Seq - Artist - Song Title - Album - Country - Label - Cat no
1 - Bantous de la Capitale - Kumbele Kumbele - African Pearls Vol 1: Congo - Congo - Syllart - 612 9042
2 - Benny More - Santa Isabel de las Lajas - Canto a mi Cuba - Cuba - Egrem - CD 0181
3 - Custodio Mesquita & Orestes Barbosa - Flauta, Cavaquinho e Violão - Bresil: 1914-45, Choro, Samba - Frevo - Brazil - Fremeaux - FA 077
4 - Tito Paris - Otilia/Otilio - Acústico - Cape Verde - World Connection - WC 024
5 - Hector Zazou - Amdyaz (feat Khaled & Malka Spigel) - Sahara Blue - Belgium - Crammed Discs - MTM 32
6 - Trilok Gurtu and the Arkè String Quartet - Taranta Suite - Arkeology - India/Italy - Promo Music - PM CD 06
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Amidst all the new albums, one collection of oldies keeps slipping itself back into the CD player, African Pearls Vol 1 : Congo. I still haven’t really got into the second CD, but could play virtually any track from CD One without even looking to check the number. Since I chose this one by Les Bantous de la Capitale, I’ve heard there are plans afoot to put the great group back together for this year’s Metisse Festival in Angouleme, France in May. Saxophone player and bandleader Essous had made his name with African Jazz and Franco’s OK Jazz before he went back across the river to found Les Bantous in Brazzaville. He was later part of Ryco Jazz who spread the Congolese music message out in the French Caribbean for several years, and in the 80s he made one of my favourite albums in Paris, still unreleased on CD as far as I know.

Les Bantous de la Capitale
Metisse Festival in Angouleme http://tinyurl.com/36kl7r
Having started with the Cuban-flavoured music of 1960s Congo, I couldn’t resist going back even further with the best song ever by Cuban singer Benny More, a tribute to his home town recorded in Mexico with Perez Prado’s Band about 1953.

Benny More
And then we go even further back with a lovely piece recorded in Brazil in the 1940s,

Custódio Mesquita
before coming all the way up-to-date with a track from the brand new album by Tito Paris, Acustico. So many of the current crop of Cape Verdean singers are female, it’s good to remember one of the best male singers, a band leader who has his own restaurant in Lisbon. But while I like Tito’s voice a lot, this album is a disappointment, teetering into cabaret too often, especially on the classic ‘Sodade’ which he normally sings so well. ‘Otilia/Otilio’ is the only song I like. I gather this is just an interim measure while Tito records a new studio album, but I’m not sure it helps – it may put off more people than it draws in.

Tito Paris
French producer Hector Zazou has worked with Real World quite a bit recently, but I first ran across him on various projects with the Belgian label, Crammed Discs, including Sahara Blue (1991), a collection of interpretations of Rimbaud poems, each track featuring somebody different. ‘Amdyaz’ juxtaposes Malka Sigel from Israel and Khaled from Algeria, the latter sounding particularly magisterial.

Hector Zazou
Trilok Gurtu is a virtuoso percussionist from India whose records under his own name have never held much allure for me, but he seems to have found his feet in a new collaboration with the Italian chamber group The Arké String Quartet.

Trilok Gurtu
CG
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Full details will also be posted on the home page under the 'World of Music' lists with weblinks and sleeve images in a few days
http://tinyurl.com/2242jn