JuJu - 'A Message From Mozambique' (Black Fire)

And that message is, loud and clear, 'we are teeming with life and energy'. Except JuJu aren't from Mozambique, they're from Richmond, VA and some form of this band still exists today, still based around saxophonist Plunky Nkabinde. 1972 was a great era for merging free jazz and African nationalism, or perhaps I should say continentalism; the iconography is made clearly visible on the cover and clearly audible throughout the heavily percussive LP of searing jazzjams under review here. If one didn't know better, this photo could pass as the bizarro Art Ensemble of Chicago (from around this same era), but the music is much more built around flow than space, showing that facepaint alone does not indicate sound. Compositionally, A Message From Mozambique is spread across the whole band, and the six cuts here have distinct personalities. Nkabinde's '(Struggle) Home' opens up with 16 minutes of rapid, toe-tapping melodic jamming, creating the sound that I remember the most about this record. It's driving, with two percussionists and fast, thunderous piano runs from Al-Hammel Rasul and much soloing from Nkabinde; free, yes, but the dissonance fits within a widely defined space and the overall motion is harmonic and energy-producing. Rasul's beautiful 'Soledad Brothers' would seem to pull things down a notch, except this open piano framework allows vibes and smaller percussive elements to run amuck between the chords. It's rising and falling cadences are beautiful and propelling, wrapping up the nervous energy into the centre of the soundstage and harnessing the group power in a quieter, more focused form. It's my favourite cut on the record and a tragedy that it's only five minutes long. A more 'traditional' group jam comes with the wonderfully titled 'Make Your Own Revolution Now', which feels most at home against the ESP/skronk scene of the preceding few years. The drums and piano tend to dominate here, but when Nkabinde and flautist Lon Moshe come in, they make their presence felt through fast, dynamic exaltations. The remainder of side two pulls away from western jazz entirely, being drum/percussion workouts that are sometimes deceptively minimal-seeming ('Freedom Fighter') or more explicitly exploring the influences of indigenous music (the traditional 'Nairobi/Chants' which does involve some spirited vocalisations). JuJu's success is in synthesising these genres in such a palatable way - certainly we've heard it before in ways more impressionistic (the aforementioned Art Ensemble, or the work of Don Garrett) or more futurist (later Ornette Coleman), but this is an Afro-jazz record that is remarkably fun and I daresay even 'accessible', at least for a free jazz entry. That JuJu and Nkabinde never became household names, nor even enshrined in the same canon as other figures from this time (Archie Shepp, Frank Wright, etc.) may be due to this balance being slightly more 'fun' that one would expect; yet both the playing and compositional sense are as strong as anything else from the era.

Andrew Hill - 'Judgment!' (Blue Note)

The first thing that really hit me when I dropped the stylus was how fucking rich this sounded for a 52 year old record. I know I babble on here too often about the great sound of the vinyl, which is especially frustrating because words can't convey it, but here I was actually surprised; these Blue Note masters were quality. This is a stereo pressing too and I thought a general rule of thumb was to avoid early stereo pressings, but I tried pressing the mono button on my amp and the soundstage shrunk to a point of almost unpleasantness. Now, I'm not usually into vibes-based jazz, but Bobby Hutcherson doesn't even appear on every track here, and when he does it sounds magnificent, with the tones bright and ringing as a perfect counterpoint to Hill's piano. Elvin Jones sounds so distinctly like Elvin Jones, even though he's also influenced a million drummers in his wake; side one feels occasionally dominated by him, such as the drum solo near the end of 'Yokada Yokada'. The cymbals clatter through like slicing blades of light, and when songs stop on a drum break it's like being transported back to a smoky club in 1964. There's quite a few drum solos here, 'Reconciliation' and 'Alfred' also having them, though it fits in with the style of the record - a post-bop, melodic take that's avant-garde in construction if not a 'difficult' listen in the slightest, unless you're looking for catchy pop hooks. Hill's records interest me more for their composition than any white-heat playing and this is no exception (though the other one has Dolphy on it). 'Siete Ocho', the opener, pushes the vibes and piano against each other, escalating the tension while letting bassist Richard Davis establish a Can-like repetitive groove. 'Yokada' is whimsical, even flighty, and 'Alfred' (supposedly a tribute to Blue Note head honcho Alfred Lion) is the mellow ballad.  Apollonian to the core, the beauty of Judgment! is not incredibly obvious but distinctly rewarding. Davis is also a tremendously underrated bassist who was everywhere in the 60s, including on Astral Weeks which may be unfairly what he's remembered for the most, though his contribution to that is outstanding for that of a session player. I'm a native English speaker but find it very odd that we don't spell it 'judgement'. As great as this cover art is, that title just looks all wrong (but I know it's not).

