Cha Cha Shaw - Kingdom Come [1979]

A super nice LP of some pretty wild styles, oddball grooves and fairly tripped out blowing. Kingdom Come was his second album for Smithsonian Folkways back in 1979, and the opener Melted Soul sets the tone for the LP – a tripped out mixture of funky heavy drums, echoey guitars and modal piano that sounds like some late 70s Sun Ra jam, and is far too short for its own good. Elsewhere though, Charles loosens out into extended tracks, namely Kid Zaro, Right On, and Mr Zip, at times sounding like Phil Cohran or Joe McPhee, but keeping a distinct AEC or Black Renaissance style funk to proceedings. Kingdom Come is Cha Cha Shaw’s search to find the common melodies in different disparate styles, and combines abstract free jazz tones with spiritual gospel modes, while jamming over late 70s funk back beats. Way ahead of his time, and still taking cha-cha-chances!

                                                                                 Enjoy!