DOLLAR BRAND - Underground In Africa (LP-1974 / Re-The Sun Records-LP-1979)

Label: The Sun – SRK 786 143

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, 2nd pressing / Country: South Africa / Released: 1979

Original Release: MANDLA ‎– KRS 114 (LP-1974)

Style: Soul-Jazz, Modal, Free Improvisation

Recorded at Gallo Studios in Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa, March, 1974.

Painting [Cover] – Hargrawes Nlukwana

Producer – Rashid Vally, Independant Records

Publisher – EKAPA

Composed By – Dollar Brand

Matrix / Runout (Side A, Etched): SRK 786143-A

Matrix / Runout (Side B, Etched): SRK 786143-B

A mega rare and original SOUTH AFRICAN lp release / The Sun pressing!

A  -  Kalahari ....................................................................................................... 23:25

B1 - Ornettes Cornet (In Tribute To Ornette Coleman) ......................................... 5:28

B2 - All Day & All Night Long ............................................................................... 5:30

B3 - Gwidza (In Memory Of Campbel Gwidza) .................................................... 4:50

Personnel:

Dollar Brand – piano, flute

Robbie Jansen – alto saxophone

Basil Coetzee – tenor saxophone [1st], flute

Arthur Jacobs – tenor saxophone [2nd]

[unknown] Special Purpose Artist – marimba

Lionel Beukes – bass [Fender]

Nazier Kapdi – drums, percussion

It's easily my favorite Dollar Brand album. Most of his albums fall into a few different categories. You've got your solo piano albums, your friendly Cape Jazz albums, and some collaborations that could at times go way farther than Brand would go on his own (see his albums with Gato Barbieri, Max Roach, or Archie Shepp). But there are a very rare few where he played with an electric jazz band, and this is one of them. Kalahari's bass groove is massive, and its twenty three minutes are spent in an almost Kraut-y trance of cosmic, serene peace jazz that, and I can't stress enough how important this is, never once gets cheesy or friendly or anything of the sort. It is a blissful, righteous side-long trip.
The other three are a droney meditative piece, a funky jazz groove banger with some more killer bass, and a solo piano piece that spends a great deal of time in an impossibly fast permutation of 9/8.

Keep your spirits up and enter Dollar Brands a masterpiece "Kalahari", taken from his supa rare "Underground In Africa" LP. Mr Brand delivers an epic 23 min long afro jazz monster that from beginning to end sets you in a musical trance.

If you find it, buy this album!