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Philip Cohran and the African Heritage Ensemble - The Malcolm X Memorial (A Tribute in Music)

Music master Philip Cohran turned 80 on May 8, 2007. Who is Philip Cohran?

Are you kidding me? Are you fucking kidding me? Phil Cohran played the cornet & bowed ukulele in Sun Ra's band in the Angels and Demons at Play era (1958-1961) but chose to stay behind in Chicago when El Ra moved to NYC. So, together with Muhal Richard Abrams & Steve McCall he was involved in the forming of the AACM.

But he wasn't pleased with the "all out, all the time" ethos of the early AACM, since his focus was on rediscovering the ancient instruments of Africa and the history of Black Music in America, which had a ton of blues & funk--Cohran came up with territory bands of Jay McShann, where the prime function of music was to get you to move yo' ass.

So, he put together this band, the African Heritage Ensemble. They put out two albums; the first, On The Beach in 1967 featured Cohran on his frankiphone, an amplified mbira or thumb piano, and the second was a live date in 1968. Although neither album is listed on last.fm, the Malcolm X tunes are all fully streamable!

Detroit Red

El Hajj Malik El Shabazz

Malcolm X

Malcolm Little

Phil put both of these out on his own Zulu Records and pressed, I dunno, a couple of thousand vinyl disks. Hard to get? Try fucking impossible. Until the last two years, when On The Beach was released and now in 2007 with the Malcolm X disk.

Funk, soul, jazz. Why should you care? Pete Cosey of Miles Davis's fusion bands is here. Ernie Easton and Don Myrick are here along with Charles Handy and Louis Satterfield. Who? (Have you been paying attention?) These are The Pharaohs, a funk progenitor of bands that would follow like, uh, Parliament/Funkadelic. They spent their spare time on S. Michigan Avenue at Leonard & Marshall Chess's studios, brassing up anything that needed funky, funky horns; many of them went on to be "The Phenix Horns" who were the backbone of Earth, Wind & Fire.

This is great stuff. if you like funk and jazz, Sun Ra & James Brown, you should be here with me. The line forms to the right.