A supergroup of the jazz avant-garde at its 1977 inception, they have helped make the "a capella" woodwind ensemble a permanent, if still obscure, part of the improvisational landscape. Julius Hemphill (Arthur Blythe and John Purcell in later years), Oliver Lake, David Murray, and Hamiet Bluiett, capable of anything: gonzo borrowings from Ellingtonia, quiet pointillism, scare-the-neighbors energy music, the lowest-downest, blueswailingest testifyin'. And more.