on two classic volumes for the Nessa label. The two complementary sets are reissued here under the slightly confusing title (given the name of the Stevens-led group) Spontaneous Music Ensemble. Bradford here is in excellent company and sounds more forceful than on his typically reserved contributions for clarinetist John Carter…