James “Plunky” Branch has been at the forefront of Afrocentric avant-garde jazz, funk and go-go for over 50 years. In July, he released an innovative new record, cementing his deeply creative musical legacy. Courtesy Richmond Free Press/Regina H. Boone
Made Through Ritual, released July 4, is the newest project from prolific Richmond-based saxophonist James “Plunky” Branch. The album brings the cosmic jazz-funk sound that Branch pioneered in the 1970s into the 21st century, layering J Dilla-inspired beat production, abstract digital sound effect and acoustic jazz melodies.
The music calls back to Branch’s deep roots in straight ahead and the blues, as well as the distinct Afro-jazz sound of his independent D.C.-based label, Black Fire Records.
Branch, alongside DJ and promoter Jimmy Gray, co-founded Black Fire in 1975, which they named after Gray’s eponymous radio show, distribution service and cultural magazine. Fueled by the Black cultural renaissance of the mid 1970s, Black Fire emerged as a mouthpiece for a flourishing Black Arts Movement in the District, pioneering a sound that fused jazz, rock, funk and soul, grounded in buoyant West-African style polyrhythms.
Made Through Ritual is Black Fire’s first full-length release of newly recorded material since Byard Lancaster’s My Pure Joy in 1992.
Made Through Ritual reworks elements of Black Fire’s distinct musical identity within a contemporary context. Co-produced by Branch’s son Jamiah “Fire” Branch and Jimmy Gray’s son Jamal Gray, the music comes as a result of a unique creative process: First, Gray created beat demos from jazz samples, and then Branch would rearrange those tracks to be performed by live musicians. The resulting music is a blend of blues, straight-ahead and spiritual jazz, with abstract voice effects and layers of ambient soundscapes all backed by vibrant jazz-funk grooves.
This innovative process was a way to tangibly involve Jamal Gray in the Black Fire legacy, Branch said. “Made Through Ritual is one of Jamal’s track’s names,” he said, referring to one of the pre-arranged beat demos. “I was completely enamored with that — the idea that creativity is a ritual in many instances, and that ritual can involve methodologies, that ritual can involve intoxicants, getting high in some way, or be a meditation. Creative people, from poets, to dancers, to musicians, have used rituals in Africa. That’s where that title comes from, and that’s how this intergenerational collaboration came together.”
Gray, himself a musician, organizer, curator and founding member of avant-garde arts troupe Nag Champa Art Ensemble, said that his contributions to the album were reflective of his upbringing in D.C., interactions with Black creatives through his father and his coming up in ‘90s hip-hop culture.
“Normally in hip-hop, it’s like you find a jazz record and sample it. But [with] this, we took the tracks that were made in a hip-hop way of thinking and reinterpreted [and] reimagined those in a live setting,” said Gray. “I created my part, gave it to them as inspiration and a lot of those elements are still in the recording. It’s like my taste [and] my ear through Plunky and Jamiah’s filter.”
Stoking D.C.’s Black Fire
Though it saw little commercial recognition in its early years, Black Fire’s embodiment of D.C.’s Black progressive culture and Afrocentric orientation resonated with a niche of young Black listeners.
“The mid ‘70s was the time when the political movement out of the 1960s — the Black Power Movement — came to fruition, and D.C. was a central part of all that. All of that political culture found a base in Washington,” said Branch. Black Fire, Branch explained, oriented itself — and the groups on its label — to serve the city’s burgeoning Afrocentric culture of the mid-’70s. “We chose the groups who would be open to the concepts of Kwanzaa, the seven principles of Blackness. All of these things were conscious in our efforts. They were the point of what we were doing. We were trying to be the soundtrack of this cultural movement.”
Oneness Of Juju in 1977. Courtesy Bandcamp
Washington, D.C. was a prime location for Black Fire’s sound to flourish, with the city’s history as an epicenter for concerted Black progressive organizing. Born from struggles for self-governance, D.C.’s local Black Power Movement was rooted in efforts to gain socio-economic stability, build political autonomy, embrace Black culture and generate resources for the poor. An essential component of this was the Black Arts Movement, which promoted the idea that Black creatives should produce art rooted in Black consciousness and pride.
Black Fire fueled this movement through its music, leaning into diasporic African influences with use of percussion instruments like the congas, timbales and djembe, and an emphasis on movement, self-identity and a reclamation of ancestral African culture. These influences ultimately helped shape what would become go-go, D.C.’s signature fusion of its own regional sound with the rhythmic high energy beats of the East Coast and the relaxed, bluesy swing of the South, layered with syncopated beats and elements of call and response found in gospel.
“Post riots, D.C. was trying to find itself, and was kind of being reborn,” said Charvis Campbell, co-owner of HR Records and co-producer of Black Fire: The Documentary. “D.C. independence, having self-rule — all that is happening,” Campbell said. “And it’s all connected to the art and the music.”
Born in 1937 in Richmond, Va., Branch came of age during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and ‘60s, at a time when R&B, soul, funk and gospel-rooted sounds dominated the musical landscape.
“I’ve been an R&B/blues-oriented player throughout my 50-60 year career. Richmond and the DMV area shaped my musical taste,” said Branch. “While I’m regarded as a jazz player — in some ways a cosmic jazz player, a free jazz player, an African music player — I’m, at heart, a blues player. All of my explorations on the saxophone and in music are rooted in the blues. This area has shaped me because I never let go of that blues-gospel music origins.”
