The Awakening's jazz - hard bop with side-trips into soul jazz, plus some free-jazz tonal expressionism.
The Chicago-based jazz sextet known as The Awakening was in the front line of the second tier of jazz combos active in the first half of the 1970s, amongst the Revolutionary Ensemble and the low-profile bands of, respectively, Sunny Murray, Hadley Caliman, Hampton Hawes, Billy Harper, Albert Mangelsdorff, and Fred Anderson. Who inhabited the top tier? Certainly the Art Ensemble Of Chicago and groups led by heavyweights Charles Mingus, Cecil Taylor, Elvin Jones, Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, Sonny Rollins, Keith Jarrett and Phil Woods.