3 March 2010, World Cafe

1 El Rego et Ses Commandos – E nan mian nuku (Analog Africa)

In the late 60s American soul and funk were impacting heavily on the West coast of Africa. A number of bands were getting in on the action, producing what was called “jerk”, often with lyrics in English. El Rego says that he probably recorded the first Beninese jerk tune. That was in 1968. El Rego et Ses Commandos went on to do a number of jerk tracks. “E nan mian nuku” was one – it is collected on the Analog Africa collection “Legends of Benin”.

The CDs from which we’ve culled a number of tracks we’re playing tonight come from Sheer Music, who distribute such great labels as World Music Network, World Circuit, some Real World, Crammed Records and Soundway. Thanks a stack to Sheer.

2 Baaba Maal – Tindo (Palm Pictures)

Baaba Maal’s latest CD, “Television”, was four years in the making. You can hear he has built up the sound through an accretion of layers – much like his landmark album from the 1990s “Firin’ in Fouta”, although “Television” has a more international sound. He co-produced it with Barry Reynolds, a long-time guitar player at the legendary Compass Point Studio in Nassau in the Bahamas.

Didi Gutman and Sabina Sciubba of New York’s latin reggae electro fusion outfit, Brazilian Girls, take a number of the keyboard and song writing and singing credits. Sciubba, who grew up in Nice and Munich, sings with Maal on “Tindo”.

3 Abyssinia Infinite – Gole (Network Medien Gmbh)

Abyssinia Infinite is a collective of Ethiopian and New York based international musicians, including South African, Tony Cedras, with the well known Ethiopian singer, Gigi Shibabaw at the helm. Gigi’s husband, the famous bass-playing producer co-produces with Gigi, and plays acoustic guitar. “Gole” is a very old devotional song, sung half in Amharic and half in an older language, Agewna. Gigi has added some of her own words.

4 Franco & Le TPOK Jazz – Sandoka (Sterns Africa)

Franco is generally recognised as Africa’s top bandleader of recent times. He started his professional career in the 50s as a teenager and by the 80s his band, Le TPOK Jazz, numbered more than 20 players, and he had one foot in Europe and the other in Kinshasa. He came from a poor family, had no formal musical education, but he went on to be one of the key creators of “soukous” - a fusion of Cuban and African rhythms, sometimes called the Congolese rumba, propelled by interlocking guitars. He wrote some of the most enduring songs from the DRC and put together some of the most beautiful vocal arrangements.

Collected on vol 2 of Stern’s “Francophonic” retrospective put out to mark the 20th anniversary of Franco’s death, we’re going to hear “Sandoka”. Ken Braun’s CD notes describe the track very nicely. He says “it involves six voices in chorus and in antiphonal duos and trios, calling to one another, almost in the style of a European Renaissance motet… The vocal parts take roles: a girl named Sandoka, the boy with whom she’s smitten, her parents, and their neighbours.” Basically, the parents object, and the neighbours intercede.

5 Lura – Tabanka (Lusafrica)

Off the coast of Senegal lies Cape Verde, about a third of the way west towards the Caribbean. Its music is often characterised as Afro-Caribbean. Lura, whose parents were from Cape Verde, grew up in Lisbon. Here she does Orlando Pantera’s song, “Tabanka”, in the style of Musica Popular Brasileira (MPB) or popular Brazilian music. Pantera was a songwriter from Cape Verde who died in 2001, having never released any recordings, but whose songs since then have been much recorded. He spent his formative years in Angola, and wound up in Bahia, Brazil, studying percussion – which explains the Brazilian affiliations.

6 Orchestra Poly-Rythmo – Jolie Beaute Africaine (Albarika Store)

Tout Puissant Orchestra Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou, from Benin, were one the great West African bands of the 60s, 70s and early 80s, using Caribbean and voodoo rhythms. Up until recently, they have been largely unsung but since the interest from labels like Soundway and Anolog Africa, they have reformed and begun to play again. In fact, they have recently been touring the UK with Oumou Sangare and Kalahari Surfer.

We found this next vintage track, which is based on the rhythm called “cavacha”, on a magnificent blog “Oro” on which you can find quite of a bit of stuff from TP Orchestra Poly-Rythmo as well as loads of other great stuff. There’s a link to Oro on this blog.

7 Sixto Silgado, Paito y Los Gaiteros de Punta Bravo – Merengue Faroto (World Music Network)

Sixto Silgado, Paito and Los Gaiteros de Punta Bravo played some typical drum and fife street music from the Caribbean part of Colombia.

8 Les Triaboliques – Gulaguajira (I, the dissolute prisoner) (World Village)

Les Triaboliques, who we’ve just heard, are string players Ben Mandelson, Lu Edmonds and Justin Adams, who all also happen to be great global collaborators and producers. Here they sing Russian Gleb Gorbovsky’s song “Gulaguajira (I, the dissolute prisoner)”.