Branch further developed as an artist during his time at Columbia University in New York City, where he communed with poets, musicians and writers in Black radical creative spaces. In particular, Branch’s experience at Columbia — during which he played a central role in the 1968 student uprisings — shaped the political views that would go on to steer his life and art. “It was my years during and just after my matriculation at Columbia, 1965 – 1973, that radicalized me and made me a revolutionary artist.,” he recalled in an oral history interview at the Columbia 1968 + 40 Conference.
“Even when trying to be funky, I want to be educational.”
By 1971, Branch had left Columbia and relocated to San Francsico, where he would meet South African musical innovator Ndikho Xaba and Ghanaian master drummer Okeyerama Asante, exposing Branch to a unique African avant-garde style that has continued to be central to his work.
“Ndhiko taught me some central lessons that have stayed with me,” Branch said. “One of the chief ones was how important art and music was in Africa. Also the idea that what’s important or what’s beautiful in art is measured by its impact on the community. That lesson has stuck with me for 60 years and it’s still a guiding principle for me. Even when trying to be funky, I want to be educational.”
A core of this educational mission is to unify the past and present through the artwork, Branch further explained. “What’s important to me is that I remember where we’re coming from, which is our history, and that I project where I want to go in the future, all through the lens of our origins. I’m not weighted down by the past, but I don’t want to forget the past.”
With these lessons in mind, in 1971, Branch formed Juju (later known as Plunky & Oneness of Juju), a band and general aesthetic that has remained with him throughout his life. Spirited dance rhythms were a core aspect of Branch and Juju’s artistry as Branch relocated from San Francisco to New York City and then back to the DMV. Along the way, the band shared bills with other innovative artists like Gil Scott-Heron, Hugh Masekela, Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers, Experience Unlimited (E.U.) and the Young Senators, spreading Juju’s sound further.
”When Oneness of Juju would be on stage to open for these acts, one of the things we did, at my direction, was we played percussion and never let our beats stop,” Branch said. “We had a very practical reason for that. We were playing avant-garde, free jazz music over African beats. The African beats gave us a route to where people could dance, but we were [also] playing screaming avant-garde, saxophone-driven John Coltrane-type music. As the leader on stage, once we have people moving or grooving, I didn’t want to let that go because it would be hard for us to start the next song.”
“For me, that was one leg of what constitutes go-go,” Branch continued. “Performance where the beat doesn’t stop, that’s very much a crowd interaction. A call and response, like African music.”
Campbell credits Branch’s musical approach with pushing E.U. founder Sugar Bear towards the rhythm-laden sound that became the foundation of their pioneering approach to go-go. “[E.U.’s] first album was a Black jazz-gospel-rock album. It’s amazing,” said Campbell. “[Sugar Bear] was inspired by Plunky and his use of African rhythms, percussion, the call and response. Plunky pulled this from his work with Ndhiko Xaba in San Francisco. Sugar Bear took that inspiration and formed his own sound.”
Deepening a lifelong artistic vision
In line with Branch’s previous works, Made Through Ritual centers love, spirituality and human connectivity. The first and last tracks of the album, in particular, embody these themes, both paying homage to the rich lineage of African-American musical culture.
“The first track is called “Share This Love,” [and] was created by another young producer, Bee Boisseau, who is from Richmond and lives in D.C. and New York. His track comes off like a neo-soul jazz instrumental, and I put words and a melody to it. It almost doesn’t go with the idea of lyrics, it goes with this cosmic idea of love. It goes with it thematically, but it doesn’t go with the rest of the songs in terms of sound. Likewise, the last track is kind of a blues-oriented spoken word thing that talks about the history of blues and jazz and relates it to the history of Black people,” said Branch.
That last track, Children of the Drum, features a poem performed and written by Roscoe Burnems, Richmond’s first poet laureate. It’s an ode to Black American history and culture, celebrating a musical heritage rooted in resistance and radical free expression.
Gray described how the album distills these many elements into one cohesive body of work:
That’s recurring in Plunky’s music and the music of Black Fire. It’s the music my father was into and curated and the music that I resonate to and try to connect with. So there certainly needs to be a human element, a spiritual element, an earthly element. You find that through what grooves we’re using: Polyrhythms, making sure the drums sound natural, making sure there’s some claves, some shakers, there’s some West African rhythms sprinkled in there.
When there are lyrics, it’s making sure those themes are at the forefront: Love, resistance, rebellion, strength, power, connectivity, connectivity to a higher power. All those things should come through in the music. From a technical standpoint, you do it through using certain rhythms and groups, instruments, textures, and there’s even little nuances in the background. I might be at the African braiding salon and turn on my voice notes and just record the conversations going on, get that atmosphere, and then put that in the belly of the track really low, where I know it’s there, but you may not know. It’s energy in that. That’s the type of thing you can do to say what you need without being overt about it.
Made Through Ritual serves as a nod to the legacy of Black Fire and a musical rumination on love, legacy and connection.
“I hope that some of the older people who like what I do, or like Blue Note jazz music, might be encouraged to listen to some more avant-garde hip-hop producers like Jamal,” said Branch. “In particular in London, there’s a whole movement of African jazz and funk and younger players who are combining hip hop-R&B sensibilities with jazz music. I hope that this music will fit into that niche. The forward moving motion of this jazz music — proving once again that it does not die — it continues to reinvent itself, with nuances and polyrhythms and improvisation and craziness and funkiness, and still inspires people. That’s what I’m hoping this album can be a part of.”
