From the title track, which features a glorious horn sound with polyrhythmic percussion sounds, to the funky "Sorely Bout That", which makes the most of the horn ensemble, this album is full of the charm of jazz as black music. Rarely has tenor saxophonist Archie Shepp sounded as radical and furious as on the title track of "The Magic Of Ju-Ju". Driven by the hypnotizing rhythms of a five-piece percussion ensemble, Shepp begins the album with a breathtaking, 18-minute tour de force at the interface between free jazz, pan-Africanism and spiritual jazz. In contrast to this, the three pieces on the second side of the album, which were also written by the tenor saxophonist, seem almost traditionally jazzy - as far as that is possible with Shepp. Verve By Request series: remastered, audiophile 180 gram vinyl from Third Man Pressing / Detroit, gatefold sleeve