Top Releases of 2024
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DIEUF-DIEUL DE THIES (Buda Musique CD 860390)
Dieuf-Dieul means "give/receive" or put another way "You reap what you sow." Mouridism and Christianity, it turns out, do have some moral tenets in common. In this case the germination between sowing and reaping was over 40 years. During that time, Dieuf-Dieul remained the greatest Senegalese band no one had heard. Those who had seen them perform in a nightclub in Thiès insisted they had no equal. This is in fact what led Adamantios Kafetzis to track down the two known extant tapes that the band had recorded in 1979. Starting around 2012 Kafetzis' label Teranga Beat released a dozen albums of exceedingly precious previously unheard Senegalese recordings he had found. Some were artists we knew like Dexter Johnson or Mar Seck; others complete unknowns. However Dieuf-Dieul were a total stunning surprise: the as-advertised legendary band, formed by Pap' Seck, famed lead guitarist of Guelewar and Ouza et ses Ouzettes. On a trip to Thiès, some Ouzette band members stayed behind and soon were jamming with local teenage musicians, including singer Bassirou Sarr. They created a new hybrid, with elements of the popular Cuban-inspired sound but also rock guitar leads and mbalax drumming. They also encountered a famous griot, Gora Mbaye, who performed with them, bringing his legions of fans to see them, and then on tour they encountered Assane Camara, a salsero who brought his modern Latin style to their stage shows. Clearly, at their peak they were a strong rival to Super Etoile de Dakar. In addition to psychedelic guitar and Latin beats, they had a powerful and soulful quartet of horn players: trumpet, trombone and two saxes to lift them to the next level. The term Afro-Jazz best describes it: the loping timbales-driven beat of "Djirim" is reminiscent of Baobab but has an astounding trombone throughout. But eventually Pape Seck was poached by Baaba Maal and the band broke up. Decades later, those two albums on Teranga Beat electrified us and led to the inevitable calls for a reunion. Only Bassirou Sarr remains now, but he put together a new group of musicians to learn the old repertoire and create some new songs too. This is a great reminder of what might have been, but still engages us as mesmerizing Manding music of the highest calibre. They even cover Baaba Maal's "Galo," as the first single off the album. Inevitably they draw comparison with Orchestre Baobab and their live performance of "Alin na Djime" (which includes the lyric "On verra ça"), bears it out: they are up there among the greats. |
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BASSEKOU KOUYATE & AMY SACKO
DJUDJON: L'OISEAU DE LA GARANA (One World Records)
I had the great pleasure to see this couple and their children performing a concert, only a short walk from my home, earlier this year (at the geriatric ward known as the Freight). It was a sublime musical evening. Both are veterans of the Malian music scene. Amy is a renowned praise singer. Bassekou plays the ngoni and his son Mamadou plays bass ngoni; a cousin Mohammed Kossebe was percussionist, pounding on the slapped gourd in concert, while the dum-dum, a variety of talking drum, was squeezed and beaten by another son. With his now-famed group Ngoni Ba, Bassekou has recorded five stellar albums, from 2006's Segu Blue, which had guests including Kassemady Diabaté, Zoumana Tereta and Lobi Traore, to Miri in 2019, which included some European rockers in the line-up. With Toumani Diabaté he formed the Symmetric Trio and he has played with Taj Mahal, Youssou Ndour, Eliades Ochoa, and Ali Farka Toure, among many likely others. Even though the ngoni is a traditional instrument, Bassekou plays it like a rockstar with runs and flourishes that would leave most Western guitarists gaping. He also has great stage-presence. In concert they cranked it up, and although they were in a small club they had the "stadium sound" button firmly pressed so the bass ngoni and percussion were stingingly loud, which was great. When they introduced the band members and each took a solo, the son on the talking drum was astonishing and the bass-playing son showed his true colors by going into an Aston Barrett riff. Nevertheless I am sure the show-biz family are proud of their sons' achievements, and there is no fear of them imploding like the Cowsills (whose every advance in show biz was derailed by their drunken controlling father; in the end the TV series written for them became the Partridge Family, which you will recall had no father!). Not that the Kouyatés need a Mondrian-painted school bus and go-go boots to get their music across. The album alternates instrumental with vocal tracks which works out very well. Garaná is the village they come from and though I don't know the legend of the bird, there is a lyrical track about it, with what sounds like slide guitar ornamenting the trance-like groove. Maybe it's possible to play the unfretted ngoni with a slide, I suppose for a musician of Bassekou's brilliance, it's easily accomplished. |
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Butu the new album from Kokoko! means "During the night" and the feeling is one of the unease in a big city after dark. Without sunlight to illuminate the dark corners you get apprehensive, especially in a metropolis where you have hunters and hunted among the populace. This album is a sequel to Fongola, which I loved. I thought they had broken up as two members moved on to form another band, Ngwaka Son Système, which also carried on the "garage-band in dub" feeling, but the singer Makara Blanko and crucially the tech guy Xavier Thomas a.k.a. Débruit are here. Usually when bands split up that is the end for them, but they are just fine and indeed the splinter band are equally interesting, so it's a win all round. As well as relentless electronica, we get the chanted trance-like vocals and on "Bazo Banga," the bass sounds like he is channeling Joy Division. Then crazy metalophones and electric thumb pianos join in. African head-bangers unite. This one stays on repeat.
