Saturday, October 24, 2009

Ahmed Abdul MALIK - Jazz Sounds of Africa 1961


Ahmed Abdul MALIK - Jazz Sounds of Africa 1961

Jazz

Ahmed Abdul-Malik played bass with Monk for a while (including on the At Carnegie Hall with Coltrane CD recently unearthed). He also can be heard on the sublime Complete 1961 Village Vanguard box set intermittently playing the oud with the classic John Coltrane quartet (which to me is a contender for the greatest music ever recorded). Despite these credentials, Abdul-Malik never achieved more than a moderate amount of recognition for his music, which is too bad considering how good this music on Jazz Sounds of Africa sounds.
Right around the same time as the Vanguard recordings he recorded the music on this disc, which sounds equally as "out", and also very different, than what Coltrane was doing.
In fact, this music is so different I'm not really sure what to compare it to.

Yusef Lateef was also experimenting with what could be called world fusion jazz, and 15 or 20 years later Don Cherry went there, but Ahmed Abdul-Malik was on his own path. This is music rooted in bop, but every song really goes in a different direction, most with a strong Middle Eastern and African influence. With the exception of Andrew Cyrille on drums, all of the dozen of so players featured on this CD are pretty much unknown to me. It's amazing that he was able to get so many great (but obscure) musicians together to record,
and the solos sound inspired and creative throughout.

I'd recommend this CD to just about anyone with an interest in jazz that's outside the boundaries of the straightforward (whatever that means), and this CD is especially a bargin since it's actually two albums compiled onto one CD.
By Peter E. Johansen
**
Ahmed Abdul Malik- (Oud and Double Bass)
Tommy Turrentine- (Trumpet)
Andrew Cyrille- (Drums)
Rudy Collins- (Drums)
Taft Chandle-r (Tenor Sax)
Chief Bey- (African Drum)
Rupert Alleyne- (Flute)
Richard Gene Williams- (Trumpet)
Eric Dixon- (Tenor Sax)
Calo Scott- (Violin and Cello)
Montego Joe- (Bongos and Congas)
Bilal Abdurrahman- (Clarinet, Percussion, Reeds, and Darbouka)
**
01. Nights on Saturn (Ahmed Abdul-Malik) 7:34
02. The Hustlers (Ahmed Abdul-Malik) 5:34
03. Oud Blues (Ahmed Abdul-Malik) 4:09
04. La Ibkey (Ahmed Abdul-Malik) 5:52
05. Don't Blame Me (Dorothy Fields/Jimmy McHugh) 7:28
06. Hannibal's Carnivals (Ahmed Abdul-Malik) 4:40
07. Wakida Hena (Ahmed Abdul-Malik) 3:53
08. African Bossa Nova (Ahmed Abdul-Malik) 6:00
09. Nadusilma (Ahmed Abdul-Malik) 4:00
10. Out of Nowhere (Johnny Green/Edward Heyman) 5:00
11. Communication (Ahmed Abdul-Malik) 9:46
12. Suffering (Ahmed Abdul-Malik) 5:12
**
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