The temporary home of Brother Jack in the UK was an abandoned rectory full of funky junk and mysterious red and yellow pills. Peace in the vivacious valley. 

There was a fusion and Miles Davis started to toy with the rhythm of the asphalt jungle. Jazz mingled with rock, psychedelica, soul and suddenly you had broad-minded birds like Lou Donaldson, Sly & The Family Stone, Chambers Brothers, Brian Auger’s Oblivion Express. Jazzers like Rusty Bryant, Reuben Wilson, Grant Green, The Three Sounds, Jimmy Smith all picked up the bat and took a few soulful swings, not least organist Brother Jack Mcduff.

Yeah, Brother Jack, the churchiest of the great organists, who had been popular since 1960, led the hottest band in the mid-1960’s with guitarist George Benson, tenor saxophonist Red Holloway and drummer Joe Dukes, made some soul-tinged records in the summers of love, peace and happiness, went all out at the tail end of the decade, way out. By then the bla bla bla of the hippies, though still vivid, had endured the blow of the killings during the Stones concert on Altamont. Afro-Futurism promised a way out of the mess in the hood, a coming of supreme blackness.

Sly Stone was on smack. He made a dark record, There’s A Riot Goin’ On.

The jazz labels promoted stylish and gritty, upbeat funky stuff, hoping for a hit cover version of a popular soul or funk song. Or they trusted their artists to pick and make funky tunes. Brother Jack had covered Sam Cooke’s A Change Is Gonna Come in 1966. He’d done his own soulful Marvin Gaye/Curtis Mayfield-ish Let My People Go in 1968. Brother Jack cared about his people and cared about good-time uplifting jazz.

A year later, the Champaign, Illinois-born organist, alumnus of the Prestige, Cadet and Atlantic labels, was on the roster of Blue Note and had become a colleague of Lou Donaldson, Grant Green, Reuben Wilson, Lonnie Smith, John Patton. A whole lotta heavyweight soul jazz. At first, in 1969, Brother Jack handed in Down Home Style, which was just that, pure and earthy funk and blues with a band of adept unknown jazz funkateers.

Intriguingly, his subsequent albums expanded on his gritty vision. Moon Rappin’ was truly weird, a mix of funk jazz and spaced-out vibes, and poetry to boot. Then came 1970’s To Seek A New Home, and, half a year later, Who Knows What Tomorrow’s Gonna Bring, a quirky booming boogie affair with American stalwarts as Randy Brecker, Joe Beck and Tony Levin, mostly written and arranged by Ray Draper.

(A year later, now back on Cadet Records, McDuff recorded The Heatin’ System, which included a wild and wicked title cut, maybe best described as voodoo funk.)

To Seek A New Home is a collaboration between down-home McDuff and a bunch of English musicians, presumably recorded while the Hammond B3 beast was on tour in the U.K. But it’s not an ad hoc affair, by any means. All tunes are by McDuff, one co-written by pianist J.J. Jackson, sole American cook on Masterchef McDuff’s groove gumbo. Probably an expat who was familiar with the British cats. I’m not familiar with these British cats. Among guys like Martin Drover, David Stratham, Jack Whitford, Chris Parren, Peter Chapman, Trevor Armstrong, Jerry Long, Terry Smith, only Dick Morrisey rings a big bell. A figurehead of English jazz (rock) who played and recorded with everybody from Tubby Hayes, Jack Bruce, Steve Gadd to Paul McCartney.

There’s a striking British feel, Yellow Wednesday is prog-y, modal-tinged, flavored with a blue-eyed soul feeling, Mystic John makes use of an Indian strain and wouldn’t be out of place on records by Brian Auger, Rod Argent, Spooky Tooth, Gong, you name it, marked by parts of flute and harp, courtesy of Typhena Partridge. Gospel-tinged Come And Carry Me Home and greasy Hunk O’ Funk work out well, notably because of the slick combination of Hammond and Chris Parren’s electric piano. Solo spots by Morrisey on tenor and flute and by Terry Smith on guitar (his pal from jazz-rock outfit If, I had to look that up) are positively nifty. And the American boss on the B3 puts in his spirited five cents.

The album climaxes with Seven Keys For Seven Doors, esoteric soul jazz hodgepodge that develops (somehow, in mildly bewildering ways) from low-bottom drone, slow groove, riff, straight swing to psychedelic coda, and, sign of the times, ending with the sound of a gong. Peace y’all! To Seek A New Home strikes a pleasant balance between gritty and mellow, oddball and deftness, and should appeal to aficionados of the quirky side of soul jazz.