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We have become used to hearing kora mixed with other instruments, such as cello or rock guitar, but here the juxtaposition is with classical guitar which seems more appropriate as, in a sense, the kora is the classical guitar of the Manding culture. Ballaké Sissoko has had a long career, starting out in the National Instrumental Ensemble of Mali. He has also recorded with Italian pianist Ludovico Einaudi and French cellist Vincent Segal. In 2012 Derek Gripper recorded One Night on Earth where he boldly adapted the music of the 21-string kora to his 6-string guitar. For that set he included a composition by Ballaké Sissoko, so it was inevitable the two would meet and find common ground for musical dialogue. Their encounter took place in London with a series of concerts where they each brought tunes but also jammed and bounced off one another's improvisations. Then they took it into the studio while the heat was on and the traditional music of the jalis was pushed in new directions by the duo. "Koortjie" (a Gripper composition) even has a hint of machine music at the start: I am talking about a built-up drone you might hear in Philip Glass or Frederic Rzewski. So it veers towards modern classical music, sidestepping neat categories like "World beat," or "Jazz fusion." Their jam, "Daraka," is the first single off the album and it is haunting and atmospheric, not to say aethereal. Sissoko vamps while Gripper attacks the spaces in the chords with tattoo needle-like intensity, then they switch roles and set up a tidal wash that moves back and forth before fading out, too soon. The shorter tracks are highly polished. The album closes with Gripper's composition, "Basle," and, as I associate the Swiss with clocks, it has a chiming precision, it seems to me, with once again a metronomic and mesmerizing sway between the assembled 27 strings.
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AMADOU BINTA KONTE & TIDIANE THIAM
WAANDE KADDE (Songs from Home)
As I was on Tidiane Thiam's bandcamp page, listening to "Africa Yonti (It's Time)," his latest solo effort, I saw another album that looked intriguing, a duet with Amadou Binta Konté featuring the latter on hoddu (a relative of the ngoni). I let it play, which is still one of the great delights on bandcamp, as there are no ads and they only bug you to buy after you have given something a couple of auditions. Anyway, it lifted off into orbit and by the last track, the 18'33 magnum opus "Guilly," I was sold. A group of bystanders starts to clap to keep a rhythm as the two musicians go into a trance; at times it reminded me of Coltrane's "A Love Supreme." Yes it is intense! Furthermore, it was listed as "pay what you like," so I figured it was ten bucks well spent to encourage their musical efforts. Thiam is billed as a guitarist, folklorist, photographer and visual artist, so he is a thoroughly rounded talent. He comes from Podor, a small riverside fishing village in the far north of Senegal. The tracks are dreamy and open-ended, beginning and ending without resolution; the album, recorded in 2014, was selected to launch a new venture from Mississippi Records and Sahel Sounds called Songs from Home. It's been around a while, but don't miss it. |
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OKWY OSADEBE & HIGHLIFE SOUNDMAKERS INTERNATIONAL
EGQU MMANWU IGBO (Music of Igbo Masquerade) (Odogwu Entertainment/Palenque Records)
Okwy Osadebe recently emerged as leader of his late father's band and brought that outfit on a triumphant North American tour. Now with the backing of Palenque Records he has released a truly remarkable album of Igbo Masquerade music. It's not typical highlife; in fact it has a lot of chanting and repetitive motifs cycled between lead guitar and shakers. The liner notes suggest the waves of the great Niger River and there is an undulating tide to the music. Like the Oriental Brothers, Osadebe's band come from Onitsha in the East where the Highlife music of Ghana took root and flourished after the Civil War. I have recordings of Masques from all around Nigeria — from Benin, Niger, Ghana, Chad, Cameroun, and also Ivory Coast and especially Central African Republic — but until now I had not heard any music based on Nigerian mask music. It is hypnotic but they still keep the highlife sound pulsing away behind it. |
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There's something about raw Arabic music that gets one deep inside. It is music that comes from necessity and is produced on home-made instruments, sung with passion and, even if you don't follow the lyrics (which are included here), tells you of suffering, loss and forced migration. This group started out in their home town of Jaffa, well under it actually, in an underground bomb shelter in Jaffa — a port city south of Tel Aviv, once famous for its orange groves, now engulfed in a vicious struggle. The band members are Jewish and Arabic; their musical aim has been to explore the roots of Yemeni music, ever since the release of Qat, Coffee & Qambus, the compilation of Yemeni 45s that came out on Dust-to-Digital in 2013. Khat is a bit stronger, being a mind-altering herb that is chewed, like coca leaves (I tried them in Peru and got nowhere, until someone told me you need a little piece of ash in your mouth to activate them!). Bailing on their precarious home situation, the trio visited Brooklyn and then relocated to Berlin. The leader Eyal El Wahab reflects on his life as an Arab Jew, always on the move since his family were forced to leave Yemen in the late 1940s. But Israel didn't provide the home he wanted, and he sings about old loves ("Thank you for forgetting me / so I can have new memories"), family and the pain of migration. He learned cello by ear and joined the Jerusalem Andalusian Orchestra, playing North African Arabic music, while building his own instruments. You can tell he got into Gnawan music by the trancelike feel here on tracks like "Tislami Tislami," which has a Maghreb vibe. El Wahab is joined on this disc by percussionist Lotan Waish and Yefet Hasan on organ. There is a D-I-Y punk sensibility to their music with off-kilter drums that sound like they are made from plastic buckets. Check out their fine live set on KEXP, which will give you a taste of their style. |
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This is Carnatic music like you've never heard before. Ramamurthy grew up in a musical household in Brooklyn: his mother was a Carnatic singer and his father was a tour manager for visiting acts from the Indian subcontinent. He was trained in Carnatic violin but his brain was always more into Miles and Coltrane, A Tribe called Quest and Radiohead. His trio includes electric bass and martial rock drums and they add a rocking, jazzy edge to his playing that is sympathetic to his multiculturalism. I suppose one touch-stone, not mentioned by Ramamurthy perhaps because he is too young to remember, might be the Mahavishnu Orchestra which featured classically trained Jerry Goodman on violin whose improvisations were a match for McLaughlin on guitar. Be that as it may, only the bass is posed in counterpoint and is actively soloing also, not just holding it down on the one. Sameer Gupta and Damon Banks are the accompanists and the trio really moves as a unit. |
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NGWAKA SON SYSTEME
IBOTO NGENGE (Eck Echo EE008)
This is a new outfit, led by Love Lokombe and Bom Bomolo, two founders of Kokoko! which was an exciting Congolese roots band we celebrated in the year 2019 when they issued Fongola. This new project continues the feeling of that group: employing home-made guitars made with jangling wires and knackered percussion. It's an innovative blend of soukous, techno and garage. The title means "Seizing the opportunity" and they grasp it with both hands. They have brought in Diego Gomez, a Colombian dub engineer, to manipulate the tracks, but he has left it pretty straightforward with some echo here and there and, I am guessing, a few loops. There is always exciting music happening in Kinshasa and at the forefront are little informal bands jamming in backyards or homemade studios with the most basic equipment. Kinois becomes "Ki-noise" with a little switch from French to English. There's rap (but not obnoxious) on the second and third drum-driven tracks, however the meaning is not explained, so we just enjoy the sound. Words that are explained tell us to take off our shoes, kick back and relax.
