Among the heroes and innovators of '70s spiritual / progressive / funk / jazz, Doug Carn has always flown a bit under the radar. He has long pursued his craft with patience and dedication, releasing absolutely stunning albums that are appreciated by those in the know, but are lesser known even to the jazz mainstream, even if his influence is felt among his peers.

Carn's latest project, his entry into the Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad-led Jazz Is Dead album series, takes his unique and timeless art and places it in the context of a musical culture that has always looked to his '70s classics for guidance. There's no mistaking the musical spirit that created legendary albums like Infant Eyes and Adam's Apple, but the encounter with the distinctive jazz-hip-hop-funk noir that is the hallmark of Younge / Muhammad / JID creates something worthy of comparison to Carn's earlier work, but that could only be done now.

Hailing from Florida in the late 1960s, he made his recording debut as perhaps the most important member of the black jazz repertoire, releasing four albums for the label between 1971 and 1975 that are considered classics of black consciousness expressed in jazz. A key aspect of the success of these albums was the haunting and powerful vocal contributions of his then-wife Jean Carn, whose five-octave vocal range made for memorable interpretations of such classics as Peace (Horace Silver), Little B's Poem (Bobby Hutcherson), Blue And Green (Miles Davis) and Doug's own Power And Glory.

Carn's own luminous work on acoustic and electric piano on all of these albums placed him firmly in the realm of contemporaries like Lonnie Liston Smith, Herbie Hancock and George Duke, and they were further elevated by the exquisite sideman work of a number of luminaries, including Olu Dara (aka Nas Sr.), Charles Tolliver, Alphonse Mouzon and legendary Cannonball Adderley bassist Walter Booker among others. After that classic era, Doug and Jean continued on their own separate paths, Jean as a solo R&B star with a string of successful albums and singles for Philadelphia International Records, and Doug as the same brilliant and creatively restless spiritual jazz avatar he'd always been. Fortunately, Doug and Jean's paths have crossed again and again over the past decade, and they can often be found performing together again.