Concentrating on a 20-year period beginning from the founding of ESP Disk’ (the first independent label to give priority to free jazz) and ending with the year the CD began to take over as the genre’s format of choice, Johannes Rød’s elegantly designed book offers a welcome and necessary guide to jazz’s enfant terrible.

At its core is a selection of 60 of the small scale, independent US and European labels that gave the genre its autonomous, anti-establishment flavour. A potted history and synopsis of each imprint (sometimes detailed and informative, at others frustrating brief), paints a picture of a fiercely independent scene run chiefly by the artists themselves or wealthy fans. Discographies (many being author-picked highlights) accompany each entry while a selection of plates show the attention to design and aesthetics that accompanied many of the releases.

As in any book tackling such a knotty subject as free jazz there will be controversy surrounding its inclusions and omissions. The lack of any major label releases for instance, robs the book of many of the genre’s most important releases. Similarly, an attempt to document a few important Japanese releases would have been welcome. But it’s hard to be too critical of a work that offers such a wealth of information or so many excellent starting points.