Side B opens with "Bo lobi pe," which is call and response but seemingly mostly "lo lo lo!" — "La la la!" There is a simple and infectious guitar loop backing this. "Zanga mbongo (there is no money)" is a great example of the "forget your troubles and dance" genre. It's wild soukous, with an electric mbira, or maybe it's a home-made plastic marimba: whatever it is there's a lot of buzz on it. Two or three raunchy guitars chop and change in the background behind cheerful choral singing. Then the echo starts to pile up, the animator yells and they go for broke, determined to get you moving and grooving.
Meanwhile, their old band Kokoko! have a new single out, "Mokili." |
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FESTIVAL DONSO NGONI VOL 1 (remote records/Association Djiguiya-Blo & Instruments4Africa)
The Donso ngoni or hunter's ngoni is one of my favorite musical instruments: it has a slender, guitar-like hollow wooden body (about the size of a cricket bat, or sometimes it's built on a gourd body), covered in animal skin, and six strings with a raspy tone. When I first heard Rokia Traoré in concert she had two ngoni players backing her; then Issa Bayayogo took it to the future with his techno albums. Nevertheless it remains deeply rooted in musical traditions and the karagnan (metal scraper) percussion and chanted choruses take you back to ancient rituals around a crackling fire. You can almost smell the woodsmoke and fermented goat milk coming through the speakers. This album commemorates a gathering of the musicians when ten masters performed at a huge nocturnal festival: each is represented by one outstanding track. As well as being hunter-gatherers, the Donso are guardians of spiritual traditions and their legends and rituals are passed on from one generation to the next. Thus ancient epics and praise songs are preserved across centuries. The names of the musicians are confusingly similar, many of them being members of griot families, but included is one of the best-known, Sékouba Traoré. The Donso brotherhood and its many secret societies predates Islam, but they have added elements of Islamic faith, so Sékouba Traoré sings "Bissimilah," invoking the Muslim God in a cultural bridge. Another Traoré — Modibo — pays tribute to the armed forces. Of course this is a smart move as the military have taken over the government yet are not effectively keeping the fundamentalists at bay. And the fundamentalists would crush out traditional music like this, given a chance. I thought I had heard of Adama Traoré, but I was confused! He turns in a great "Koutiguè Foli"; the chorus is a guy yelling "Namo ... namooo ... na!" Remote Records of Bamako, Mali, are doing great work to keep Malian music alive in these tough times: they have a fine catalogue, including Adama Yalomba, Inna Baba Coulibaly, and Sons of Samandji. |
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MAMA SISSOKO
LIVE (mieruba.com vinyl/CD/digital)
It's almost a quarter of a century since Mama Sissoko's album Soleil de Minuit came out on Buda Musique. I included it in my Africa Top 50, which listed 50 albums I felt every fan of African music needed to own. Around then I got to see him live, as he toured with Issa Bagayogo and, while he wasn't the star of that show, he demonstrated his prowess on guitar. And like many great musicians, he responded to the audience and could fire it up on stage. So now we have a gift from the past: a live version of the Soleil de Minuit album, recorded in Paris in 1998 around the same time he was recording that, his second album. The rest of the band are the same musicians who played in the studio and are jamming. The bass (Richard Haas) is brisk, popping all over the place, the rhythm guitars in the pocket, and Mama goes off on lead guitar like the genius he is. Even the tumba player is sensational. Mama sings too. There's a shout-out to "Salsa Africana" in the title cut, which I always think of as MiniWheat (the breakfast cereal) since that's the way he pronounces it (the French title means Sun at Midnight). It's a driving relentless charge and thoroughly exhilarating. Mama cut his chops in Super Biton de Segou and here delivers a sharp reprise of their tune "Iri" (which was also on the studio album). On second guitar is Toussaint Sainé, another former member of Super Biton, so there is a continuity with that fabulous live Malian big band sound we know and love. For a change in mood we hear the hunters' donso n'goni, played by Toumani Diakité on "Boma ma," bringing the traditional music of Mali to the more jazzy sound of the modernists in concert. And in another departure, Mama plays an acoustic guitar, getting a "drier" flat tone out of the strings which contrasts nicely with the bright sound of the Fender-copy lead guitar.
