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Some great names of the past have been listed already. I'll add Rashied Ali's Duets albums plus his Afro Algonquin album that he made with the Rozie brothers. If you like the soulless Teutonic musical experience, there's von Schlippenbach. And Peter Brötzmann had some really murderous stuff...His Octet's Machine Gun is probably the easiest to recommend to a new curious listener.
Nab that Orange In the Midst of Chaos reissue CD on De Stijl. One of the best reissues of this year!
Of bands/artists that are active at this very moment, check these out...
Evolutionary Jass Band (copious amounts of soulfulness!)
Chad Stockdale (sax assassin from here in Sacto, various groups)
Family Pet (from Maine, scorchin' & freaky)
Little Women (one-sided LP on Gilgongo is ace!)
Weasel Walter Quartet (and other WW groups)
Ettrick (incredibly assaultive bleakness!)
Rust Ionics
Lemon Bear
Most of the Evolutionary Jass Band people play in various projects, and those always sound awfully good to me. The Oregon Artificial Limb Co. and Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly! are two such bands. That Bob guy saws some crazy cello. Maybe the single best solo I saw this year was two simultaneous solos by him and Lemon Bear at a semi-impromptu show at Valentine's in Portland. I saw a couple open mics recording...maybe you will all get to hear it someday.
Stockdale was in a band from Sacto that released a 7" and an LP about 3 years back called Antennas Erupt. If you find either of those records, those are brilliant. Free-jazz influenced, but also somewhat compositionally focused.
Another place to find music with this spirit is in the intersection of free/improv music and the broadly-defined psychedelic scene. There's plenty of No Neck hype here, and surely the best 10% of their stuff warrants it. As does Jackie-O Motherfucker's stuff. Overall, those bands are probably far too prolific, though. So, pick from that stuff wisely...get recommendations to corroborate each other. Or, better yet, try some Fushitsusha.
As with a lotta improv music, there's a lotta dreck to wade through, but that effort isn't wasted when you find the magical moments. You gotta listen with patience. It really is a wonder that this music is still finding new fans in an age when most listeners are just clicking downloads and streams one after another, quickly sampling the first few moments before moving on to the next....like skimming a book.
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