And The Light Of Saba

Originally cutting sides in the 1960s at Studio One, the heart of all Jamaican music (check the free sax squall on his "Mun-Dun-Go" side off of Soul Jazz's Studio One Instrumentals), Cedric Brooks ended up studying music in Philly late that decade. Already a fan of players like Pharoah Sanders and Sonny Rollins, he gigged and expanded on his sunny and lilting Caribbean tone, meeting up with folks like Leon Thomas and Sun Ra (who had moved the Arkestra back to Philly at this time). When he returned to Jamaica, the ideological outlook of Ra greatly informed Brooks' new approach to creating the music of his home and for his people around the world. Outwardly, they took up a similar sort of garb (down to the robes and shiny headgear), but the music expanded as well, with jazzy ensemble tones, outer-space group chants, and a heavily pan-African handdrum base that could support this all-encompassing and expansive music that was still rooted in the gritty sound of the island.

Listen to "Free Up Black Man", "Outcry", "Jah Light It Right" or "Rebirth", which all swing heavy roots messages within elephant-pounding and snake-rattling beats, as if Lee Perry had weighted the Black Ark down with a baked dozen of the Arkestra's drummers for his own dub-roots masterpiece, Super Ape. Over the manifold pounding of hand drums, crisp cymbals, and other peripheral clops, Brooks blows a spiritual fire that reiterates the group chants and the parallel themes of Rastafarianism happening elsewhere in the island's music.

"Lambs Bread Collie" and "Sabasi" have as much in common with Lonnie Liston Smith's early 70s head explorations on Astral Traveling or Charles Mingus' experimental Cumbia and Jazz Fusion as they do with those tough Studio One tracks: the horn lines ride shakers, congas, bird calls, and basslines that thud from deep in the jungle foliage to enlightenment. To show how universal they were getting down there, there are even added dashes of Latino, mid-era funk, and disco (?!) beats on tracks like "Sabebe" and "Africa".

Adding another twist are the Ethiopian scales that Brooks was infatuated with at the time. Woven into songs like "Sabayindah", "Song for my Father" and "Sly Mongoose", the scale imparts a snaky surface on the melodies that slithers between the smoky polyrhythms that seem so familiar yet sound so new. Despite some of the most unfriendly paper packaging I have yet to come across (my disc was already marred beyond belief upon breaking the seal), this record still ties together the variegated threads of the world's music in a way that only true dreads can.
7.8 / 10 Pitchfork