Jemeel Moondoc - Muntu Recordings (2010) (3CD Box Set)
Label: NoBusiness Records | 3CD | MP3 320 kbps | 279 MB
Genre: Jazz, Free Jazz, Modern Creative, Saxophone


Lithuanian based NoBusiness records has put together a wonderful retrospective on under celebrated saxophonist Jemeel Moondoc and his pioneering ensemble Muntu, sumptuously packaged in a three-audio disc plus booklet box set. It's a bulletin from another era, the late 1970s, a fertile period in free jazz history which has been sparsely documented. The music itself is not always of the highest level, because Moondoc is not the great innovator in jazz nor the most incredible sax-player, but the nature of the music, the historical context, and the unbelievable quality and dedication with which No Business offered this music back to the world, make this already now one of the most recommended albums of the year.

Included are Muntu's first two releases and a third set issued here for the first time. Muntu was an important band. It manifested some of the early activity of free jazz maestro, organizer and bassist William Parker, and his first recorded collaboration with subsequent longtime associate trumpeter Roy Campbell. Furthermore, Muntu also augured the distinguished improvising cooperative Other Dimensions In Music, with identical personnel except for the reed chair. In a bittersweet acknowledgement of the band's import, Muntu's time was up when Moondoc lost his rhythm section of Parker and drummer Rashid Bakr to the prestige (and work) of pianist Cecil Taylor, after more than eight years of joint endeavor.

Originally released on the reedman's own label, Muntu's music was little heard in its heyday, although original copies now change hands for ridiculous amounts. At last the music is more widely available, carefully transferred from LP. These guys know what they are doing as the majority of NoBusiness issues are on vinyl, so only occasional clicks and pops betray the source material.

Personnel:
Jemeel Moondoc