Soul of A Nation 2 : Jazz is the Teacher, Funk is the Preacher

The thoughtful people at SoulJazz Records in London England have done it again. Their latest compilation “Soul of A Nation 2” is one of the deepest and most powerful compilations to come our way in many years, and is even stronger than the first volume from 2018. These compilations were chosen to provide a musical companion piece for an art exhibition “Art in the Age of Black Power (1963-1983)” that began at the Tate Modern in London in 2018. This exhibition then went to the Brooklyn Museum, and will soon be on display at the Broad Gallery in Los Angeles until September 2019. The music contained here assembles the tips of many musical icebergs that have influenced the development of modern improvised music for many years. It features both legendary performers such as the Art Ensemble of Chicago (“Theme de Yoyo”), Funkadelic (“Nappy Dugout”), Gil Scott-Heron (“Whitey on the Moon”) and Don Cherry (“Brown Rice”), but even more importantly people below the radar of even the most astute musical ears. Here I mean people like The Har-You Percussion Group, The Pharoahs, Phil Ranelin, and Baby Huey. The infectious music on this compilation makes it clear – yet again – that there is no clear line between the boxes into which we continue to put the wide range of different music made by African Americans. This music is universally raw, fresh, complicated, and historic. Even more importantly, it is also dance music at it’s best, and reminds us all that this well is very deep and rich, and bears repeated listening and investigation. This album came out just at the end of 2018 is therefore destined to be on many top 10 lists this year.