A year and half ago, my dear friend and fellow musician, Perry Robinson, gave a copy of our Global Village album (which I collaborated with my wife Shakti and Belita Woods on vocals) to Emmanuel at Quibico Records in Italy. After listening to the CD, he suggested to Perry that we do an album. Since Perry already had a record contract with Quibico doing Free jazz music (which he is among the early pioneers of and a 6-time Down Beat Jazz Poll Winner) and I have a track record of playing with Weather Report and being a P-Funk All Star myself, he thought combining our efforts would make a fantastic Free Funk album.

I had already been experimenting with funky jam band music, and recording it in my former basement studio (Duck Head Studios) and had 3 good cuts with Trey Lewd (Tracy Clinton) and Belita Woods, my wife Shakti, and Nino and the rest of my band. Within that year, I had built a personal production studio in my backyard (Sage Court Studios) which Bob Dennis from the Disc LTD and Recording Institute of Detroit (formerly quality control of Motown) designed.

So Perry flew in from New York to Ann Arbor and we recorded some new cuts with the spontaneity of freedom of jazz and the heartbeat of funk. It was all recorded in one night and the next morning I did one extra drum machine track which I had Perry and the band overdub. It is a combination of these cuts that ended up as our new Free Funk album.

During that time, Emmanuel asked me to hand-paint 26 album covers as part of the special collector series for auction (this in addition to the 500 printed albums which would feature my artwork). I ended up doing 30 designs of which you can see on this page. Both hand-painted and printed albums will include a special color vinyl 33 1/3. The album goes on sale mid-November on www.qbicorecords.com

This album was a complete joy to do and allowed us to have free expression of spirit in the music. I also enjoyed doing the hand-painted album covers. I approached the art as thou it were free jazz and let the spirit come through with full spontaneity, adding a bit of funkiness here and there. I did all 30 of them in a 16-hour marathon period. Since this album has a special place in my heart, I am pleased that it's finished and will be available so soon (release expected mid-November) .

You can listen to the title tracks at http://www.myspace.com/muruga

- Muruga Booker