MARION BROWN Awofofora LP/1976 US-Japan/2026 RE/Rare Avant-Free Jazz/Jazz-Funk

$

47

MARION BROWN 'Awofofora' LP (France, Aguirre Records, Catalogue #ZORN85) Brand new/unplayed copy (still factory sealed!) of limited year 2026 Aguirre Records label vinyl edition of RARE 1976 US recorded/Japan released Avant-garde/Free Jazz/Jazz-Funk album by Marion Brown (and his fellow compatriots) entitled Awofofora. Originally released in 1976 in Japan on the Discomate label.

(NOTE: ALL RECORDS ARE PACKED AND SHIPPED IN PROFESSIONAL, SUPERIOR QUALITY RECTANGULAR SHAPED, CORNER PROTECTING CORRUGATED CARDBOARD RECORD MAILERS WITH FILLER PADS. SATISFACTION GUARANTEED!)

(NOTE: BRAND NEW/FACTORY SEALED ITEM!)

(NOTE: LIMITED VINYL EDITION!)

First time reissue of Japan/US free jazz rarity. Old-style gatefold LP with rare photographs and liner notes by Ed Hazell. Edition of 1000. 

The 1970s were Marion Brown's most searching decade, a period during which he sought to move beyond the free jazz of the previous era and find more personal approaches to structuring improvisation and composition. After leaving New York for Europe in 1967, Brown began reshaping his music into what he described as "a more deliberate kind of music that had more structure to it," pacing it so that moods and modes could develop over time. Albums such as In Sommerhausen, Afternoon of a Georgia Faun, Geechee Recollections, and Sweet Earth Flying trace this evolution: rhythmic structures moved to the foreground, harmony receded, and composition became a matter of orchestrating interlocking rhythmic parts as one would polyphonic lines. Released in 1976, Awofofora is an overlooked but crucial entry in that sequence. At the time, its use of funk and reggae beats, electric guitars, and grooves drawn from contemporary Black popular music led some to misread it as a jazz-rock detour. In retrospect, it is entirely consistent with Brown's methodology. As he admired in the Art Ensemble of Chicago, the stimulus comes from within the community. Here Brown filters Afro-Caribbean rhythms and funk through his own sensibility, abstracting their structural qualities rather than adopting surface style. "La Placita," making its first recorded appearance, layers distinct rhythmic phrases in a manner reminiscent of African drum ensembles, over which Brown and trumpeter Ambrose Jackson spin extended improvisations. The standard "Flamingo" is reshaped through diasporic rhythm and lyrical soloing, while "Pepi's Tempo" and "Mangoes" harness crisp funk and reggae grooves to generate what Brown called a "manifestation of community" through collective improvisation. Even the overdubbed solo feature "And Then They Danced" reflects his structural thinking, ingeniously re-voicing a duet composition for two alto saxophones performed by one player. This was the only recording by a short-lived band that briefly polarized audiences during festival appearances in 1976. Yet Brown consistently sought unity across change: different sounds, same principles -- rhythm as structure, melody as architecture, collective improvisation, and above all, the primacy of tone. Awofofora stands not as a departure, but as a vivid synthesis of the elements he had been refining since the late 1960s, its grooves and golden alto lines conveying a sound drawn, in his words, "from life and from the world of experience."  

- First time reissue of Japan/US free jazz rarity. Old-style gatefold LP with rare photographs and liner notes by Ed Hazell.
- The 1970s were Marion Brown's most searching decade, a period during which he sought to move beyond the free jazz of the previous era and find more personal approaches to structuring improvisation and composition.
- Released in 1976, Awofofora is an overlooked but crucial entry in that sequence. At the time, its use of funk and reggae beats, electric guitars, and grooves drawn from contemporary Black popular music led some to misread it as a jazz-rock detour.

Tracks on this LP are as follows:

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