Black Unity Trio - Al-Fatihah - ORIGINAL 1969 VINYL LP. One Of Only 500 Pressed

$

700

Black Unity Trio - Al-Fatihah - ORIGINAL VINYL LP FREE JAZZ.

If you know what this is, then you know what this is! There were only 500 of these released by the musicians (source discogs.com)

To validate this, notice the etchings in the part of the vinyl next to the label. Look at the number 23730

If circulating information is to be believed, The Black Unity Trio’s sole album Al-Fatihah dates back to 1971. Characteristically for an avant garde jazz group whose history has remained an enigma, the date is incorrect by three years. Titled after the Qur’an’s first Sura, Arabic for “The Opening”, Al-Fatihah was in fact taped in 1968, during free jazz’s heavy years, and released in 1969. The Black Unity Trio were not based in the music’s epicentres but in the industrial northeastern edge of the Midwest, in Cleveland, Ohio. Assuredly, the music is on par with what was happening in New York, Chicago or Paris, but comparisons would miss the point as this music speaks in a most distinct voice of life, time and mysteries.

Saxophonist and double bassist Yusuf Mumin, cellist Abdul Wadud and drummer Hasan Shahid came together some six months before recording Al-Fatihah and disbanded in 1969. Al-Fatihah bears witness to those months of highly intense musical activity. “I haven’t experienced a total situation like that since then, the combination of music and philosophy and life all in one. I’ve been coasting on that experience for 15 years,” Abdul Wadud once told Coda magazine. Shahid says much the same below.

Released in a run of 500 copies by the musicians themselves well before doing so became common practice, Al-Fatihah has become a legendary recording, eagerly sought after by collectors prepared to part with a thousand dollars to get hold of a copy. Now an official reissue by Cleveland based label Gotta Groove Records, cut from the original master tape, is about to return the focus to the music. Scheduled for late 2020, it’s available by subscription at blackunitytrio.com. Any other versions of the record are unauthorised copies defrauding artists and listeners alike with makeshift bootleg product. Source: the wire.co.uk

There is a wavy scratch on one side that covers some of the tracks. That being said, it is a light scratch .

I played the scratched tracks during photography and it sounds great.

I have been preserving this album since the day I bought it (and that was a long time ago).

This is heavy vinyl. With the Cover and sleeves, it weighs 11.5 ounces. Compare that to a typical album at around 7.7 ounces.

I take quality photos so you can zoom in and come to your own opinion as to whether this is the LP that you are looking for.

I will pack it carefully and ship it via Fed Ex.