Mtume Umoja Ensemble - 1972 - Alkebu-Lan (Land of the Blacks)

Mtume Umoja Ensemble

1972

Alkebu-Lan (Land of the Blacks)

01. Invocation 4:00

02. Baba Hengates 17:39

03. Utamu 9:28

04. Saud 10:38

05. Alkebu-Lan 16:22

06. No Words 8:29

07. Separate Not Equal 7:16

08. Sifa (The Prayer) 14:40

Alto Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone – Gary Bartz

Bass – Buster Williams

Congas, Tonette, Producer – Mtume

Drums – Billy Hart, Ndugu

Piano – Stanley Cowellb

Tenor Saxophone, Flute – Carlos Garnett

Violin – Leroy Jenkins

Vocals – Andy Bey, Eddie Micheaux, Joe Lee Wilson

Voice [Poetry] – Weusi Kuumba, Yusef Iman

There is a short unlisted track after D2 which has no reference to it. This track is James Mtume introducing the band members to the audience.

Recorded Aug. 29 1971 at The East, Brooklyn, NY

"During the start of (Mtume's) career, they recorded three albums, their first for Strata East (1972) titled Alkebu-Lan- The Land of the Blacks, and...for the independent label Third Street Records...Rebirth Cycle[3] (1977). However, not finding pop or R&B chart success, they signed to major label Epic Records in 1978.." (Wikipedia page on Mtume)."

This is easily the worst shot at R&B/pop success ever. No wonder nobody bought it up. If this band made this album to get a #1 hit on the radio, or to compete with Al Green, they failed miserably. On the other hand, it appears that the Wikipedia author is unaware of Mtume's past allegiance with avant-garde jazz. This record was made by the very same man with a radically different focus. The later Mtume had a top 40 hit in "Juicy Fruit" (sampled by the Notorious BIG on "Juicy"). The earlier Mtume went from this double platter of maximalist maximalism to playing with Miles Davis starting with "On the Corner" and staying through Miles' "semi-retirement" in 1976. There, he was a percussionist extraordinaire, replacing Airto Moreira and adding Latin and World links to Davis' music, especially on the conga. His conga is all over this platter, though you may feel like you've lost that a few times under the sheer magnitude of artists playing here. Seriously, how did they all get on the stage? And just how did Mtume land some of these names? Yes, he was the son of Jimmy Heath and the nephew of Albert "Tootie" Heath, but this was a political fist shaking spiritual free jazz freak out that runs for ninety minutes. Everyone on this is clearly ecstatic to be there.

One misnomer to clear up about the album is that Strata East was the perfect label for it, and that in spite of many reviewers calling it extreme, it is far more spiritual than free. The free is really more a part of what builds out of the instruments and into the vocal shouts, much of which can build and build in intensity. A good example of this in a song is "Alkebu-Lan". It starts with a good strut, and the ever perfect piano of Stanley Cowell leading into a modal vamp. Slowly, other musicians come in, and then one of the poets starts to chant. This is very Black Freedom oriented, as is the entire album, as is, for that matter, the blacks-only club, The East, where this was recorded. It's a part of the thrill, really, that this poetry (which includes the line "Back to Africa! Organizing and Unifying and Organizing!") is launched like a preacher driving home the Message. If you couldn't have gotten into the club originally, don't sweat it, that's why this release is here. Listen to how the perfect drums of Billy Hart and Ndugu Chancler make your head nod, Sway to the vocals. Let Leroy Jenkins' violin take you to a seemingly other place. Let Gary Bartz and Carlos Garnett raise the noise of the horns by so much that they are beyond all but Frank Wright, Coltrane, and Sanders at times in terms of loudness. Dig the congas and percussion that Mtume himself is layering on the top. This is capital S Spiritual stuff and needs to be heard by anyone who's ever gotten into it that music. Yes, it gets into full on assault territory from the saxes that could be considered like speaking in tongues, but it never loses its cool in the face of the maelstrom. It knows when to heat up and cool down. Live, this must've been unimaginable.

