Are you digging the drone of the vuvuzela as it sounds constantly during the FIFA World Cup in South Africa? I am. The long plastic horn sounds like whale songs do.
I’ve a 20+ year, and intimate relationship with the music of South Africa. (A bit of story,) but, the main thing recently is that the deep and beautiful musical culture at the bottom of Africa also is, going back (say) 25,000-100,000 years is at the bottom of music. The deep old sounds are the center of my investigation and tool-making concerned with what I’ve come to term, imaginal musicology. See Rhythm River for the skinny.
Think about the progression going back in time: modern to ancient to archaic to primitive to proto music. Proto music would be the music sounded in the settlements of earliest mankind, and in this period, not known as music per say. It’s struck me what a heavy concept it is to regard something fundamental as originating in an even more basic form and formulation stretched back to the necessary point where it was not known in any ‘second order’ terms. So, the sound world, the intentional sonic projection, the directed voice or rhythm, is not at such time–way back then!-known as music. It came before music; it is the song of before music.
Appropriate to this, my mix offered here starts with the music of the Khoi of the Kalahari, and then wanders with considerable intention through the diverse garden of South African music, and through a fairly thick slice of musical history too. There’s a streaming sampling of a Khoi woman singing to dance to.
1 Tribesmen – Kalahari 15 1:06
2 Durban High Stars – Lapha eSandlwana 02:43
3 Philip Nchipi Tabane – Lalavuka 2:36
4 Simphiwe Dana – Vukani (mix – modjadji) 5:06
5 The Dark City SDisters – Sihamba Kancane 2:15
6 Letta Mbulle – Noma Themba 3:19
7 Thekwane & the Sound Brothers – Sakubona 3:28
8 Reggie Msomi – Midnight Ska 2:25
9 Aaron Mbambo – Selishonile Ilanga 3:02
10 Eric Nomvete’s Big Five – Pondo Blues 4:13
11 Mahlathini & The Queens – Umkhovu 3:26
12 Hugh Masekela – Ha Lese Le Di Khanna 3:07
13 Amompondo – Salawena (Smith & Mighty dub remix) 5:49
14 Nganeziyamifisa No Khambalomvaleliso – Sini Lindile 3:15
15 West Nkosi – Inyoni Yami 2:17
16 Holy Spirits Vhoir – Baba Wethu Baxolele 3:10
17 Abdullah Ibrahim – Hamba Kahle 2:38
18 Robbie Jansen – Bokaap Kwela 03:58
19 Brenda Fassi – Ngiyakusaba 5:14
20 Zim Ngqawana – Anthem 9:14
download (tagged for iPod | mp3 320kbs | Rapidshare)
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Louis Moholo-Moholo is a South African drummer, who has spent most of his career playing both in ensembles led by illuminaries of the European jazz community, and, leading his own distinctive groups. He turned seventy on March 10. His career stretches over sixty years, with most of it centered in the United Kingdom, his home, after he arrived in 1964 with the crew of self-exiled South Africans, until 2005, when he returned to South Africa.
It would take pages to recap the highlights he has provided in recording with the likes of Evan Parker, Cecil Taylor, Steve Lacy, Harry Miller, Irene Schweizer, David Murray, Keith Tippett, and many many others, as well as his singular work with The Blue Notes, The Brotherhood of Breath, Chris McGregor, and his own groups–over four decades. It is enough to say that he is the finest trap drummer an entire continent, Africa, has yet produced. His signature drumming qualities are, to me, two: stirringly organic, and, shockingly creative.
Last year, his recording with the pianist Marilyn Crispell, Sibanye, struck me as yet another peerless throw down with a piano-playing peer. The record is brilliant of course. It can’t really be dealt with unless the listener visits its virtuoso territory again and again. The same can be said for his outing with Stan Tracey, Khumbula (2005.)
Louis Moholo-Moholo has recently delivered, to my ears, the first five star affair of the 2010 jazz year, An Open Letter to My Wife Mpumi. The record seems to me to nail his vision for his own music. Moholo-Moholo’s music sounds a clarion song of liberation within its rigorous structures, and can be said to be freedom music, not free jazz. His bandmates, most of whom is has been working with for some time, form one of music’s most thrilling groups right now.
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Moholo-Moholo
Performance from 1996, Louis Moholo-Moholo and Viva Le Black
Pino Minafra’s MinAfric Orchestra featuring Keith & Julie Toppett and Louis Moholo-Moholo
While talking over our favored music from last year, Mali’s Tinariwen came up. Their 2009 record, Imidiwan (Companions) made two of our three top lists. In this group, we don’t let discrepancies like this alone. The holdout stated Imidiwan ‘sounded like their other records.’
Sure. I replied, “If Sophia Loren had an identical twin sister, she’d likely be as beautiful as her sister. You wouldn’t say, ‘oh she’s just a repeat of her sister’s beauty.’ ”
To which my muso bud replied, “Oh, I don’t think Sophia Loren is that beautiful.” Jeezum! He offered Jennifer Connelly as exemplar. I offered, again, my analogy. (Tinariwen home)
Here’s my top list of African music from 2009. I could add a bunch too, given reissues and other worthy candidates not listed. It was an extraordinary year because just about every African artist I closely track put out new music last year. Abdullah Ibrahim would top this list if his superb Bombella–my favorite single record of 2009–didn’t already top the improv list.
