BROTHER AH AND THE SOUNDS OF AWARENESS: KEY TO NOWHERE

Ex Sun Ra band member Brother Ah back with an early 80's sensual, beautiful melodic and groovy album combining the best of buesy / jazz standards to classical "eastern" music, "exotic" acoustic instrumentations. "Motherless Child" is soul music, including a plaintive bluesy flavour sung by a powerful, melodic and tragic woman voice. The song is accompanied by an harp / flute duet. In "Sekou" , the traditional afro tendance of the band is more evident, featuring ethno percussions, funky bass lines. The title track expresses a the mellow fusion jazz side of the band, writting as a ballad with ravishing female vocals, afro grooves. Among their most accessible effort and not their best despite that is perfectly performed, with lot of passion and a good technical background. It's an important "world jazz" essay for collectors and could be a nice musical exploration for progressive fans. I'm almost sure that classic jazz fans would give 4 or 5 stars. According to me their best remain the freaked out "Sound Awareness" and the adventurous "Move ever Onward".