BIOGRAPHY
Saxophonist J. Plunky Branch is an experienced performer, songwriter, and music and film producer. He is president of his own independent record label, N.A.M.E. Brand Records, through which he has released 30 albums. With his group, Plunky & Oneness, he has appeared in concert with some of the biggest names in Black music, including Patti Labelle, Ray Charles, Earth Wind & Fire, Yellow Jackets, Frankie Beverly & Maze, LL Cool J, Chuck Brown, and more. His song “Every Way But Loose” was a top-ten soul music chart hit in London in the 1980’s and his hit single, “Drop,” was released in 2007. Today he continues to produce and tour with his band playing rousing funk, jazz, African, rap and R&B.
His latest releases are the new album Plunky & Oneness - Afroclectic and his autobiography, PLUNKY: Juju Jazz Funk & Oneness.
Plunky’s European touring has taken him to England, France, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. He twice toured Ghana, West Africa, once for the Ghana National Commission on Children, and again as a cultural specialist for the U.S. Information Agency. He has performed in London and Paris; traveled to Brazil; and visited to Cuba to research and produce music recordings and the documentary film, Under the Radar – A Survey of Afro-Cuban Music.
Plunky & Oneness performed at the New Orleans World’s Fair, the National Black Arts Festival in Atlanta (four times) and twice at the Capital Jazz Festival in Maryland. They have appeared at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, Lincoln Center in New York the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and in other prestigious venues. For more than 20 years Plunky has toured continually with support from the Virginia Commission for the Arts (VCA).
In 2018, J. Plunky Branch received the prestigious “50 For 50 Award” from the VCA as one of the 50 outstanding arts persons in Virginia of the last 50 years. In 2015 he was selected as one of the Strong Men & Women in Virginia History by the Library of Virginia.
In addition to being a veteran musician and composer, J. Plunky Branch has served as an administrator, lecturer and teacher. Plunky is a two-time recipient of National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Fellowships and he was appointed to the Governor’s Task Force for the Promotion of the Arts in Virginia. He attended Columbia University in New York City and he has taught at Virginia Union University and Virginia Commonwealth University, both in Richmond.
Throughout his career Plunky has entertained and taught thousands, and in the process, has developed a broad and loyal following. During his 1987 West African tour, critics proclaimed Plunky "one of the greatest living saxophonist!" In a context where rhythm, ritual, power and emotion reign supreme, he just might be!
HISTORY
​
For over 50 years, Richmond saxophonist and bandleader J. Plunky Branch has been at the vanguard of Afro-centric jazz, funk, house music, and go-go, weaving these interrelated musical forms into a forward-looking message of empowerment, positivity, and cultural awareness.
​
Plunky was born and raised in Richmond, where he was mentored as a teenager by local R&B musicians and music educators, including jazz violinist Joe Kennedy Jr. Acceptance to Columbia University found him leading a popular New York City soul band. “I took my Richmond R&B roots to New York, and I’ve since then brought back to Richmond what I’ve learned in New York, San Francisco, Europe, and West Africa,” he says.
​
At the same time, Plunky was discovering the avant-garde jazz sounds of Pharaoh Saunders and Archie Shepp, whose work displayed a burgeoning African consciousness. A move to San Francisco in 1969 led to his joining the band of exiled South African pianist and percussionist Ndikho Xaba. “Ndikho taught me that music could be more than entertainment. I learned that music could be a political force and that in African music the beauty is the function that it plays within society,” explains Plunky.
​
San Francisco is also where Plunky originally formed Juju in 1971. In 1973 the group moved to New York City, where Plunky lived and worked in a loft gallery space run by Ornette Coleman. In 1974, Plunky returned to Richmond, which marked a turning point in the group’s sound. “Audiences in Richmond weren’t as interested in avant-garde African jazz,” he laughs, so the group, now known as Oneness of Juju, combined its African roots with R&B and funk, adding trap drums and vocalist Lady Eka-Ete. Plunky also helped run Virginia’s first black art gallery in Church Hill.
​
In 1975 Oneness of Juju’s landmark African Rhythms record was released on the pioneering D.C.-based indie label Black Fire. Frequent shows with Chuck Brown, EU and others meant that Plunky was present at the dawn of go-go music. Plunky’s band found itself able to move with the times, scoring early ’80s house/disco hits and touring in both Europe and Africa. In recent years, Plunky, who is a two-time recipient of NEA Jazz fellowships, has recorded in an urban/contemporary vein.