Dif Juz - 'Extractions' (4AD)

This was it, really - the only proper Dif Juz record -- but a confident step forward it is, especially when compared to the EPs, which are more like sketches. The opening cut, 'Crosswinds', is built from saxophone drenched in wet reverb. It looks towards New Age music as well, but also is an early beacon towards the pop side of British electroacoustic music from later in the decade (I'm thinking O.Rang for example). 'Crosswinds' is lovely - the timbre of the saxes makes waves, a beautiful blanket of wet ear candy. This atmosphere is but a tease - the rest of Extractions is significantly more upbeat, driven by live drumming which is mostly free from the studio effects and processing which seem to affect every instrument. Yet Extractions is not an artificial chunk of computer love - it's welcoming and tries out musical ideas within the framework of this genre. 'A Starting Point' has quick-moving counterpoint; 'Silver Passage' is a quest.'Echo Wreck' feels like the major statement, with it's quick tapping drumming, soaring keyboards, and crafty melodic structure. The Cocteau Twins' vocalist makes an appearance on 'Love Insane', and her voice is a beauty; the vocal treatment sits much better with Dif Juz's music than the vocals on Vibrating Air, but it's good that most of the record stays instrumental. The tempo is somewhat uniform, and the sound is a pretty major step away from not just punk but from new wave at all. But while a lot of music like this - which later gets labeled as post-rock - becomes a bit too mellow, Dif Juz somehow stay energetic throughout. A whole lot of what I think of as the '4AD Sound' comes from music like this - this strain of (mostly British) 1980s musicians looking at texture, tension, ad soundscape instead of vitriol. The path leads though the Durutti Column and all the way to Talk Talk before the Americans started paying attention.

Sandy Bull - 'E Pluribus Unum' (Vanguard)

This document of mid-sixties idiomatic string mastery was something I was originally a bit disappointed with, as half of the record follows a 32-bar blues progression. It took me many years to embrace this progression, as I had an aversion to anything that traditionally rooted. Funny thing too, cause my Dad loves the blues, country, delta, proto-rock and otherwise, so I surely felt a ton of these vibrations when I was in the womb. 'No Deposit, No Return' blues is a multitracked composition by Bull, building up on a boom-chick drum part that actually might have been recorded with bass drum and hi-hat on separate takes. The bass drives the blues melody and Bull improvises on electric guitar and oud. The tone on the electric guitar is amazing; it has one of the most shimmering, earthy sounds I've ever heard and overall the whole track buzzes with an incarnate static energy. By the end, the main melody is driven by the oud but he's extemporisin' up a storm in the background on the 'lectric axe, and even the cowbell has come out. Though the instrumental workout here is beautiful, it's really the overall structural arc that is so great about this track. It moves slowly and loops back in on itself, like a dancing flame. It's totally lovely, but side two's "electric blend" frees itself from the blues convention, beginning around a bold electric oud improvisation. It takes awhile to flex its muscles, painting the walls with ringing overtones while it does. Once the familiar boom-chick creeps in, it feels a bit more focused. Over 21 minutes, 'Electric Blend' starts and stops a few times, creating a whirlwind of eastern-tinged echo and tremelo. The bass solos a bit, getting jiggy over a shuddering electric guitar, in one of the piece's more subtle moments. Like side 1, the background starts to get a bit crazy with noisy, low-mixed freakouts. It has that ringing tambura effect but close listen reveals it to sound more like Thurston Moore. Bull, on the back cover, looks like a guy who owns a midwestern gas station, but from listening to this you'd think he was a swami with long white robes and some dog-eared yoga books. Maybe that's part of what appeals to me so much about E Pluribus Unum - two sides, two moods, east meets west and all of that. The fidelity on this record is top-notch as well - a mid 60's pressing, this somehow remained absolutely mint until it ended up in my hands, and almost no surface noise is present. An advertisement for the wonders of vinyl records, this is!

Tim Buckley - 'Happy Sad' (Elektra)

This is overall my fave Tim Buckley record. It's the transitional one, where he's arcing up towards the stratosphere, knees tensed slightly. Or maybe he just heard Astral Weeks and said 'I gotta get some of that." "That" being the sound of pure liquidity; a record of ebbs and flows that bursts free with joyous character and somehow looks ahead to the even more out-there futurism of Lorca, Starsailor and the funky stuff. If you don't believe me, listen to the urban bongo grooves of 'Gypsy Woman', which dominates side B with its dark voodoo. It's partially due to the band really finding its voice, with Lee Underwood's lead guitar going apeshit here and on other tracks; not really being familiar with the in-between album, Goodbye and Hello, I'm not so sure how gradual this change was. It's pure jazz and Buckley lets his voice take a backseat at times, but knows when to let it rip. 'Gypsy Woman cast a spell on me / no mama don't you lie...' rips out like Robert Plant's 'Whole Lotta Love' bullshit, but this anticipates it, and this band rips the head off anything Zep ever did. (Though, can I name a single member of Buckley's backing band without looking at the liner notes? Can anyone?) But 'Gypsy Woman's histrionics belies the true beauty of this record, which is in the gentle rumbling grooves of the calm tracks. And let's not forget to mention David Friedman's vibes, which utterly transform a song like 'Buzzin' Fly' into a transcendent gem. Love is in the air and it's simple but with a biting undercurrent. 'Strange Feelin'' nails this, and it's a hell of a one-two punch with 'Fly', possibly being the greatest one-two punch in the history of rock music where both songs contain trailing apostrophes. 'Love From Room 109' is the difficult beast, which takes on the extended form in a moody workout, recalling the other epic folk jams of its day ('Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands' and that song on the first Neil album come to mind) but with a somewhat more watery presence. Maybe this stuff influenced shit like Dave Matthews Band but to my ears it's a magical blend, where everything is just right. There's more contemplative photos of Buckley on the sleeve for the teenyboppers to stare at, though I'd like to know how this went over with the pop kids. While some tracks are certainly accessible, like the straight-up folk beauty of 'Sing a Song for You', this sounds like a band that realises it has no limits. They make not take full advantage of this freedom quite yet, but it's on the horizon.