The Mark Harvey Group launch their live album A Rite For All Souls with a livestreamed event on 9 August. Released earlier this month, the LP comprises of a newly discovered recording of a 1971 concert by the free jazz quartet, featuring trumpeter and composer Harvey, woodwind player Peter H Bloom, and the late percussionists Craig Ellis and Michael Standish.

The fully improvised 90 minute concert took place on 31 October that year at Boston, Massachusetts’s Old West Church. At the time, Harvey and his group were mourning, protesting and commemorating losses of the Vietnam War. The recording was discovered by Harvey on reel-to-reel tapes in his basement. “Today,” he says, “we find ourselves in another dark and tumultuous time [...] Then, as now, we search for spiritual healing and the rediscovery of a common humanity.”

At the event, veteran jazz writer Bob Blumenthal will host interviews with Harvey and Bloom and stream excerpts from the new release. Harvey is also the founder of Aardvark Jazz Orchestra. The event is free but a reservation is required.

A Rite For All Souls has been remastered and released via Americas Musicworks.