maulawi nururdin

maulawi nururdin - maulawi (1973)

Blood should pump nowadays at the mention of another Soul Jazz/Universal Sound release, this one an absolute original that flies in the same circles as some of the greatest jazz and soul records of the early '70s. Maulawi Nururdin's Maulawi covers a staggering landscape, and does a virtual Sherman's March across the territories of funk, blues, post-Palladium latin jazz, samba, and his own unique take on the outtasphere; burning it all down with punishing resolve, and reviving it all in his own image. Maulawi, Nururdin's solo album that died a commercial death shortly after its 1974 release, reveals a palette of compositional depth and sonic intelligence that Nururdin would have had a tough time topping had he recorded again. The product of an era rife with social and political tension, this work highlights a street-hot assembly of musicians as they document their composer/bandleader's detailed, colloquial vision.

A product of Chicago's disparate musical heritages, Maulawi's music, at its roots, shines and glows with the same crackling energy as predecessors like Sun Ra, Muddy Waters and the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Nururdin, himself a multi-instrumentalist, composer and band leader, places his own thumbprint high atop the mix with his sax playing, a sweet, razor-thin layer of liberation to the often dense, and sometimes dark, journeys in sound. Stacks of percussion drive the body of this work, buoyed by the staccato thrust of Rufus Reed's bass work, and every song on Maulawi jerks the listener sideways and back again with shifts in key, time and timbre.

El trabajo de Maulawi Nururdin se encuentra abandonado, tirado en un callejón de Chicago en una bolsa vieja en la que nadie ha reparado, al abrirla, un destello te ciega y te queda la sensación de que uno no es capaz de condensar, en pocas palabras, su contenido. Es un jazz salido de la alcantarilla, allá donde va a parar casi cualquier cosa. Avant-garde que se ve abrazado por el funk y los ritmos latinos y quizá por el ya aparecido rap de The Last Poets. Él, que pasó y sobrevoló por la AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) de la que nunca llegó a ser miembro.

Strata Records editó originalmente el álbum y Soul Jazz no los recupera hoy, presten atención a la sección de vientos y a las voces y cuidado con la infección rítmica que está por venir, deep jazz en estado puro.

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