Maulawi Nururdin: Maulawi, funky avant jazz, 1974

$

231

ARTIST: Maualawi Nururdin

TITLE: Maualawi

Release Year: 1974

Label: Strata

Vinyl Color: Black

Record Info: Vinyl: Excellent (Shiny black vinyl, some dust, no scratches; surface noise but no scratches); Cover: Excellent (Some wear at corners, spine copy still reads, very slight smudging on front and back.).

Track Listing
A: Street Rap (6:15), Root in 7/4 Plus (5:41), Eltiton (8:20)
B: Naima (7:02), Sphinx Rabbit (12:26) All Compositions by Maulawi Nururdin and Joyce Major except for “Naima” composed by John Coltrane

Personnel
Sun King and Adam Rudolph (percussion), Rufus Reed (sic) (bass), Andy Potter (drums), Jim Cailen (piano), Michael Fuller (drums), Edwin Williams (trombone), Joyce Major and Diane Cunningham (vocals); Matt Corbin (cover illustration), Bud Spangler (producing and editing)

Notes
A one non-hit wonder – emphasis on the wonder. That’s Maulawi Nururdin, who summed up much of the Chicago musical tradition – from bop to the nascent avant garde – and framed it with a flair for fusionoid funk. That’s a formula that’s more akin to the Detroit scene of the time than the Chicago avant garde, which may be why this is on Strata, one of Detroit’s micro self-determination labels, rather than a commercial outfit out of Chi Town, or even a noncommerical outfit out of Chi Town. Yup, it’s an enigma of a record, which a) no doubt helped seal its fate at the time and b) helped ensure its underground status 30-plus years down the road.

Writes Andy Freivogel at Dusted Reviews:

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.
The opening track, “Street Rap,” forges a deep swinging funk with the overheated static of a summer evening in a Chicago 'hood; neighbors and passersby engage in both friendly conversation and in-yo-face debate (“you act like I'm blind in one eye and can't see out the other!”) as the band responds with Rhodes counterpunches and warped clavier jabs. The balance of inner jazz calm and shimmering facade of aural chaos occasionally recall the squawking abandon of Miles' Evil Live, but the undying groove plots closer to the same Chi-town vibe that permeates some of Curtis Mayfield's work from the roughly the same era and a few years before, including “We're A Winner” and “(Don't Worry) If There's A Hell Below We're All Going To Go.” In the same way Mayfield pushed the ceiling of funk with his reedy, wavering falsetto, Nururdin pushes that end of the spectrum even higher, with vocal arrangements sung by alto Joyce Major (co-composer on nearly all tracks) and soprano Diane Cunningham, adding a virtual jet stream of shrill, but essential and angelic harmony.
Dueling congueros Adam Rudolph (who, interestingly, records now for Soul Jazz under the name Hu Vibrational) and Silas King provide a tense, push-me pull-you foundation of authentic latin rumble. The two percussionists, along with Reed, bassist Al Erick and two drummers, push tracks through multiple changes, exploring Afro-latin rhythms like palo and mambo (“Eltition”), downshifting to a subdued 6/8 clave feel in others, and turning the Coltrane ballad “Naima” almost upside down and celebratory, releasing it from the blues with a blissful samba chorus, featuring the almost flute-like voices of Major and Cunningham. Even when the rhythm section descends into moments of dissonant, fluttering chaos (only at the direction of Maulawi: evidence abounds of this ensemble's unflappable discipline), there's a persistent, shining optimism to the unified voice of the musicians here. Maulawi provides a gritty snapshot of a scrappy ensemble cutting a deep, brooding groove. This is the voice of a gifted composer and bandleader capturing a complex, fearful era without uttering a single word.

Most of the players, like the leader, have faded into obscurity, with the exceptions of percussionist Adam Rudolph (later of the Mandingo Griot Society and, of late, a principal collaborator with Yusef Lateef and leader of his own groups) and the in-demand session bassist Rufus Reid (correct spelling), whose multitude of projects include co-leading Tana Reid with drummer Akira Tana.