Supremely spiritual and profound Strata-East title here by The Ensemble Al-Salaam, recorded in 1974. One of the rarest titles in the entire catalogue and one of the best, so naturally I’m elated to have acquired it.
Vocals are present on several of the tunes, which is something I’ve shied away from in the past, but this is absolutely brilliant. Beatrice Parker is featured and her voice is righteous, confident and I definitely connect with it. We have instrumental pieces as well which are superb. When it comes to ballads I have a few favorites. The instrumental ballad on this album though is probably tied as my favorite of all time together with Gullin’s “Danny’s Dream”. It’s called “Vibration Love Call” and the solo by Khaliq Abdul Al Rouf (Edgar Drew) is beyond beautiful. I’ve mentioned two of the musicians and the other members of the ensemble include Bevin Turnbull, Mashujaa Aliye Salamu, Leroy Seals, Fred Kwaku Crawley and Andrei Strobert. Fantastic group.
I will not try to describe the album further, so instead I’ll refer to the short but powerful liner notes which says it all. Written by Crawley.
