It features groups led by major avant-garde jazz artists performing at a concert for the benefit of The Black Arts Repertory Theater/School founded by Amiri Baraka, then known as LeRoi Jones.

[3] According to Baraka, BARTS, which opened later that spring in a brownstone at 109 West 130th Street,[4] would offer schooling in "acting, writing, directing, set designing, production, [and] management.

[2] A poster for the concert advertised $5 tickets and listed the participants as John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor, Archie Shepp, Betty Carter, Grachan Moncur, Albert Ayler, the Sun Ra Myth-Science Arkestra, and Charles Tolliver.

[5] Baraka recalled:[6] I knew the producer of Impulse, Bob Thiele, fairly well, having done liner notes for him, on the enormously important Live at Birdland album, for which I interviewed Trane in the little telephone-booth dressing room in the back.

"[17] The editors of AllMusic awarded the album 4 stars, with Ron Wynn calling the performances "intriguing,"[10] and Scott Yanow writing: "There is plenty of fire on the release ...