During his national service in the army, Sissoko (who was self-taught on guitar) toured with National A de Bamako, one of the state-sponsored bands. He even played for Che Guevara at a command performance in Mopti. This shows the strong bonds with Cuba, not just political, but especially musical. Also, Sissoko absorbed folk tunes and styles from all regions of West Africa on his travels. He fronted Super Biton de Segou from 1974 until the change of regime in 1991 effectively ended the famous national orchestras. A few individuals emerged and created careers as solo artist or in other groups: Mama Sissoko opened for B. B. King at a festival in La Chapelle, France and was invited to play at Montreux by Santana and Herbie Hancock. Here with his old stalwarts he showcases a diverse set of electric Malian tradi-modern music that is hot and driving as the wind over the dunes. |
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ORCHESTRE MAQUIS DU ZAIRE / ORCHESTRE SAFARI SOUND
ZANZIBARA 11: CONGO IN DAR: DANCE NO SWEAT (1982-6) (Budamusique)
My fears of the demise of the Zanzibara series were unfounded, though it has been nearly a decade since the last Muziki wa dansi volume appeared! Sure, Buda do better with the Ethiopiques and some other series, but this one, as it slowly comes out, is filling precious gaps in our monument of some of the greatest dance music ever recorded, that was made by expatriate Congolese bands in East Africa from the mid-70s to 80s. The music is consistently great: these were big bands with full horn lines, multiple guitarists, dancers and singers, so they could perform from midnight to sunrise and if needed split in two to fulfill two gigs on the same night. The two bands here are among the giants, and were in a friendly pitched battle throughout their prime. Starting with Les Maquis du Zaire, two of their tracks come from an Ahadi cassette called Anjelu: there's "Seya," their first hit, and "Doublé doublé" (not the Nyboma song). On the latter you can hear the influence of Franco on Nguza Viking's guitar. We also get what is probably their biggest hit, the magnificent ballad "Karubandika" from 1984. (Now here is a curious aside, I bought the vinyl in England in the mid-80s, based solely on the bad cover art, on my principle that if a band couldn't afford a fancy cover it meant the music was probably great. The store was an old one, founded in 1908 to sell musical instruments and sheet music, in an arcade in Newcastle-on-Tyne. The reason I am telling you this? Today J. G. Windows finally closed after 117 years. So I have fond memories of that place and now the song comes back to me this same day from Bourges in France! And in another aside, the album was produced by Douglas Paterson who later became a good friend after he moved to the West Coast of the USA.) The final Maquis track here, "Maria Nyerere" is one I have never heard before, so that is a thrill. Also upstanding in this battle of the bands is the great O.S.S. or Orchestre Safari Sound who also traded members back and forth with Mlimani Park. Ndala Kasheba wrote "Dunia Msongamano (This is a world of strife)"; this and "Mwana kwetu" were also on Ahadi cassettes, which I managed to get hold of back in the day but are probably impossible to find now, furthermore the sound on cassettes is never great. Their big hit here "Marashi ya pemba" (also penned by Kasheba) was also on Tanzania Hit Parade 88, another cassette produced by Doug Paterson, which also came out on vinyl. Their last offering is "Garba," another jam that came from a 45 and not a cassette and so is also new to me. This is such vital music (not only to me, but to you too, once you've heard it, I am sure) that I have a page dedicated to it here. I would suggest you opt for the CD, as a download will not give you the 36-page booklet with notes by Werner Graebner who interviewed the musicians in 1987 and has been patiently waiting to publish his comments. We also learn the history of recently deceased King Kiki who played with both bands. As a youth he heard Leon Bukasa's band in Congo and was inspired by the young Papa Noel to take up guitar! The many photos of Nguza Viking and bandmates presented here will show you how these guys were hipper than you could ever hope to be! |
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Recorded 34 years ago, in 1990, these one-inch magnetic tapes were unearthed in a storage shed. Nusrat would sing all night and ask the producer (Canadian guitarist) Michael Brook to let them know when to stop, but the additional hours of recording had been shelved and forgotten. Of course the album Musst Musst, issued by RealWorld in 1990 was a massive success and led to a much wider awareness of Sufi praise singing. Subsequently Real World issued five more albums of his music, plus remixes. For the next seven years until his death, Nusrat would tour and perform, astounding audiences all over the globe with his virtuosity. To hear him live convinced you that the twentieth century had produced no greater singer (though I am not a fan of opera, those are the only vocalists I have heard mentioned in the same breath). His ever-ascending percussive scat singing was truly breath-taking. Yes, all these references to breath are intentional. Even if you don't understand Urdu or Panjabi when he goes ah-aha-ah-ah-ayyyyiii-aaaaaa-alllahhhh, you are transported. The wordless vocalizing was his trademark and it makes Lambert, Hendricks and Ross sound like Mary and her little lamb. However, Nusrat's oeuvre is all of a piece (there are 348 listings on discogs), so if you buy any random album by him, the chances are you will be impressed. When I worked at Round World Music in San Francisco in the 1990s we had an in-house joke, when people who had Musst Musst would ask us to recommend another Nusrat album we would tell them to check out Live at Islamabad, volume 101. Great, do you have it? No, but you can buy it round the corner on cassette for $5. Because round the corner was an Indian grocery store, smelling of incense, with 10-pound sacks of basmati rice piled up on the floor, and on the wall were hundreds of cheap cassettes of all manner of music from the sub-continent, so we felt it part of our mission to send folks round there to dig a bit deeper. Here, too is a great gift. Four qawwals from the master, beautifully recorded, some appearing here for this first time, all of course unique performances. So roll over Pavarotti, tell Caruso the news, and make some space for Nusrat F. A. Khan.
