The African roots of jazz are brought to you via Chicago as Jazzman presents a selection of exceptionally rare tracks originally released as private press 45s by the legendary Philip Cohran on his Zulu label.

BACKGROUND
The man Sun Ra could have been! Living, eating and pushing musical boundaries together throughout the '60s, the two musical prophets eventually went their separate ways. Sun Ra travelled the intergalactic highways, while Cohran looked far, far away across the Atlantic. Both men were musical visionaries, both blending their ideas and notions of progressive, cosmic jazz with the spirits - Ra seeking truth from the cosmos, Cohran from Africa. Open your mind to the visionary sounds of Philip Cohran - brought to you by Jazzman - we dig deeper!

MUSIC
A single note from a Cohran perfomance gives the game away - one sign of a great artist is to have your own instantly recognisable sound. Could it be the sound of Cohran's Frankiphone - a custom-made electrified thumb piano - which pervades his music throughout? Or is it the incessant, heavy beats laid down by multiple congas and a vast percussion section? Or could it be the vibe, the inimitable ambience provided by the tightly-woven fabric of an collective that is focussed one one thing - making Afro-centric jazz combined with rhythmic funk under spiritual guidance from afar?

These recordings capture the spirit of an extraordinary band in full swing, laying down Cohran's unique brand of raw, funky ethnic jazz. Drenched in the distinctive sound of Cohran's trademark Frankiphone this is powerful conscious music which drew on the power of the African past to help Cohran remake the present. Repressed on vinyl for the first time, the six tracks collected here were first issued during the heyday of Cohran's Affro-Arts Theatre, and range from the blistering funk of "Loud Mouth", through the righteous stomp of "The African Look", to the meditative spirituality of "Black Beauty".