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.
In 1976, having moved to Middlebury Vermont to run the record department of The Vermont Book Shop, I soon fell in with the musos broadcasting on WRMC-fm, the radio station at Middlebury College. My main guy there was Jon Hart. He was from Philadelphia and was a total jazz head. Late that winter I started guesting on his weekly show, and by the spring we were co-hosts. I learned a lot about jazz from Jon. He hipped me to Berendt’s The Jazz Book, to Sun Ra’s Philly roots, and told me of his many music quests to Third Street Jazz, the legendary record store in his hometown. In fact, he regularly brought back from such quests the limited edtion hand-coloured covers and records Sun Ra was producing in the seventies.
One of the rituals of doing or show was diving into the station’s large collection. By 1976 I was basically oriented to the great spread of Riverside and Prestige and Blue Note hard bop, and to the masters. Whereas Jon’s interests were broader and more advanced. He was a junior by then and he knew the station’s collection like the back of his hand. Before shows he would pull out, for example, Don Pullen’s ESP record, or those of Milford Graves and Guiseppe Logan, and have me deal with ‘em! Jon turned me onto Pharoah Sanders, Randy Weston, Mal Waldron, and, bless him, he pulled out Dollar Brand’s African Piano disc on Japo one evening before a show. . . .turning point.
There was also in the collection a record by another South African, like Abdullah Ibrahim (Dollar Brand,) in WRMC’s collection. It was the Neon (RCA) pianist/composer/bandleader record of Chris McGregor. One evening we auditioned it. I know I dubbed it on a cassette. I don’t remember anything of the details of what we felt about it at the time. Although, invariably Jon and me got stoked by any sound of surprise we came upon. A few years later, I had acquired every last bit of McGregor vinyl I could locate, McGregor and his small band The Blue Notes, and his big band, The Brotherhood of Breath, his music became a mainstay of my own WRMC jazz show, Groovin’ High (1980-1988.) I became a crusader for his music as record maven and broadcaster. As well, early on I reckoned McGregor to be the South African equivalent, musically, of Charle Mingus.
Although McGregor’s big band and combo music is volcanic too, the main point of it is that McGregor’s creative vision was attached to the people of South Africa. He states as much–as recounted by his wife Maxine in her book about her husband, Chris McGregor and the Brotherhood of Breath. McGregor met with acclaim in South Africa 1961 and 1963, convening various groupings of The Blue Notes starting in 1963. Unfortunately South Africa and its apartheid system provided a singularly dastardly environment for musical ambition and artistry.
Although McGregor would play farewell concerts in 1964 in South Africa, he, as did Abdullah Ibrahim and others, chose to exile himself by the end of that year. The sad fact is that McGregor managed to survive but never really thrive as a entrepreneurial musician over the next, his final, 25 years. Maxine tells that his insistence on the integrity of his music was “over the top,” unmanageable. Which is to suggest that no compromise for commercial advantage could carry for him any appeal. Yet, records were made, tours and nightlub stays were secured, and his run of iconoclastic and courageous artistic mission, today, turns out to have been well documented.
The many musicians and listeners who were drawn to the deep contact point of the Brotherhood’s sound were transformed. I’ve never met anyone who’s been exposed to McGregor’s music who was ambivalent about the experience. For me, simply though records, my experience galvanized my understanding of the joyful humanity that is the fuel for any profound people’s music.
This fall, Ogun, the music label originally founded to document his music, has released the box set of the year (or any year,) Blue Notes: The Ogun Collection. It collects previously released and unreleased recordings made in the mid-sixtiez. mostly by the most famous core ensemble, Dudu Pukwana, alto saxophone, Mongezi Feza, trumpet, Johnny Dyani, bass, and only surviving member, drummer Louis Moholo. I was previously familiar with two of the sessions, so the new music just blew me totally away.
This isn’t intended to be a review. (Try Sid Smith.) For me, this is holy African music. Don’t resist. The past four ears have brought forth a steady stream of essential Brotherhood music. Just this past year all three of the Brotherhood’s Polydor sessions have been issued, including a brilliant unreleased date. An unreleased trio date is crucial. Previously unheard Brotherhood of Breath dates are being released by Cunieform. ‘Embarassment of riches’ underplays the magnitude of these gifts!
Recently issued Chris McGregor:
Blue Notes: The Ogun Collection (5CD)*
1. Blue Notes for Mongezi
2. Blue Notes In Concert
3. Blue Notes Farewell 1964
4. Blue Notes for Johnny
Very Urgent
Brotherhood*
Up To Earth
(all recorded for Polydor Records.uk)
Then there is the brotherhood of musos. Hat tip to Jon Hart; and to musicologist Doug Richardson, who laid on me a precious cassette of rare South African jazz from the 50’s and early 60’s, including several tracks of McGregor’s Castle Lager Big Band and the famed 1961 septet; and to Lars Rasmussen, who besides being a tireless supporter of South African jazz, (and Abdullah Ibrahim’s discographer,) has published an important book of biographical captures and rare photos, Cape Town Jazz 1959-1963. The Photographs of Hardy Stockman. Sad story: years ago I took the two Musica solo records of McGregor (Piano Song V1&2) to work to play in the store, and inadvertently left them on the back seat. Yeah, it was summer. It took ten years to track down some quality mp3s. (Turning up the records, each worth $500+, is impossible.) Here’s the opening track, the medley Burning Bush-Mbizo’s Baby, from Piano Song Volume 1. Enjoy.
In 1976, having moved to Middlebury Vermont to run the record department of The Vermont Book Shop, I soon fell in with the musos broadcasting on WRMC-fm, the radio station at Middlebury College. My main guy there was Jon Hart. He was from Philadelphia and was a total jazz head. Late that winter I started guesting on his weekly show, and by the spring we were co-hosts. I learned a lot about jazz from Jon. He hipped me to Berendt’s The Jazz Book, to Sun Ra’s Philly roots, and told me of his many music quests to Third Street Jazz, the legendary record store in his hometown. In fact, he regularly brought back from such quests the limited edtion hand-coloured covers and records Sun Ra was producing in the seventies.
