** Comes in a deluxe matte laminate digi sleeve and printed inner wallet + 16-page booklet featuring archival photos & exclusive essay by jazz  ** A vital document of artistic resistance and spiritual searching, New Africa captures a transformative moment in jazz and global Black consciousness. Recorded in Paris in 1969, the album stands as a deeply personal and boldly experimental statement from American trombonist and composer Grachan Moncur III — one of the most compelling figures of the avant-garde movement and a master of what would become known as spiritual jazz. Originally released on the BYG Actuel label in 1969, New Africa assembled an extraordinary lineup of forward-thinking musicians united in spiritual purpose: alto saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, pianist Dave Burrell, bassist Alan Silva, and drummer Andrew Cyrille. Tenor saxophonist Archie Shepp, Moncur's former collaborator and fellow spiritual seeker, contributes to the album's final track, adding another layer of transcendent energy to an already sacred recording.

Driven by profound spiritual awakening and mystical vision, New Africa channels the cosmic energy of a world in flux. Moncur, deeply moved by his pilgrimage to Algiers during a pivotal cultural gathering, poured that transformative experience into a work that functions as both avant-garde exploration and spiritual meditation. The music does not seek comfort — it provokes, interrogates, and ultimately transcends, reaching toward higher planes of consciousness through collective improvisation and ritualistic repetition. The recording captures Moncur in what critics have described as an "Archie Shepp-ish, spiritual vein," where technical innovation serves deeper metaphysical purposes. The album's four-movement title suite operates as an extended prayer, a musical invocation of ancestral wisdom and future liberation. As Scott Yanow noted, it is "during the four movements of the continuous 'New Africa' that Moncur can be heard at his dynamic best" — not merely as technician, but as spiritual conduit channeling forces beyond the material world.

The Paris sessions created a sacred space where these musical mystics could commune with both ancestral spirits and cosmic energies. The interplay between Moncur's trombone and Mitchell's alto saxophone creates moments of pure transcendence, while Burrell's piano work evokes both earthly blues traditions and celestial harmonics. Cyrille's percussion functions as ritual drumming, calling forth spiritual presence, while Silva's bass provides the deep foundation upon which these sonic ceremonies unfold. More than 50 years on, New Africa remains a resonant spiritual cry: urgent, prophetic, and unafraid to imagine what liberation might sound like on both earthly and cosmic planes. The album represents jazz at its most sacred — music as prayer, as healing ritual, as direct communication with divine forces. Critics have consistently recognized its unique ability to balance experimental ambition with profound spiritual depth, creating what one reviewer called music that is "much more soulful than some of Moncur's 'new thing' recordings" while maintaining its revolutionary edge.

This music emerges from the same spiritual current that would later be recognized as the spiritual jazz movement — alongside contemporaries like Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, and Sun Ra — yet maintains its own distinct identity as a work of musical mysticism. The compositions function as sonic mantras, repetitive patterns that induce meditative states while challenging listeners to expand their consciousness beyond conventional boundaries.