Sonny Sharrock - Ask the Ages

Man, I feel grossly inadequate trying to write about jazz. Here's the deal: Sonny Sharrock was a jazz guitarist who ran in some pretty heavy Free Jazz circles in the late '60's and early '70s. He retired from music for 12 years before being coaxed back by Bill Laswell. I don't know a great deal about his later body of work, but I do know this: Ask the Ages, his final studio album, is a masterpiece, period. Featuring Pharaoh Sanders on sax and Elvin Jones on drums, it screams, burns an smolders in every conceivable way. Do NOT let the "Free Jazz" moniker scare you off on this either; while elements of it are certainly present, I feel like the songs on here are really accessible to the adventurous modern music listener regardless of their familiarity with jazz. Or, as some random critic put it, "Hands down, Sharrock's finest hour, and the ideal album to play for those who claim to hate jazz guitar." At the very least check out "Many Mansions" and let your mind be destroyed.
Absolutely Essential.