Most of these songs go on for a very long time, though a few are shorter. The opening Mtume speech "Invocation" need really only be listed to once. Get that needle on track two (or, you know, move the YouTube cursor past the four minute mark) and let it lift you up. For over seventeen minutes, everything builds, ebbs and flows, and seeks to empower. Yes, it's the basic for all the tracks here, but when the rhythm is this good, the vamps that addictive, the vocals drawing you in, the horns on fire throughout, you don't need to think too much about it, just let it roll over you. Or, stand up, shout, praise, lift your fist in the air if that's where you're moved. There's some unique stuff, too. Take "No Words", a highlight for the vocalists, who scat, sing, holler, moan, bark, growl, yell, and do everything but sing words over Cowell's vamp. It's a nice pause before Ndugu's hymn-like "Separate but Equal". This starts in that beautiful territory and then begins to build on it, leaning heavily on the rhythm to do much of the work. It's a spirited, even happy, melody, and it lets the whole band come back front and center, with the strong solo sax from Carlos Garnett and bass work of Buster Williams being especially worth mentioning. "Sifa (The Prayer)" goes up and down a lot, but it's ultimately a barn burner and a great closer to the set. Unfortunately, except on YouTube, this one's pretty impossible to find. There was a reissue in 2016, but it turned out to be illegal, and it is unavailable to buy at most places (including Discogs). The original will run you at least $250, so if you've got the extra cash, by all means grab it up, but otherwise this lives on in cult status one stream at a time. Mtume eventually did become that successful R&B soul/funk group, and Mtume himself turned his back on all three of his very good early jazz (or Black Music as it's called here) albums. This one, regardless, is his magnum opus and an excellent way to lift your spirits for an hour and a half.

Hyper-afro spiritual jazz teetering between avant-garde inventiveness and free jazz madness.

"This album is a mean motherfucker. It’s an amazing document of the pure fire of Black Nationalist Free-Jazz. I discovered it during a period when I was picking at the outer reaches of Leroy Jenkins’ discography (he’s a member of this ensemble). At the time I had exhausted his output as a band leader and as a member of the Revolutionary Ensemble and was desperate to hear more. It begins with an Afro-Spiritual/Political monologue. Even before the music started, I knew I was onto a good thing. When its first notes cried out, I nearly fell out of my chair. It’s astounding. I spent years desperately trying to track down a copy. It doesn’t turn up often and when it does, it’s rarely cheap. I waited it out and got lucky. The ensemble is lead by James Mtume, a percussionist who during this period was playing regularly with with Miles Davis, Buddy Terry, Sonny Rollins, Pharoah Sanders and others. He released two albums as a leader. Both are great representations of 1970’s New York Free-Jazz, and among the best displaying the possibilities of larger ensembles. Alkebu-Lan – Land Of The Blacks was recorded at The East, a radical venue in the Clinton Hill Neighborhood of Brooklyn, remembered for the Pharoah Sanders album bearing its name, and notable for not allowing White people to pass its doors.

Mtume left the world of Jazz in the late 70’s and went on to have a fairly successful career as a Modern Soul and Disco artist. This phase in his career didn’t produce many things I like, and is probably most noted for the track Juicy Fruit, which was famously sampled by Notorious B.I.G.

Of all the albums I’ve chosen for this list, Alkebu-Lan stands slightly at odds. Most of the artists featured here, like Mingus, use complex orchestration to capture the depth of their anger and emotion. To achieve this, they exacted remarkable control over the emotional realization of their music. Alkebu-Lan is the other end of the spectrum. It is a howling storm set forth on the world. There isn’t an ounce of restraint on its four sides. It makes the emotional onslaught of Punk and Hardcore sound like a childish temper tantrum. Despite all that it unleashes, somehow its sound still returns me to Mingus. It’s not only the scale of the ensemble, but how the musicians play off each other. The album embraces the rising tide of the whole rather than the brittle interplay of single musicians. The dissonances they create despite their energy and emotion feel considered and composed. It’s a rare and wonderful thing. If you spend the time it takes to hunt it down, you won’t be disappointed."

There are altogether too few artists in jazz history that approach the spacefaring vastness of Sun Ra. Yes, the proprietors of this album wish us to know that it is not jazz 'or any other irrelevant term' but simply 'black music.' However, this is avant-garde jazz at its most free and unhinged. Within two minutes of the first proper song, we have the horns going off in two directions, the rhythm section fractured and cycling in no apparent pattern, the vocalists hollering on one side and the poets reciting on the other, feeling less like live interplay and more like radical sound collage. It brings to mind the revivalist church concept of 'make a joyful noise' being this wonderfully life-affirming and vivid cacophony. It is like a broken engine with all its parts spinning separately, waiting to be fused together into something new and wonderful. By about seven minutes, everything coalesces into that sky-reaching new form, although the album is never quite finished with noisy breakdowns and hectic changes. It is a fascinating political and musical artifact, and a truly joyous firestorm of noise.