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CONJUNTO AFRICA NEGRA
ANTOLOGIA VOL 2 (Bongo Joe BJR068)
Though not well-known outside their homeland of São Tomé e Principe, until about a decade ago when they began to tour Europe, Africa Negra are one of the consistently great African bands. The band emerged at the same time as the independence movement, prompted by a revolution back in Portugal in 1974, followed by São Tomense independence a year later. Portugal had colonies longer than any other European nation, and in fact started the trans-Atlantic slave trade in the 15th Century!@ After fighting in the Angolan war of liberation, "General" João Seria moved to the island and joined Sangazuza, another legendary band, as second vocal, but was quickly recruited by Africa Negra in 1977. Their song "Bo lega caço modebo (You let the dog bite you)" denouncing the country's lack of democracy, was not only a domestic hit, but was featured on the global best-selling compilation Telling Stories to the Sea (Luaka Bop, 1995). Africa Negra would record at the national radio station, and because the band was so large, they'd play outside in the courtyard, surrounded by fans. A first album Aninha appeared in 1981 to great acclaim. Then in 1983 three albums appeared: Alice, Angelica and Carambola, all of them solid gold. In 1989 they toured Africa and relocated to Cabo Verde for a while, due to their immense popularity in the fellow Lusophone nation (though one with a different dialect). The locals loved their Puxa rhythms. Four more albums appeared in 1990 and 1991, after which their productions only appeared on cassette. I am assuming economic constraints were behind this shift, and the fact they began to pool band-members with Sangazuza. Their Lisbon label changed hands and though some cassettes still appeared, they were notoriously difficult to find, unless you went there and asked around. The band naturally ran out of steam, and took a hiatus from 1999 to 2012. This sequel to Antologia vol 1 is really interesting because it contains mostly unreleased material which, nevertheless, is as good as anything they released. Volume 1 covered their hits and the best tracks from their main albums. Volume 2 goes back to a 1979 session for four songs in the "puxa" style, plus a ballad. These are followed by two tracks from a rare cassette. A 1990 recording with Sergio Fonseca singing lead provides the next five songs, recorded after João Seria moved to Cabo Verde. The lilting interlocking guitars of Emidio Pontes and Leonildo Barros provide the dreamy beachscape while the determined Flay flails on the drums and Vasco Gama (no less) holds down the bottom on a thick bass. Leader and vocalist João Seria returned in 2014 and in 2022 took the band to Colombia for a historic visit. Seria died in May 2023 after fronting the band on and off, for 45 years. There is an element of soukous in the intertwining guitars, but curiously the horn section sounds more like the musical heritage of Guinée. This is a phenomenal release, well curated. |
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NIGERIAN GUITAR ROOTS
JUJU, GUITAR BAND HIGHLIFE 1936-68 (EL SUR RECORDS; available outside Japan from Far Side Music)
Compiler Yoshiki Fukasawa sees this as the third volume of his "palm wine trilogy," released by El Sur Records of Shibuya, Tokyo. Based on his own collection of mainly 78 rpm discs and his extensive knowledge of African music, Fukasawa has traced the birth of modern popular music in Africa from the Kru people of the West coast as heard on the first set, Palm Wine Music of Ghana, to the Congo where it evolved into rumba with heavy influences from Latin music (heard on Early Congo Music 1946-62) and finally to the Nigerian music of the South-eastern Igbo people and the Yoruba in the West who created danceband highlife on the one hand and Juju music on the other. This two-disc set is therefore divided into Juju roots on disc one, and Highlife roots on disc two. Now, you are probably saying to yourself, I have Juju Roots, Chris Waterman's compilation which came out on Rounder Records in 1985. Well, Fukasawa has avoided duplicating tracks from there but quotes Waterman's writings to reinforce his points. He also notes that in the case of two of the best-known Nigerian bands of the early era, Rex Lawson has an obvious connection to Palm Wine music, while Celestine Ukwu shows the influence of Congolese rumba on his guitar sound. These musical bridges reinforce the idea of the continuum he has created with his trilogy. The many influences brought back from the New World by former enslaved people from Brasil, North America and the Caribbean is called "returnees music" by Fukasawa. Disc one track 10 is a good example of this, called "Lagos ilu afe" (My beloved town, Lagos): it is a cover of Lord Kitchener's calypso, "London is the place for me," from 1953. The group is called Ayinde Miranda Cuba Orchestra. Interestingly the guitar is picking a lead that recalls Arsenio Rodriguez' brittle tres solos. Kitchener also recorded in London with Ambrose Campbell's West African Rhythm Brothers, heard here performing "Omo Africa." It's percussion heavy with a pair of delicate guitars staying back to not overwhelm the singing and drumming. There is also a digression into a fine percussive piece of Agidigbo music: "A gve mi de" by Adeolu & his Rio Lindo Orchestra. Tony Allen, father of Afrobeat, got his start in the Rio Lindo Boys, a traditional group named for a cowboy movie. You can hear what we now call Afrobeat emerging in the later tracks of disc one where the recording is better. You will also hear I. K. Dairo, Tunde Western Nightingale, Fatayi Rolling Dollar, and two of the big hitters of Juju: Ebenezer Obey and Sunny Ade. As far as I can tell all this material is new to CD. Dele Ojo studied trumpet under Roy Chicago and later joined Victor Olaiya's band in 1961 before branching out on his own. Curiously his trumpet lead here is a military reveille, though there is no report of him being in the army. In the 60s, I. K. Dairo took over the Juju mainstream, according to Fukasawa, promoting it into a national musical style. In that era, Tunde Nightingale influenced Sunny Ade, while Fatai Rolling Dollar raised Ebenezer Obey. Rolling Dollar is featured on two tracks, the second one, "Obimi abami wi," has a more "Rock & roll" feeling. This leads into a track from Obey where the groove is pure Juju. Call and response vocals are backed with guitar and talking drum. As Yoshiki-san points out, the band developed a softer and "rounder," more spacey sound. That groove, with the floating guitar, is also exemplified in the work of Sunny Ade, who caps off the first disc.
