Mostly known for his sideman work with tenorman Albert Ayler in the mid-'60s, fellow Cleveland saxophonist Charles Tyler had a lengthy and under-the-radar career in the United States and Europe that eventually showed very different roots from the Ayler brothers. He was still somewhat under the sway of his former bandleader on this 1966 debut for ESP-Disk, which features fellow Ayler bandmates Henry Grimes (bass), Ronald Shannon Jackson (drums), and Joel Freedman (cello), with the addition of Charles Moffett on orchestra vibes for the first two tracks. The latter’s spacy metallic quality, alongside Tyler’s wide vibrato, lends the opening “Strange Uhuru” a Sun Ra–like mood, while the second-side opener, “Three Spirits,” draws mostly from the anthemic Ayler tree. “Lacy’s Out East” (Lacy referring to Tyler’s middle name) mixes surging rock ‘n’ roll kinetics with biting alto curls, maintaining its tempo through an intense cello-and-mallets duet. Freedman is certainly one of the better jazz cellists to come around, unafraid to take chances as an improviser and an excellent foil for Tyler’s hard-bitten, wailing alto