Fuasi And The Pan Afrikan Peoples Arktet

Featuring: Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra

Sixty years after Horace Tapscott founded the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra in Los Angeles, the flame burns bright in Berlin. Efuru is the first album by the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arktet, led by saxophonist and composer Fuasi Abdul-Khaliq - former assistant conductor, arranger and longtime member of Tapscott's legendary UGMAA collective. This is not nostalgia. This is continuation. This is the real deal.

Recorded live at the Schlot Jazz Club in Berlin on May 20, 2024, Efuru brings together the largest gathering of Tapscott's disciples living abroad. The ensemble features Mekala Session on drums - current conductor of the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra in Los Angeles, keeper of the flame - alongside Ghasem Batamuntu (soprano sax), Regis Molina (alto sax, flute), Joel Holmes (piano), Charles Sammons (bass) and Nirankar Khalsa (percussion). Seven musicians channeling spiritual energy for the 21st century.

The title track holds particular weight. Fuasi composed "Efuru" in 1976, shortly after the birth of his daughter Haneefa Niambi Efuru Abdel-Khaliq Roberts. The name derives from the Igbo language of West Africa - "Daughter of the Heavens" - and the piece carries that celestial devotion through every bar. Nearly fifty years later, the composition resonates with accumulated meaning, a father's prayer transformed into collective ritual.

The program spans six original compositions: the meditative "Sat Nam," the exploratory "Greatest Unknown Ever Known," the Afro-centric hypnosis of "Eternal Egypt," the swinging "Abacus Moon," and the tribute "Mattye Q." Each piece draws from Tapscott's approach - modal investigations, strong bottom end, horn arrangements that breathe and shimmer - while pushing toward contemporary concerns.

Fuasi began performing professionally in 1972, studying with Tapscott at UGMAA (Union of God's Musicians and Artists Ascension) in Los Angeles. He served as assistant conductor, arranger, composer and copyist for the Arkestra before relocating to Berlin in 1992, where he has spent three decades building ensembles and spreading the music across Europe, Asia, Africa and beyond. This album represents a homecoming of sorts - not geographic, but spiritual. The connection to South Central Los Angeles runs through Berlin now.