All That Afro-Funk-Jazz

You’d be surprised how many earnest white
American musicians desire to burnish the legacy of Afrobeat godfather
Fela Kuti. Michigan’s NOMO were one such troupe of acolytes.

The 2006 album New Tones (their first to enjoy significant
distribution) dealt in the triumphant horn charts, serpentine keyboard
motifs, and funky polyrhythms of the late Nigerian bandleader. As Kuti
homages go, New Tones is solid, but basing a career on such a
premise is a dubious prospect, even if disciples like Antibalas and the
Daktaris can get a lot of mileage out of it.

Thankfully, NOMO—led by multi-instrumentalist Elliot
Bergman—realized this and staked out more individualistic
territory on 2008’s Ghost Rock. There, the Afrobeat influences
of the core sextet get subsumed into shimmery yet earthy jazz-funk
fusions and dreamy reveries, often augmented by electrified likembes
akin to those heard in Konono Nº1’s epic trance jams. But moving
away from blatantly emulating those Fela-esque elements didn’t mean
NOMO had sacrificed their rampant energy. Ghost Rock proved
that NOMO could still set dance floors ablaze.

The new Invisible Cities (Ubiquity) further expands on
NOMO’s idiosyncrasies. The opening title track soars into the humid
world-jazz processionals that marked Don Cherry’s best ’70s work.
NOMO’s cover of Moondog’s “Bumbo” captures the sui generis composer’s
unruly rhythmic bustle and melodic eccentricity. “Crescent” subtly
paraphrases John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme” and adds serene flute
accompaniment and restrained hand claps; it’s a paradoxically chilled
party jam. “Ma” features a bizarrely tuned guitar motif, seraphic
female sighs, and spy-flick brass that mesmerize and induce tension
with the rarefied skill of Mission: Impossible/Dirty
Harry soundtracker Lalo Schifrin. “Banners on High” spirals into
psychedelic jazz’s most transcendent airspace, while “Elijah” and
“Nocturne” float onto a heady, spiritual astral-jazz plane that nods to
Alice Coltrane and Carlos Santana’s cosmic bliss-out LP
Illuminations.

While Ghost Rock may have been a more obviously vibrant
party record, Invisible Cities reflects more nuanced moods and
deeper probes into outward-bound jazz. But as they proved at Nectar
earlier this year, as well as at a Southern California club where I
caught them last year, NOMO in a live context stress their uproariously
upbeat repertoire. Fela would be proud.