Impulse Records was one of the most storied and important jazz labels to emerge in the ’60s – a haven for different generations of forward-thinking musicians as reflected by its slogan “The New Wave of Jazz is on…”. In *Impulse-ive Moods*, the latest episode of his [Across 135th Street](http://www.rbmaradio.com/categories/mixes/formats/across-135th-street) program, Jeff “Chairman” Mao selects a few personal favorites from the label’s catalog. While the spiritual big poppa of Impulse artists, *John Coltrane*, is of course represented (with Live at Birdland’s *Your Lady*), so too is the work of his collaborators (Elvin Jones and Jimmy Garrison’s baritone-sax heavy *Half and Half*), and the new breed experimentalists Trane championed (Albert Ayler’s meditative *Our Prayer* and Archie Shepp’s take on Duke Ellington’s *Prelude to a Kiss*).
