Explosive Debut 45 of The Afro-Blues Quintet Plus One

Afro-Blues Quintet Plus One “Liberation” (Mira, 1966)
  • Listen to this song in a Spotify playlist here (though note, spotify doesn’t have all / many of the songs featured on the site so some playlists may be incomplete or feature slightly different versions than the original 45s I’m referring to here).
  • Listen to the song on youtube here
  • Download the song here

Hello Everyone! Welcome back to the newly styled re-launch of musicalepisode.com. We have new 45s being posted every Wednesday (and maybe more!) and new themed hour long podcasts every Friday at noon! As was the case previously I’ll be collecting the individual 45s posted into hour long podcasts called Singles Mixer as time passes.

Today’s 45 was a great find. I was unfamiliar with the group when I picked it up but knowing the label mostly from Jackie Lee and a few others I was curious what a jazz sounding group would be doing on Mira.

The Afro-Blues Quintet Plus One in 1967

The Afro-Blues Quintet Plus One were an LA outfit made up of some wonderful players including for their first years former Gary Lewis and The Playboys drummer and future session all-star Jim Keltner (pictured above) along with Joe De Aguero on vibes and Norm Johnson on bass. Norm Johnson later went on to lead Chairman of The Board and release solo work under General Johnson. Pianist Bill Henderson was all over records with a who’s who of jazz, Yusef Lateer, Horace Silver, Count Basie and on and on. In addition to gracing us with his great piano work today he also was known as a singer including on Blue Note’s top selling single Señor Blues with Horace Silver. As you can see in the review below Jim Keltner had left the group to perform in San Fran just before the album was recorded and replaced Michael Davis.

Review of the debut LP (which today’s 45 Liberation was drawn from) in Billboard, June 11, 1966

The Group continued on for another few LPs and singles on Mira and subsidiaries with the line-ups changing out and losing some of the charm and bite of this first LP. As the lineups changed they became even less of a concern than when they started with a bunch of super talented session guys doing a residency on sunset strip. Their final LP is made up of unused recordings from previous sessions, not even a final statement by a group of players.

Regardless of the way their discography wrapped up the first LP is really worth it in my opinion but I’m definitely one to enjoy some vibe soaked, flute flourished soul jazz.

Hope you enjoy this 45 and check out the rest of their work. We’ll be back on Friday with a full hour podcast and next Wednesday with another single!

Peace,
-George / Snack Attack

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