Disc two sounds more familiar to me, with favorites Rex Lawson and Celestine Ukwu. A reader responded he was disappointed to hear "Jolly Papa" by Lawson as it is so well known. But it is an anchor and nicely positioned between what precedes and what follows it. It is such a fantastic track it demands to be heard here. It shows the balance achieved between brass and guitar and the evolution of Palm Wine music from Ghana into full-blown Highlife, with a sax solo replacing the trumpet, and the guitars high in the mix. The earlier Highlife bands even did a cover of the redoubtable "Wimoweh" which pops up as a surprise. It's the Three Night Wizards, singing "Friend today, enemy tomorrow," but more typically we get a cover of an old folk Mento, known as "Brown Skin Gal," here presented as "Esan iyon ikede" by Etim Henshaw, a Parlophone recording from 1936. Since "Brown Skin gal" was not recorded until a decade later it's clear evidence of its folkloric origins. After this we jump almost a decade and find the sound we recognize as modern Highlife, with Joe Nez performing "Ogadiama," where a mellow sax has replaced the brash kazoos in a very sophisticated arrangement. Trumpeter Charles Iwegbue tries hard not to play "El Manicero" during his recording of "River Jordan," a 1961 hit for the Archibogs. He studied with Bobby Benson and his band evolved into one of the first guitar-laden outfits. The post-1960 material is more likely to be familiar to deep vinyl collectors. You might have heard "Imarueghe" by Edo Orisiagbon Music Union, if you have the rare Philips LP Nigeria's Request Programme. While there are familiar artists on disc two, such as the Archibogs, Eddy Okonta, Michael Ejeagha and Sir Victor Uwaifo, we are treated to tracks we have not heard. In fact the previously known cuts by some of these artists that were gathered by John Storm Roberts for Money No Be Sand were novelty numbers and not really representative of the main thrust of their music, apparently. We are coasting on a cloud by the middle of the second disc. The Rex Lawson tracks are marvelous. A proponent of Biafran Independence, his career was put on hold during the civil war, which ended in 1970, and tragically he died in a car accident in 1971, aged 33. (It may seem odd for me, a teenage kid in England at the time, to take sides in the civil war, which was essentially over oil resources, but one of my college friends was a Nigerian whose family were massacred in Biafra. He too disappeared soon after: I recall he went home, but I never heard from him again.) We hear the influence of Lawson in the following tracks, by Inyang Henshaw & his Canaan Brothers and Charles Iwegbue & his Archibogs, with the sweet "Mama Odabor." A brief mid-60s track from Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe features his distinctive personal sound; this leads into "Akwete" by Victor Uwaifo which has a startling intro, that must be heard to be believed. Like Osadebe his vocals and style are familiar in Europe, Japan and the USA and he was perhaps the most "pop" of the Nigerian acts of the time, but again, his importance requires his presence here, flashy guitar tricks and all. The icing on this musical cake is four singles by the great Celestine Ukwu. His recording career only lasted five years and six albums before his tragic death in a car crash at 37. However he also issued 16 singles, only half of which were anthologized, so I am ever hopeful that more new music by him will appear, and Fukasawa does not disappoint. The four songs here were recorded by his band the Music Royals, before they became the Philosophers. "Asili" and "Okwu eji n'elo" have never been anthologized; the other two songs are earlier versions which contrast nicely with the more laid-back re-recordings of the later 70s. The CDs are available in Europe from Far Side Music, or check on EBay, since you will want hard copies with the 170-page booklet. |
| LES BELGICAINS
NA TANGO YA COVADIA 1964-70 (Covadia)
The compiler of this great new collection has stirred up a controversy with the title! The "Belgicains" were educated Congolese who went to Belgium to study after Independence. However, the suggestion that they wanted to be more white/European is absurd: they simply wanted a better education which had been denied them under colonial rule. This was before the wave of American-ness that caused young blacks in Kinshasa to start bleaching their skin, which occurred in the late 60s. At the same time the Black Power movement was getting started in the USA, when American blacks began growing out their afros and wearing dashikis and African fabrics to reassert their black identity. What is important, from our point of view, is the music which is fantastic and beautifully recorded. There are instruments like timbales you don't normally hear in Congolese music of the era and sophisticated sax solos (both of which appear on the opener "Mwana nsana" by Ebuka Ebuka); otherwise the melodies, guitar stylings and rhythms are recognisable rumba and pachanga. The Covadia name is oddly familiar too: we find out it was a later project of Nikiforos Cavvadias, who ran the Ngoma label in Congo. The mid-60s were a transformative time in Congo, now renamed Zaire by Mobutu, and it was a tough place for whites to succeed in business, despite Ngoma's long history of nurturing and promoting indigenous music. Moving to Belgium, Cavvadias used his old contacts with Decca and Fonior to record and start a new label and issued 30 singles, the cream of which are gathered here. Europe was catching up to Latin rhythms and the Yéyé was big in the Francophone countries, thus Jean-Pierre Nimy Nzonga founded a group called Yéyé National with a fellow student, Maxime Mongali as singer. Nimy would go on to write the definitive book about Congolese music which is a great resource to me in my own researches. It is the Dictionary of Immortals (Dictionnaire des immortels de la musique congolaise moderne, Academia-Bruylant, 2010). Yéyé signed to the label, followed by Los Nickelos, the only band here I knew (they have a CD on Sonodisc including their hits "Bolingo ya téléphone" and "Revelation bolingo ya Nzambe") and the great Charles Lembe, here called Carlos Lembe. Yéyé's first hit "Mathinda" was covered back home by Franco & OK Jazz. Afro Negro were invited to perform at the Congolese Embassy for a visit by the Belgian Queen Elisabeth in 1965. Their set was half an hour but the Queen urged them to play on and she enjoyed their music so much they played for two hours. Their "A la mode" has a definite affinity to the Rochereau sound. One of the Ngoma bands, Dynamic Jazz, were in town and Cavvadias got them to record for him under the pseudonym Ebuka Ebuka. Afro Negro's "Palado palado" is a dreamy ballad (not to be confused with Bavon Marie-Marie's song from 1968 with the same title). Carlos Lembe gives a new twist on "Pare Cochero" of Johnny Pacheco with his wiry guitar ornamentation. Some of the Belgicains had been musicians back home of course, gigging with Grand Kalle's African Jazz and Tabu Ley. When they returned home after graduation, Yéyé were invited to play with Franco and Tabu Ley. But most of the bands were students, playing for fun, so when they got back to Zaire they had careers as business leaders and executives in the developing country. This is an outstanding compilation, beautifully packaged. Every track is a gem.
