Jazz Articles about Lon Moshe

About Lon Moshe

Album Review

There are many historic albums among the fifty or so titles released by the Strata-East label in the 1970s. But few have acquired the quasi-mythological stature of 1973's politically charged spiritual-jazz masterpiece Message From Mozambique by Bay Area tenor saxophonist Plunk Nkabinde and his band JuJu. The only disc to come close is Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson's proto-rap classic Winter In America (1974). Yet while that album has always been readily available on LP and CD, Message From Mozambique ...

Album Review

Oneness Of Juju: African Rhythms 1970-1982

Read "African Rhythms 1970-1982" reviewed by Gareth Thompson

by Gareth Thompson
July 10, 2020

Growing up in segregated Richmond, Virginia, the first creative love of James Branch's life was chemistry. Which seems fitting enough given all the musical compounds he would later contrive. As a performer, Branch started out with woodwind before latching onto sax at Columbia University, New York. Also immersed in left wing politics, he moved to California and was hunted by the FBI for three years while living under an assumed name, freelancing as a musician. Branch's intriguing story ...