Don is a saxophonist who wrote the first positive reviews of Shepp, Dixon. etc in DownBeat in the early '60s. He continued there for a few years. An AllMusic search should turn up something.
I certainly understand loosing patience with the ICP folks. I don't think he's the kind of listener to be "predisposed to not liking" anything.
Since these were "part works" and came with informative "magazine" notes. Do you include these or just the discs?
I have about 40 of these and they are reasonably well done, but JRT did not remaster all of them and the rest are fine too.