Jazz Articles about Lionel Loueke

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Lionel Loueke: Heritage

by Mark F. Turner
August 21, 2012

Lionel Loueke's two previous Blue Note recordings--Karibu (2008) and Mwaliko (2010)--displayed his usual virtuosity as a guitarist/vocalist who links his West African Beninese musical roots with a modernist jazz outlook that is uniquely his own. On Heritage, he's assembled new musicians and hooks up with innovative pianist Robert Glasper, who coproduced and performs on the album. Glasper's work as a producer--as witnessed on his acclaimed Black Radio (Blue Note, 2012)--is the perfect fit with Loueke's eclectic ideas. ...

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Lionel Loueke Trio: Half Moon Bay, CA, May 22, 2011

by Bill Leikam
June 11, 2011

Lionel Loueke TrioDouglas Beach HouseHalf Moon Bay, CaliforniaMay 22, 2011 Knowing only that guitarist Lionel Loueke had an international reputation, expectations were put away, as we entered the concert curious to see and hear his unique trio. Born in the West African country of Benin, Loueke was accompanied by his stalwart sidemen, Swedish-born bassist Massimo Biolcati and Hungarian drummer Ferenc Nemeth. The playlist was selected from Loueke's two most recent albums, Mwaliko and the ...

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Lionel Loueke: Mwaliko

by AAJ Italy Staff
April 28, 2011

Decisamente esile la proposta del beniniano Lionel Loueke (già sodale di Terence Blanchard e Herbie Hancock, fra gli altri) così come ci giunge da questo Mwaliko (in swahili “invito"), pur in possesso di un suo aplomb, una sua coerenza, che di fatto coincidono però con un gusto reiterato per l'effimero, l'ornamentale, l'(artisticamente) impalpabile.La modesta consistenza -nonché la genericità -dell'album (il quarto di Loueke, più i due del trio Gifema con Biolcati e Nemeth, qui presente in tre brani) ...

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Lionel Loueke: Mwaliko

by Ryan Lippell
March 18, 2010

Lionel Loueke: Mwaliko Blue Note 2010

An album of duo and trio recordings, Mwaliko is the kind of world-infused smorgasbord that only guitarist Lionel Loueke could cook up--it contains hard swing, makossa, balladry, Beninese folk and a jazz standard. Hailing from Benin in West Africa, Loueke boasts a curriculum vitae whose scope is similarly impressive. Spanning more than a decade, and starting with bicycle chain-strung guitars in Benin, he completed formal music study in ...

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Lionel Loueke: Karibu

by Joel Roberts
May 5, 2008

Guitarist/singer Lionel Loueke's remarkable odyssey from the West African nation of Benin to the apex of the jazz world is quickly becoming the stuff of legend. After hearing a George Benson CD as a teenager, Loueke became enamored with American jazz and began traversing the globe to further his musical education, first in the neighboring Ivory Coast, then in Paris and Boston, studying at Berklee, and finally in Los Angeles, where his audition at the Thelonious Monk Institute had the ...

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Lionel Loueke: Karibu

by John Eyles
March 30, 2008

Guitarist Lionel Loueke, from Benin, has enjoyed a steadily rising profile since arriving in the USA in 1999. Karibu is his fifth album as a leader, his first for a major label. When Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter endorse a rising star and then agree to be sidemen on his album, it is time to sit up and take notice. (They were last sidemen on a Blue Note album in 1967.) Hancock recalls the first time he heard Loueke play, ...

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Lionel Loueke: Karibu

by Mark F. Turner
March 20, 2008

With an emotive sound that is rooted in his homeland of Benin, Africa, guitarist Lionel Loueke is having a positive impact on the current jazz environment. His Blue Note debut, Karibu (from a Swahili word meaning “welcome"), is an appropriate invitation to his unique appeal which includes virtuoso guitar playing and vocals in his native language. Loueke has already produced noteworthy recordings--Virgin Forest (Obliqsound, 2007), and brightened the recordings of up and coming artists such as singer ...