Between its founding in 1968 and sale in 1983, the original incarnation of the recently revived German label MPS—the initials stand for Musik Produktion Schwarzwald (Music Production Black Forest)—notched up around five hundred releases. Some were recorded in the US by American musicians, many more were recorded in Europe and featured bands made up of European musicians and touring or temporarily resident Americans. In the late 1960s and 1970s, the label was an important part of continental Europe's jazz scene. There was, for some people's taste, rather too much fusion in the catalogue, but it also contained plenty of solid-gold acoustic jazz.

Although there have been attempts to position MPS as a German version of Blue Note (which was founded, lest we forget, by two ��migr�� Germans), the exercise does not really stand up. Yes, both labels were in their heyday prolific and emphasized high production standards; but Blue Note had an immediately identifiable sound, whereas that of MPS was more variegated, largely dependent as the label was on opportunities presented by touring Americans and subject to multiple recording locations and producers.

In 1983, founder Hans Georg Brunner-Schwer sold MPS to the Netherlands' Philips Group and the label's profile faded. There have been periodic attempts to resuscitate MPS, however, the most serious and sustained following its acquisition by the Hamburg-based media company Edel in 2014.

Among the highlights of the post-Edel releases is a series of newly recorded albums by the Italian bandleader and spiritual-jazz auteur