“My message is aimed at awakening our community. When others enjoy my music I am extremely pleased and invite all to visit Philly, birthplace of America, the spiritual capital of the world. 

“Our city has learned to use great black music as the tool of progressive enlightenment. Newest Africa sounds … dictate that we rise to the responsibility of rebuilding America.”

Some commitment here, within the words of a record sleeve of 72-year-old Philadelphian, the saxophonist Byard Lancaster, whose two albums Pam Africa and Ancestral Link Hotel were cut on successive days in April 2005 and who declares his path has been guided by “angels” from John Coltrane to Shirley Scott, from Lee Morgan to Paul Robeson.

Lancaster made his first records on the ESP-DISK label in 1966. A much-travelled jazz musician, for long his desire has been “to return home to develop my community,” and after stints with wandering geniuses like Sun Ra and McCoy Tyner, Philly has stayed his home, its people his primary listeners and inspiration.

The title track of Pam Africa begins quietly and almost out of time, like an old English military fife and drum duet, with Lancaster’s afro flute and Harold E Smith’s throbbing skins making a compelling duo.

The two basses of Ed Crockett and Bert Harris make their entrance on Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise, with the sublimely sensitive acoustics of The Spirit Room in rural Rossie, New York state, picking out every petal of sound from Lancaster’s alto and the delving bass undertow.

The quartet crosses an ocean for Harris’s Capetown and the solidarity with Africa pours from Lancaster’s soprano horn and “his confreres” rhythmic power. It’s a simple tune played with a beautiful clarity.

Sonny Rollins recorded I’m An Old Cowhand for his early Way Out West album of 1957 and Lancaster’s reprise, nearly half a century later, has a certain ironic fire, with many a chomp and gurgle.

After Rollins it is two from Coltrane, one of Philly’s “angels.”

First Blue Train from ’Trane’s 1957 Blue Note album with the same title, full of Smith’s rumbling drums and Lancaster’s rolling, repetitive phrases, reanimates a classic theme.

The bass on that 1957 session was played by the pioneering Paul Chambers, and with two basses with Lancaster, perhaps Mr P.C. had to be played.

The blistering pace and roaring language of Lancaster’s tenor is an amalgam of artistry and passion well worthy of the tune’s great creator, and to have two pulsating basses, bells, whistles and pounding drums all superbly alive is to give new life to one of Coltrane’s eternal themes.

Another Coltrane favourite, Bye Bye Blackbird, is given a rousing outing by the quartet, with the two basses pinging and Smith’s bouncing drums resounding off Lancaster’s familiar choruses. The final track is the hornman’s own Justified Sacrifice, where his lone saxophone sings out a dream of beauty and longing.

The next day the foursome were back in the Spirit Room and the 21 opening minutes of the title track begin with wordless vocals, bells, whistles and Smith’s didgeridoo while the bowed basses underpin Lancaster’s piercing soprano horn.

It’s a hotel of many stories, sounds and palavers built on a passage to Africa.

Smith’s snares rattle through Holy Buddy while Lancaster blows free and the powerfully dawdling Slow Blues In G launches his alto on a long liberation walk.

Two bop classics unexpectedly follow. First is Miles’s Milestones of 1958 with ’Trane and another Philly boy, drummer Philly Joe Jones.

Byard hurtles into the theme, the basses twang and Smith’s drums rap and clatter.

Then there is Killer Joe, by Philly-born tenorist Benny Golson, whose tribute album to his city-mate Coltrane, This Is For You John, was issued in 1983.

Lancaster’s twin albums start and end in Philly, but cover enormous expansions of land, sea and sound in between.

Great music and enduring music makers remembered.