Gyedu-Blay Ambolley: Gyedu-Blay Ambolley And Hi-Life Jazz

In the beginning, that is to say the 1950s and 1960s, there were two main strands of highlife, Ghana's national dance music. One was rural based, played by ensembles using acoustic guitars and traditional percussion instruments. The other was urban based, played by bands using kit drums as well as traditional percussion, and with large horn sections modelled on American swing orchestras; the style was dubbed "dance band highlife."

In the 1970s, as electric guitars became commonplace in Ghana, a third style emerged, known as "guitar band highlife." What binds the three strands together are generally sunny, upbeat tunes and a relaxed but insistent five-beat rhythm, played on claves, which became known in the US as the "Bo Diddley beat" or "postman's knock."

Most urban bandleaders give their own spin on highlife a special name, which is often more a marketing device than an indication of real singularity. The tenor saxophonist and vocalist Gyedu-Blay Ambolley emerged in the early 1970s out of the great Uhuru Dance Band, calling his soul and and funk-infused style Simigwa. It is not a million miles away from the makossa music the Cameroonian saxophonist Manu Dibango created in the late 1960s. Over thirty-five own-name albums later, Ambolley continues to delight audiences in Ghana and the Ghanaian diaspora.

In varying degrees, jazz has always been part of dance band highlife, and on Gyedu-Blay Ambolley And Hi-Life Jazz Ambolley gives it a pronounced emphasis, including covers of John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme," Wayne Shorter's "Footprints," Thelonious Monk's "'Round Midnight" and Miles Davis's "All Blues," each of them built around the signature claves beat. Two different lineups, each including some talented horn soloists in addition to the leader, offer amiable, groove-centric instrumental music to which Ambolley sometimes adds Isaac Hayes-like spoken-word observations using both English and Ghanaian languages. There is nothing here which will frighten the horses, and nor is that the intention. The music is meant to keep the listener feeling good and dancing, even if only in the head. And it does.

Postscript: A more rough-edged fusion of jazz and highlife was developed by the South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela on his albums with Ghanaian highlife band Hedzoleh Soundz in the mid 1970s: Introducing Hedzoleh Soundz (Blue Thumb, 1973), I Am Not Afraid (Blue Thumb, 1974), The Boy's Doin' It (Casablanca, 1975) and Colonial Man (Casablanca, 1976). The first two in particular are highly recommended.

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