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FRANCO & O K JAZZ
LES EDITIONS POPULAIRES (1968-70) (Planet Ilunga)
By 1968 Franco had been in charge of OK jazz for more than a decade. He had a stable set of musicians backing him and had already experienced the conditions under which African musicians were recorded by European labels. In Paris, Pathé would pay a flat fee for a group to record twenty or more songs in non-stop sessions, sometimes lasting 48 hours. They literally played until they dropped. There were never royalties, only meagre handouts. Having issued some tracks through Grand Kalle's Surboum African Jazz label, Franco saw the potential to start his own label, once he figured out recording, manufacture and distribution, though each step was a major undertaking requiring initiative and capital. Editions Populaires, later EdiPop, was the first of Franco's own labels to gain traction. Although EdiPop did not release its first LP until 1981, they were already putting out singles in the late 60s. Based on catalog numbers they appear to have issued over 200 singles, but only the first 14 of these and a few others were tracked down by the Japanese compilers of the online Franco discography.
The first release, "Ku Kisantu Kikuenda Ku" opens the album, and the flip side is presented as a digital bonus. As an avid collector of Congolese music from this era, I have only a few of these tracks on very obscure albums. "Congo mibale" was on an Ngoma single; Sonodisc added two to their 68-71 CD compilation and Polygram (Kenya) found a few for two albums 15 Years Ago volume 1 which had 3 tracks ("Minoko," "Mokili Macaramba" and "Sukola Motema Olinga") and In Memoriam volume 4, which included "Lola." One funk track "Lolo soufire" appeared on the recent Congo Funk! album from Analog Africa. A copy of the other funk tune, "Edo Aboya ngai" is on discogs for 400 euros. With help from Dutch blogger Stefan Werdekker and Hama-Dinga Ya Makilo, Bart of Planet Ilunga has reassembled a clutch of 17 cuts by this seminal group in the development of Congolese popular music. By track two, "Lolango," we are treated to Franco's talon-plucked two-fingered guitar and the chugging rhythm on maracas, punctuated with sweet sax by (I am guessing) Rondot Kassongo. Equally it could be Dele Pedro. Mose Fan Fan also joined the group at this point after the mass defection of Kwamy, Mujos and Verckys. The superbly recorded "Congo mibale (The two Congos)" is a killer with the sax and guitar stalking one another over a powerful acoustic bass riff. Then Franco's singing takes charge. Though he is a rather non-musical singer, the unmistakable voice of Franco is a highlight of the album; on tracks like "Mosaka ya kilo (A Weighty Burden)," where he seems to be complaining, I think he is saying "Have mercy on the poor." The sweet sax again comes in to give a melodic lilt to the bridge. Another candidate for sax is Isaac Musekiwa and since he was Zimbabwean and there is a song in broken English, "Minoko," he is a strong contender. This turns into a James Brown raver halfway through, with Franco singing in incomprehensible English. "You just look at 'em, and dey luckachem," he sings. After we get past the novelty American-style covers we get to the heart of the album: some classic Franco guitar leads and wonderful arrangements on "Kamalandua" and "Mobali na ngai azali etudiant na mpoto (My husband is a student in Europe)." Unlike the compilation albums on Sonodisc, which were scraped together from disparate sources, this one is well structured and builds to a great climax with wicked guitar on "Sukola motema olingi (Cleanse your heart)."
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Bandcamp hosted a "listening party" for this new album from Analog Africa which was a great way to hear the whole thing (4 vinyl sides) in one sitting. As Congolese music is the wheelhouse of my little musical barque I was pleased to be part of the audience. Anchoring the set are some familiar names, Tabu Ley, Les Bantous, Les Frères Soki, Abeti Masikini, OK Jazz and Zaiko Langa Langa, but most of these artists appear with unfamiliar selections. Congolese Funk does owe something to James Brown (after all it was Zaire where he made his big splash in Africa) but the local musicians also picked up on movie soundtracks such as Shaft by Isaac Hayes (1971) and Curtis Mayfield's Superfly (1972). The anticipation of unknown Congo Funk is met with the exciting kick-off track, Petelo Vicka et son "Nzazi" with the storming "Sungu Lubuka," from a very obscure 1982 LP (which is due to be reissued at the end of the month by Ketu Records of Marseille). There's a bouncy groove with saxes playing against bass and a cowbell. What a find! Folkloric vocals over choppy guitars deliver "Mfuur ma" from Minzoto ya Zaire's 1979 debut album. Then we hear the M.B.T.s with their "MBT's sound," a single issued in France in 1977 by another totally obscure band, who were protégés of the talented guitarist Abumba Masikini, brother of Abeti. Side 1 ends with Abeti herself, performing "Musique Tshiluba," with her Redoubtables band which spawned the careers of Rigo Star, Mbilia Bel and Tshala Muana. The Luba people of Eastern Kasai gave us the mutuashi dance. But this is nothing like that! Psychedelic guitar with maxed-out effects burbles over a wall of horns. The big blast on side B is Tabu Ley's "Adeito" which was a smash hit at FESTAC in Lagos, 1977. The band opened that show with an instrumental of "Ain't no sunshine," which Bill Withers had performed at the Rumble in the Jungle in 1974. Fortunately Rochereau refrained from singing it. Les Bantous turn in a superb instrumental that fills out the rest of side B. Samy ben Redjeb was assisted in his search for Congo's lost funk treasures by a Beninois record label owner who gave him half the tracks on this compilation; then he was further helped by Volkan Kaya who answered most of the questions during the listening party, though no one answered Matt Temple's question, Didn't you have alternate titles in mind?
