Oneness of Juju: African Rhythms 1970-82 ; Space Jungle Luv

By GRAHAM REID

African Rhythms 1970-82 ( * * * )

Space Jungle Luv ( * * * * )


In retrospect, the 70s was a more exciting decade than the 60s, despite what Beatle-bred baby boomers might have you believe. The 60s saw a flowering of various musical styles (pop, rock, soul, funk, and so on) but they all extended the contract in the 70s and became more diverse, deeper and exciting.

Consider what happened in black American music. It graduated from soul and fairly straight jazz into politicised soul-funk and free jazz. And that's without mentioning Afrobeat, Miles Davis electrojazz, or blaxploitation soundtracks.

Oneness of Juju were at the intersection of African awareness, the fiery politics of the Panthers, the funk and free jazz which floated round and, of course, wah-wah pedal guitars over the top of electric keyboards and African percussion.

It was a wild and, for the time, innovative blend, and was the brainchild of multi-instrumentalist James Branch jnr out of conservative Richmond, Virginia.

Taking the name Plunky, and later adopting the surname Nkabinde ("tall bull" in reference to a wide circle of female friends), he brought together a flexible line-up to record more than a dozen albums under various names (Juju, Oneness of Juju, Oneness, Plunky & Oneness, and so on) and created a multimedia arts centre.

The African Rhythms 1970-82 double disc collection, with excellent biographical liner notes, offers the template they laid down: good foot funk about freedom, suggestions of Sun Ra's "space is the place" ethos on the extended jazzy tracks, soul and spirit music with piercing sax, and a consciousness that connected these East Coast USA musicians with the juju and Afrobeat in West Africa.

Inevitably Plunky made it to Africa in the 80s and played with juju guitarist King Sunny Ade and Fela Anikulapo Kuti.

African Rhythms, with its diversity and reach over two packed discs, is perhaps the only OOJ you need, but the '76 album Space Jungle Luv (only the eight-minute River Luv Rite is on the collection) is worth checking out for its own sake, especially if the 70s jazz of Sun Ra and Pharoah Sanders means anything to you.

With vocalist Lady Eka Ete, the band were a bridge between avant-garde jazz and soul, and Space Jungle Luv was their most consistent in a genre of their own making.

Soul brothers and sisters who were one part Bootsy-meets-Bacharach, one part Motown soul and with lashings of jazz funk. That ain't a bad cocktail, surely?

Label: Strut