His day job was corporate law. His night job was recording Pharoah Sanders.

I pulled this record because of the name. Kings of Mali. Chico Freeman on India Navigation. 1977.

Four tracks, all originals, all dedicated to the ancient kingdom of Mali. Freeman printed an extensive section of historical research about Sundiata Keita and Mansa Kankan Musa on the back of the sleeve. The music and the history arrived together.

The quintet on this record is extraordinary. Jay Hoggard on vibraphone. Anthony Davis on piano, who would go on to write the opera X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X at the New York City Opera in 1986. Cecil McBee on bass. Famoudou Don Moye, the Art Ensemble of Chicago's percussionist, on drums. Freeman on tenor, soprano, flute and African bailophone.

The label behind it is the story most people don't know.

Bob Cummins was a corporate lawyer in New York who helped jazz musicians with their legal matters and started showing up to the downtown lofts in the early 1970s.

He liked what he heard so much he founded India Navigation in 1972 and started recording the scene himself. No formal production background that anyone has documented. He recorded live, no overdubs, no alternate takes, often in the lofts where the music was happening.

He lived on Chambers and Hudson in lower Manhattan, right inside the world he was capturing. Pharoah Sanders. Arthur Blythe. David Murray. Hamiet Bluiett. Chico Freeman. All documented by a lawyer from Nyack, New York.

Cummins died in 2000 at 68. The New York Times ran his obituary written by jazz critic Ben Ratliff. That is the only substantial public record of his life that exists.