Land Of The Rising Sun by Jamaiel Shabaka (Record, 2017)

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Land Of The Rising Sun by Jamaiel Shabaka (Record, 2017).

Jamaiel Shabaka's The Land Of The Rising Sun, originally released in 1988. 

Heavy roots reggae album by the avant-jazz horn player. 

With its unusual jazzy/improvised sonic essays among straight-up heavyweight roots tracks, saying that The Land Of The Rising Sun is an unusual-sounding reggae album is an understatement: after all, who in the reggae world improvised for days on end.

While living in Kingston, Shabaka recorded a very personal album, using the studios from friends, including Sugar Minott. 

Shabaka delivered healing vibes and meditations, bringing an African jazz sound into the Caribbean groove and creating a unique reggae sound topped with conscious and positive lyrics. 

Jamaiel was a radio DJ at a college radio station in Long Beach, played with jazz drummer Alex Cline and on never-released Sun Ra albums. 

While Growing up with Pharoah Sanders, John Coltrane, Michael Jackson, and others, Jamaiel played the saxophone, and the clarinet, all the while gravitating towards types of African-Latin-Cuban, Yoruba, and the more radical sound of Archie Shepp and Byard Lancaster.  

Shabaka was a radio announcer at the California State University, Long Beach, KLON, now KKJZ (or KJazz) from the early '70s on. 

Jamaiel Shabaka recorded music and played with many of the greats from Sun Ra, Alice Coltrane, Bob Marley, Pharaoh Sanders, and Horace Tapscott.

 Jamaiel recorded a classic mystical Reggae album in Jamaica that continues to live on from multiple record stores and articles from the likes of Wax Poetics. 

In Jamaiel's early jazz years, he recorded another classic album with Alex Cline called Duo Infinity.

 Jamaiel was a pioneer of the Leimert Park drum scene and dance collective of the 80s and 90s. 

Jamiel played in little league as a child, and over the years became a league star pitcher.He played numerous games at the local neighborhood El Segundo Park and carried that ability with him through High School, and not only pitched for Centennial High School’s Varsity Baseball team, but was also scouted by the San Diego Padres, and the New York Yankees.  

Due to health issues, in his senior year of high School,  his Sickle Cell Anemia, deprived Jamaiel of a possible professional baseball career, and also almost took his young life. 

The doctor’s diagnosis of Jamaiel’s life expectancy, during his illness, was bleak at best.  

His parents were told he probably would not live beyond age twenty-five.  However, his music ability was not thwarted by this chronic illness

After graduation from High School, Jamaiel attended Long Beach State, where he continued his musical pursuits. 

Jamaiel lived life on his own terms.  

In the early seventies, he traveled East on a musical tour with Stevie Wonder and during this time, Jamaiel had a life awakening, and decided to take the treatment of his chronic illness into his own hands.  

He subsequently became a Vegan, an Herbalist, and spiritual practices  of Bobo Ashanti Rastafari inspired by the Jamaican parts of his heritage.

These life decisions made by Jamaiel, surely extended his life. 

Jamaiel Shabaka was a disciplined man and made it his life's work to discover, collect, and safeguard his familial legacy and heritage was inspired by his mother and father’s unique African American experience and familial legacy coming to America from Africa, Cuba, and island of Jamaica.

Jamiel led a long, explorative and expansive journey to self discovery, spirituality and cultural significance. 

An Avant-garde jazz musician, reggae artist and West African master drummer who devoted his life to music of the African arts and diaspora as well as their ethnography and spiritual systems.

Jamaiel was not only a trained musician also  a profound sidereal astrologist. 

The archivist of the family spent long years tracing the family heritage back generations to the Ashanti tribe of Ghana, West Africa. 

Shabaka recorded music and played with many of the greats from Sun Ra, Alice Coltrane, Bob Marley, Pharaoh Sanders, Chinna Smith, Marvin Gaye and Horace Tapscott.

A classic mystical Reggae album in Jamaica that continues to live on from multiple record stores and articles from the likes of Wax Poetics.

In Jamaiel's early jazz years, he recorded another classic album with Alex Cline called Duo Infinity. 

A pioneer of the Leimert Park drum scene and dance collective of the 80s and 90s. 

Jamaiel Shabaka had a love for education, culture, and Pan-African research.

He wanted to pass on the knowledge of the drum has a healing modality and emphasis of African culture teaching to children and adults. 

Jamaiel performed before live audiences in Malibu, Marina Del Rey, and Los Angeles and many others.

He taught Drumming at UCLA, taught Drumming to children in Leimert Park, Watts, and Compton,  worked with Dancer, Choreographer, and Actress, Debbie Allen on stage, on television, at her dance studio in Baldwin Hills and was involved in stage performances, movies and television such as hit series “A different World, parts in the movie “Predator Two” with Danny Glover, and a co-starring role in a Pilot film for a television series called “Eight Ball.”

A loving son, a wonderful and caring brother, a larger than life father uncle, cousin, and a lifelong friend and neighbor to many.