Looking Ahead

McIntyre and Dolphy’s telepathic interplay on Looking Ahead captures post bop at its most exploratory moment—two reed virtuosos navigating modal territories with the kind of intuitive freedom that defined Prestige’s mid-sixties output. McIntyre’s oboe and flute weave around Dolphy’s alto clarinet and bass clarinet in conversations that feel simultaneously structured and improvised, anchored by sympathetic rhythm section work that knows when to push and when to breathe.