(Afro beat) Oneness of Juju - African Rhythms - 2002, MP3 (tracks), VBR 128-320

..., this album succeeds quite nicely, and in the process documents the evolution of saxophonist James Plunky Branch's band (Juju, and later Oneness of Juju) from its beginnings as a jazz combo with strong African influences, to it's transition to a jazz-funk combo, and later a funk combo. The album also features some of the side projects that Plunky and other members of the band were involved with in the 1970s. As a document of a period when a noticeable subset of jazz musicians were willing to experiment with African and funk influences, and as a document of the struggles of independent artists to get their progressive and Afro-centric message across to a wider audience, this is invaluable. The music should also serve as a reminder that some of the more recent trends in jazz, such as acid jazz and jazz-rap, have their origins in the various fusions of jazz, funk, world music, and progressive and radical politics of the 1960s and 1970s.