2007 - week 14, from 7 April

[Alan]

posted on behalf of CG

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

[Gordon Neill]

An interesting show. I do like to hear the old records. The production is so much 'crunchier'. But the track which really jumped out for me was 'Amdyaz'. The Rimbaud concept sounds hopelessly pretentious, but that particular track is startling. Is the album as a whole worth getting? Or could Jack Daw put together a CD compilation of obscure gems like this?

[Charlie]

The Rimbaud concept sounds hopelessly pretentious, but that particular track is startling. Is the album as a whole worth getting? Or could Jack Daw put together a CD compilation of obscure gems like this?

It's funny, I've been dithering about including this track on World 2007, even though it came out in 1991. But at the moment, it's off the list. The album is inconsistent, the other good one featuring a deep talking vocal by John Cale (yes, he of the Velvets), most of whose work I don't like much. But you would have to pursue Sahara Blue on the basis of spending your money to get Amdyaz

[Gordon Neill]

Charlie said:

I've been dithering about including this track on World 2007, even though it came out in 1991. But at the moment, it's off the list

Oh for goodness sakes, stop dithering man and stick it back on the list. No one will know that it came out in '91. It'll just be our little secret. It'll save me a tenner and help to boost the Fife economy.