+Amadou & Mariam – Welcome to Mali
Baaba Maal – Television
Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni Ba – I Speak Fula
Culture Music Club – Shime
Extra Golden – Thank You Very Quickly
Fanga – Sira Ba
Ghana Special –Modern Highlife Afro Sounds Ghana Blues
Jimi Tenor and Tony Allen – Inspiration Information 4
Kimi Djabate – Karam
Mulatu Astatke & The Heliocentrics – Inspiration Information
+Orchestre National de Barbès – Alik
+Oumou Sangare – Seya
Salif Keita – La Difference
+Staff Benda Bilili – Tres Fort , Tres Fort
+Tinariwen – Imidiwan:Companions
Tony Allen – Secret Agent
Abdullah Ibrahim mixed into a snap of his web site’s splash screen. abdullahibrahim.com
An amazing thing happened the other day. I caught wind that my favorite musician, and friend, Abdullah Ibrahim, had released a new recording, Bombella. But, there was a rub: it wasn’t available anywhere nearby as one of those old fashioned compact discs! One could download mp3s from Amazon or eMusic. I tracked the record to the label, Intuition (Germany.) Yet, it wasn’t out at HMV-UK, or FNAC-Paris.
The desire for instant gratification “at the highest fidelity” being what it is, I went back to check out the link that popped first on google, to an outfit called soulseduction.com. There indeed was the record in downloadable form, in mp3, and, could it be? wave files. Pure digital. Was soulseduction a scam? A pirate haven?
As it turned out, no, soulseduction is a download-only distributor in Switzerland that had licensed Intuition’s catalog and new releases. Bingo! Quick international transaction and 800mb of music was on its way through the wonder of the internet. This isn’t the wave of the future—only an odd type of muso will take the trouble of downloading and burning full digital audio. Still, there the new recording was playing through the monitors after 45 minutes. $19.00.
Let me offer the briefest of reviews: a spectacular record.
Consider its context: Dr. Ibrahim is the most sophisticated and creative musician the continent of Africa has produced. Africa’s music tradition goes back about 50,000 years. Ibrahim has made tens of records during his visionary journey to extend that tradition. Almost every recording is very very good. Bombella exceeds the implied high standard. My guess is that in a month or so I will feel this record is as good as anything he has released.
Although the number of musicians I favor is many, many, it is easy enough to sort out the echelon of those who deeply figure into my personal culture, into the brightest stars of my inner sound universe. Abdullah Ibrahim, for me the most important musician South Africa, (and Africa!) has produced, is at the top of this rarefied, personal list.
So are Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane and Duke Ellington and several others. But, then, I never could have gained the–with them–the chance to in effect sit right next to their artistry in real time. After Abdullah’s wife, the singer/songwriter, Sathima Bea Benjamin, provided the introduction in 1987, I came to just such a chance and gained also the experience of a lifetime. There’s lots I could report, but suffice to say, it all boils down to a point of contact for which his music provided the nexus, and his profound human being provided the praxis!
He’s been making his extraordinary music for over five decades. The web site I built to celebrate his artistry is inactive, yet its a treasure trove of my views about his music. Check it out. (Probably, I should move it over here. )
I would urge most anybody to dip into Ibrahim’s musical waters; waters from, as a title of a composition put it, an ancient well.
He’s made over 75 recordings. There are no clunkers and each one on their own way is for me essential. This noted, my answer were someone to ask me which five to start with, would be:
1. The Mountain (RCA Camden) reissues the lion’s share of two famous records of Ekaya from the 80′s
2. Zimbabwe (Enja) quartet session with Carlos Ward on reeds. A stirring set oriented to the star of John Coltrane.
3. African Dawn (Enja) solo piano jewels
4. African Magic (Enja) equal to other trio sessions recorded for Enja, this is for me the best example of his trio approach
5. Township One More Time (al-Shams) the first recording made in South Africa after his return. rare in the sense that you have to purchase it online from a South African vendor.
Then, after dealing with some of these, you’d be hooked and soon enough you’d be winding your way down the jacaranda road of immense riches. Ibrahim continues to record, tour, and educate and mentor musicians. His most recent record is a solo piano set, Senzo. It’s stellar.
If you get a chance to see Ibrahim perform, you should run and take it up. Sit close. Pay attention. Breath with intention. Enjoy.
Matsuli produces one of the finest mp3 blog’s I’ve encountered. His blog exemplifies–for me–how much passion and knowledge can be brought to bear on speaking of and offering tastes of a genre. In Matsuli’s case, the genre is the music of Africa, with the music of South Africa at the center.
For example, today, Matsuli announced:
Jive Motella! – Nick Lotay digs deep
A big shout out to Nick Lotay who has come forward with the best compilation I have ever heard of – until now – frankly unobtainable South African jive illuminating its genesis in the early sixties. And a whole lot more. So sit back, read, listen and learn!
Underneath this announcement is, literally, a treatise on South African music. The post end’s with Lotay’s superb mp3 compilation,
Tambour d’ Afrique provides engrossing mixes of African music on their blog. There’s also lots of youtube videos. I appreciate experts helping filter through the mind-boggling youtube archives.
Yesterday, Bazu upped another tambour d’ afrique mix. Don’t run, don’t walk, dance over and grab it.
Louis Moholo-Moholo has recently delivered, to my ears, the first five star affair of the 2010 jazz year, 
