With a roster of artists including organist Doug Carn, guitarist Calvin Keys and pianist Walter Bishop Jr., the early 1970s label Black Jazz spawned an unprecedented fusion of gospel, hard bop, Latin and funk.

It was alternative African-American jazz that drew inspiration from the spiritual roots of John Coltrane. From 1969–75, Black Jazz drew from a pool of musicians largely from Los Angeles that brewed potent improvisational styles and grooves and put them out there for the revolution. The label's most famous tune was Carn's "Infant Eyes" (RealAudio excerpt), featuring his then-wife Jean Carn on vocals.

Now Black Jazz is resurrecting with reissues of its classic material and performances by Carn and a handful of label veterans. The Black Jazz Allstars will perform a series of shows at San Francisco's Center for African and African American Art and Culture beginning Wednesday and running through May 7. Shows are at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m.

"It's going to be real authentic with all the old equipment and gizmos," Carn said of the shows. "I think I might even have me a Moog synthesizer. Old s---, you know."

Carn, 52, will perform with Henry Franklin on bass, Rudolph Johnson on tenor sax and flute, George Harper on saxophones, Kamal Abdul-Alim on trumpet, Keys on guitar, Babatunde Lea on drums and Scheherazade Stone and John "Buddy" Conners on vocals.

Foreign Interest Sparks Revival

Impetus for the Black Jazz revival began in the early '90s in England and Japan when the dancehall groove-jazz scene got hip to such Carn tunes as "Adam's Apple," "Spirit of the New Land" and "Infant Eyes."

"I've done the organ thing with Joey D'Francesco, Lonnie Smith and Rubeun Wilson in recent years," said Carn of Hammond B-3 gigs he played on the East Coast. "The Black Jazz thing has been coming back and the B3-organ thing has been coming back too. So I've been riding on both of those wagons."

The Black Jazz label was the vision of Los Angeles jazz pianist Gene Russell, who saw a need to produce quality recordings for a growing Afrocentric movement. Financed by Dick Shorry, who owned Ovation Records, a country-and-western label out of Chicago, Black Jazz amassed an impressive catalog featuring works by Carn, saxophonist Rudolph Johnson, Santana organist Chester Thompson, Bishop Jr., Franklin, Keys and others. Most of the recordings were done in Los Angeles and captured a sound influenced by the black-power movement.

The music was intensely spiritual, as "Infant Eyes" attests. The artists didn't get much airplay except on college and public radio stations that were hip to the Black Jazz sound.

One Oakland, Calif., kid deeply affected by the music was James Hardge, who used to hear his father playing the recordings around the house. In his 20s, Hardge moved to Atlanta and opened a record store, where he met Jeanette Carn, the daughter of Doug and Jean. Jeanette Carn took a copy of Infant Eyes to Hardge and pointed out that she was the infant pictured on the cover. That revived his interest in Black Jazz.

"I once tried to get hold of Doug, but his number was disconnected," Hardge said. "Then a man came to my store asking if anybody was interested in licensing some of the Black Jazz catalog. I told him I wanted to buy it and we worked out a deal."

'People Need To Hear The Spiritualism'

Since then, Hardge, who is in his 30s and is back in Oakland, has been on a crusade to reawaken the label. In addition to the San Francisco shows, he's planning a Black Jazz tour that will hit Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, New York and British Columbia. He also intends to release new recordings by Carn and other veterans of the label.

"People need to hear the spiritualism in this music," Hardge said. "It went along the lines of John Coltrane's 'A Love Supreme' and fueled a black-awareness movement. I compare it to other labels like Strata East or Tribe Records in Detroit. It was music being changed by what people felt at the time."

Carn grew up in St. Augustine, Fla., and started playing the organ at the encouragement of his mother, a schoolteacher and church organist. "When my legs got long enough to reach the bass pedals she let me play," Carn said.

"In the South there weren't many jazz clubs," he continued. "Most things took place at Elks or American Legion halls, and when we played you had to play for everybody. Old people, young people, people who like jazz or blues, things that were on the Top 10, so at an early age we were mixing all these things together. But the main thing that happened for me was the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind. It's right here in St. Augustine. It's the school that Ray Charles and [jazz pianist] Marcus Roberts went to.

"They had an outstanding tradition of great bands that swung with soulful jazz. It took me a long time to understand that I came out of Ray Charles in terms of groove. Just like my tune "Mighty, Mighty" — that's 100 percent blind-man groove."

Carn mastered several instruments before venturing out to California, where he was influenced by such West Coast giants as bandleader Gerald Wilson. He moved into a building in Hollywood where Janis Joplin, the Chambers Bros. and a young band called Earth, Wind and Fire lived.

"I had a gig every weekend either in Long Beach, San Pedro or South Central," Carn said. Earth, Wind and Fire leader Maurice White "was supposed to be the drummer on 'Infant Eyes,' but he wasn't quite up on it. Now, in retrospect, I wished I had used him."

Putting The Spotlight On History

Now the spotlight is back on Carn and the black fusion he helped pioneer — funk-roll jazz that was also embraced by keyboardist Herbie Hancock, drummer Norman Conners and trumpeter Miles Davis. It was music that grooved the black-power party as picket signs sprang up on college campuses. A new generation is discovering all this and realizing these old-school sounds still have something relevant to say.

"There's people interested in Black Jazz all around the world," Hardge says. "Germany, Australia, Russia. Then you have the newcomers who never heard of Black Jazz. There's something about the name. What is Black Jazz? What is the sound all about? I want to keep it the way it is and draw from the spiritual essence of the music."

For more information, visit Black Jazz's Web site (www.blackjazz.com).