Side C begins with "Nganga" by Orchestre Bella Bella, which was also on a Grands Succès vol 1 CD. Here it sounds better than on the CD, though the vocals and brass are still overmodulated. Celi Bitshoumani was a stalwart of OK Jazz and a fierce bass player and composer ("Mado"). Here is his own band from 1978, sounding quite like OKJ, delivering a gem: "Tembe na tembe ya nini." The balance tips with the remainder the disc, for we get OK Jazz themselves doing "Lolo Soulfire" complete with grunts and groans out of the James Brown hip pocket. Personally these slavish imitations of JB's Famous Flames do little for me as there are so many of them and of course, they are nothing compared to the real thing (which I was privileged to see in a small club), but, to my surprise, this is when the listening party sat up. Everyone starting going WOW! Yes! "Finally... we want more of this," etc. Clearly Samy knows his audience because the punters buy something with "Funk" in the title expecting African imitations of "Cold Sweat" or "Night Train." The rest is frosting, but it is very sweet. Zaiko's track is pure soukous, we even learn that the group was on a long night train ride when guitarist Manuaka asked the drummer Meridjo to match the rhythm of the wheels going over the breaks in the rails, thus the Cavacha beat was born. "Fiancée Laya" by G.O. Malebo is another odd one out, as it doesn't sound like funk, more like French chanson meets rumba Congolaise. This was gathered on a Sonodisc Merveilles du Passé collection, so its backbeat and punchy horns should be familiar. The liner notes tell how Armando put together a line-up of top class musicians, but fail to mention they were the core of African Fiesta Sukisa which walked out on Nico in 1969, so le Docteur should get the credit with assembling these talents. At first they were called African Soul and recorded a great album with Lucie Yenga, but after Authenticité they changed their name to Géant Orchestre Malebo, after the body of water (Malebo Pool) that separates the capitals of the two Congos. |
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Teranga Beat has returned to West Africa, this time to Gambia, for another dose of Karantamba who appeared first on that legendary landmark series of eight issues of previously unreleased tapes of great West African — mostly Senegalese — bands in their prime. Volume one of Karantamba, Ndigal, was recorded in 1984. Four years later they had evolved into a more psychedelic sound with a female vocalist, Ndey Nyang, and boosted the synths to the front line with the guitars. Bandleader Jai Banha plays both guitar and synth and has a second keyboard player backing him also. Personally I liked the earlier sound better, but despite my difficulty in listening to the shrill vocals, there are some hefty grooves here. The talking drum is reinforced by traps, so overall the mix is dense. "Galgi" means slave ship in Wolof, and the title track is dedicated to those who suffered that awful fate over the centuries. The cover was shot in the House of Slaves on Gorée island which was the embarkation point for the Atlantic trade in humans. There is a new take on "Ndigal" with fuzz-tone guitar and a sparer backing to Jai's vocals, showing the four-year evolution of the song in performance. The earlier take was funkier, with choppy percussion, now the rhythm is more mbalax. They get into long jams on most of the tunes which are really good, and the sense of a live performance pervades the later tracks, with well-constructed guitar leads. |
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WAGADU GROOVES: THE HYPNOTIC SOUND OF CAMARA (1987-2016)
(Hot Mule)
We have to go back to 1982 to understand the genesis of this sound. That was when Jean-Philippe Rykiel, son of fashion designer Sona Rykiel, took a trip to Ghana and fell in love with African music. Back in Paris he met Youssou N'Dour and Omar Pène, and arranged half of Salif Keita's breakthrough 1987 French album, Soro. This may explain why we hear drum patterns and synthesized flutes and horns on so many Parisian albums from that era, including on this selection. Retrospectively, this gets a bit hard to take in large doses, so I skipped Ami Traoré's "Tenedo." For better or worse, Soro inaugurated a new era in the sound of African music (It features an instrument with the ominous name of "kora synth"). The artists on this album are much less-well known that those Senegalese and Malian singers, but they built large followings among their French-based African public. These fans bought cassettes in the shops of Gaye Camara, a Muslim trader from the Kayes region of Mali, who made contacts in the expat community as well as reaching out to producers in Ivory Coast, Guinea and Mauritania. The Paris sound is melodic and techno-heavy but without the guitars, traps and horns you find in the expatriate soukous albums of the same era. This album ostensibly features artists of "Wagadu"— the ancient name for Soninke people, originally from Ghana, when they were animists, before the arrival of Islam in the 13th century. Instead of aiming at the urbane white audience, as his contemporary Ibrahim Sylla did, Camara was content to feed the expats with a rootsier griot sound, as exemplified here by Halima Kissima Touré. These tracks are all by musicians from the Soninke who spread all over Africa and as far as France. And if you listen beyond the synthi string washes and snare patterns (with a crash on the 7th beat), you will hear balafon continuo and acoustic guitars characteristic of a lot of Mande musical culture. Camara released hundreds of cassettes and of course most of the artists on here have not made it to Discogs. However he scored big with Oumou Sangaré, Mah Damba, Coumba Sidibé, Kandia Kouyaté and many other Malian songbirds. Among them, Fatoumata "Mah" Kouyaté is featured here. Also among his roster, Babani Koné has broken out to a larger audience, effectively replacing Kandia Kouyaté as the main praise singer in Bamako society. Naïny Diabaté's "Sankjoy Djeli" sounds a lot like the aforementioned Salif Keita album, in fact a lot of this album does, but she has dueling electric guitars, ngoni and balafon which create more interesting textures. I suppose the category is "Electronic griot" and it is consistently high quality, as is the production. And despite the occasionally bland Paris music production there are powerful vocals as in the selections from Hadja Soumano and the powerful opening and closing tracks by Mamadou Tangoudia (using a vocoder) with a more modern production which recalls "Techno Issa." However, the two Hadja Soumano tracks are already on a Syllart double release with Tata Bambo Kouyate, and the Nainy Diabate track appeared on a previous Stern's release. |
