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Afro-Blues Quintet (+1)


mjazzg

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I've been really enjoying the LA soul-jazz of this album since picking it up a few weeks ago on a whim

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there's some online info and discography that shows five albums. I'm intrigued by the fact that the one above is definitely a vibes/flute front line but by the time you get to their last one, below, no vibes, no flute and no readily available personnel credits.

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First album, the top one, has William Henderson on bass, Jim Keltner (!) drums and Jack Fulks, who evidently played with Chico Hamilton, on as/fl

can anyone shed any light on the personnel changes through their recordings? Most information suggests that they were the vibes player Joe DeAguero's band at the offset so what happened to DeAguero?

Only O-board reference is on a Magnificent Goldberg BFT from 2014 so maybe that piqued interest

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Funny that.

Afro-Blues Q + was an interesting, if unspectacular band.

They issued 6 LPs, on Mira and Crestview (a budget label of the owners of Mira) and Surrey.

I THINK the order in which they were probably recorded was

Introducing the Afro-Blues Quintet + 1 - Mira 3002 (issued 1966)

New directions - Mira 3010 (issued 1966)

Discovery 3 - Mira 3013 (issued 1967)

Afro blues today - Crestview 3054 (issued 1969)

Next Album - Mira 3016 (issued 1968)

Guantanamera - Surrey 1037 (issued 1966 according to the not wholly reliable Both Sides Now site)

There's also been a CD called 'Stratosphere unreleased tracks'.

There was a decent compilation of their material issued by Ace on their BGP label in 2004. That's this

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There's a decent sleeve note which, among other things, says that their last album to apparently be recorded - Guantanamera, on Surrey - was followed up by two LPs made by earlier bands. One, they say, was managed by cutting bits and pieces of thier (quite long, I assume) material that had been lying around for some time. On Guantanamera, the note says Rene Bloch had replaced Joe De Aguera. Bloch was on the album before, too. No doubt there were other personnel changes. I never find Ace terribly good at presenting discographical details, even if they do cover them, which is far from always. I think their notes are frequently designed to titillate rather than inform.

I have the CD. I also have 'Guantanameria' and it's not bad, as well as 'New directions' and 'Introducing ABQ+1'.

The Ace CD is probably enough to have, and contains some pretty interesting tracks, some of which will have been from the cut up bits of retrieved stuff. One of those bits was what I used in BFT122.

Anyway, here's a link to Discogs page on the band

https://www.discogs.com/artist/529016-The-Afro-Blues-Quintet-Plus-One

And one to AMG, for what it's worth - OK, it does have the CD issues and everything now appears to be out on CD - I don't think I'll bother :)

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/afro-blues-quintet-1-mn0000928677/discography

MG

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2 hours ago, The Magnificent Goldberg said:

There's a decent sleeve note which, among other things, says that their last album to apparently be recorded - Guantanamera, on Surrey - was followed up by two LPs made by earlier bands. One, they say, was managed by cutting bits and pieces of thier (quite long, I assume) material that had been lying around for some time. On Guantanamera, the note says Rene Bloch had replaced Joe De Aguera. Bloch was on the album before, too. No doubt there were other personnel changes.

Thanks, this is the bit I didn't find online, especially that Bloch replaced DeAguera. I could hear the change but couldn't find a personnel listing for the later recording. I quite like the Afro Blues Today LP and the way that most tracks fade support the idea of them being excerpted from longer takes.

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