9 Lord Pretender – Human Race (World Music Network)

The Rough Guide to Calypso Gold collects rare recordings from the 30s, 40s and 50s. Lord Pretender or Adric Farrel, was one of Calypso’s greats. He was apparently a master of improvisation, being able to pluck choruses and verses from thin air, upon being given random topics.

10 Seprewa Kasa – Towoboase (World Music Network)

Ghanaian group “Seprewa Kasa” play some pretty laid back highlife music. The sound of the band is constructed around two seprewas. The seprewa is related to the kora, but is smaller and has fewer strings. Seprewa playing nearly died out, but according to Kari Banaman, the guitarist from Osibisa who plays in Seprewa Kasa, the instrument is becoming popular again. Banaman worked with Baffour Kyerematen and Osei Korankye to develop a unique sound – each instrument playing in its own tuning. This was done because of the difficulty of tuning two seprewas to each other, and to the guitar.

11 Anzala, Dolor, Velo – Ti fi la ou te madam (Soundway)

From the Soundways collection of 60s and 70s music from the French Caribbean, “Tumbele”, Anzala, Dolor and Velo from Guadeloupe play in a style called gwo-ka, which is strongly afro-caribbean, having its roots in rural plantation music. The irrepressible sax playing is actually atypical of gwo-ko and, on this track, the player is not known. Monsieur Dolor sings, and Velo, a very important figure in Guadeloupe, plays drums together with Anzala.

12 Solomon and Socalled featuring Michael Alpert – alt.shul Kale Bazetsn (Piranha)

Assaulting the traditional institution of marriage, in the fine radical traditional of Yiddish music, next is Sophie Solomon, Josh Dolgin (aka Socalled) and Michael Alpert. Alpert does the traditional hassidic chant vocals. From the Rough Guide to the Klezmer Revolution.

13 Klezmer Klub – G minor ser (Klub Records)

The London-based Klezmer Club is much more conservative-sounding than Solomon and her crew. That was the traditional tune, “G minor ser”. According to the sleeve notes, “a ser is a kind of Jewish square dance”.

14 Mahmoud Fadl – Ana Wehabibi (Piranha)

From an album of Cairo love classics this is Mahmoud Fadl with a composition by Mohamad Abdel Wahaab that Fadl arranged. Samy El Baby plays the qanun, which is a sort of plucked zither with obvious affinities with the koto.

15 Kim So-hee – Kayaguem Sanjo (Elektra/Wea)
The kayaguem sanjo is a koto-type instrument from Korea. That piece was played by virtuoso player Sung Keum-Yun, and it comes from a CD of equally startling music from the P’ansor tradition of Korean Opera, credited to singer Kim So-hee and released in 1988. It’s out of print now, but you can borrow it from the Cape Town Public Library.

16 Davy Graham – Bruton Town (Fledg’ling)

Acoustic guitar from the English folk revival which started in the 60s never sounded the same after Davy Graham’s debut. He introduced different tunings, Eastern modal scales and rhythms that were all over the map. Here he is with the equally innovative Danny Thompson on bass with a 1968 recording of the traditional song, “Bruton Town”.

17 Brass Monkey – The trees they grow high (Topic)

Brass Monkey are also innovators on the English folk scene – as you heard, they have introduced brass instruments in fabulous arrangements, which include the accordion, into traditional ballad playing.

18 Espers – Meridian (Drag City)

Espers are folk-rock revivalists from the US.

19 Extra Golden – Piny yore yore (Thrill Jockey Records)

Extra Golden released their third album in 2009, “Thank you very quickly”. Extra Golden were originally a combination of Otieno Jagwasi and Onyango Wuod Omari from Kenyan group Orchestra Extra Solar Africa, Alex Minoff from US group Golden, and Ian Eagleson. The collaboration grew out of Eagleson’s research project documenting the Benga music of Kenya, which Jagwasi helped him with. Jagwasi died in 2005.

20 Maddy Prior & Tim Hart – Of all the birds (Sanctuary)

Off their “Heydays” box set, here is Maddy Prior & Tim Hart with “Of all the birds”.

21 Frank Fairfield – Cumberland Gap (Tompkins Square)

Frank Fairfield, a young up and coming traditionalist from the LA area, gives us his version of “Cumberland Gap”.

22 Bert Jansch – Blackwaterside (Vanguard)

A version of “Blackwaterside” recorded in 1966. Jansch was one of the first to pick up on Davy Graham’s radical guitar stylings, and perhaps even his vocal style.

23 Levon Helm – Kingfish (Dirt Farmer Music/Vanguard)

Levon Helm’s version of Randy Newman’s “Kingfish” taken from Helm’s latest CD, “Electric Dirt”. The Kingfish was actually Huey Long, the 40th Governor of Louisiana, who governed between 1928 and 1932 at the height of the Great Depression, and was Senator after that. He created a social programme in 1934 called “Share our wealth”, which had the motto “Every man a king” – a line you’ll hear in the song. He died at the age of 42 of gunshot wounds administered by his own bodyguards, but it’s not clear whether he was assassinated or accidentally shot in an attempt to stave off what looked like a an attempted assassination by a stranger.