Album: David Murray, Live in Berlin, (Jazzwerkstatt)

Expatriate US reeds player Murray – who opens Ornette Coleman's Meltdown festival in London from 13 June with the Roots – has been the most exciting and expressive soloist in jazz for 25 years.

Still only 54, he's continuing to get better, as this often-inspired 2007 concert recording with his Black Saint Quartet shows. The context is post-Katrina anger and anguish, expelled through Murray's weeping ballads and heroic honks. The younger pianist Lafayette Gilchrist is a star, too.

Pick of the album: 'Sacred Ground': a shatteringly intense slow-burner