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Bembeya Jazz National & Tabu Ley: Masterpieces From The Guinean And Congolese Belle Epoques
by Chris May
An irony of post-1980s world music is that it has sustained an interest in the earlier, belle epoque musical styles of post-colonial Africa, elements of which it reshaped and recalibrated for a global audience--not necessarily to either their detriment or advantage, but whose evolution it nonetheless influenced and accelerated. Now more than ever, the belle epoque's ...
Guinea's Diabate Brothers: Virtuoso Guitarists Unplugged
by Chris May
African Virtuoses African Virtuoses: The Classic Guinean Guitar Group Sterns 2007 This enchanting and exquisitely beautiful album, originally released in 1983, features four of the top electric guitarists of the pre-world music “golden years" of west African music, performing unplugged. Fragrant, lyrical and reviving, a ripe mango of ...
Salif Keita, Mory Kante, Bembeya Jazz: Africa for the Africans
by Chris May
The 1960s and 1970s are often referred to as the “golden years" of African music. As more and more African countries freed themselves from colonialism, a wave of artists emerged who celebrated their own cultural legacies rather than those validated by their erstwhile European rulers. This post-colonial generation played roots-based styles employing traditional instruments and African-language ...
Blurring Boundaries: Mauritanian Blues & The Music Of A Continent
by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
Where does Africa begin and where does it end? Geographically, I mean. Oftentimes, when people say “Africa," they mean “Africa south of the Sahara." That may be a useful shorthand in many contexts, but in musical terms, the Sahara desert has been a very permeable border and it makes more sense to talk about ...
Cumulative Index of African Music CD Reviews
by AAJ Staff
In Africa, music occupies a central role in human existence--from birth to death, from somber ritual to joyous celebration. Traditional African music has passed from generation to generation over hundreds of years; because master musicians occupy a very prominent position in society, their art serves many roles. Instruments, forms, and arrangements go back before recorded history.
Malian Strings: Kora & Guitar
by AAJ Staff
Two remarkable albums cultivated in the fecund sonic soil of Bamako showcase different West African syntheses of traditional and modern music. Kora player Toumani Diabaté's Boulevard de l'Indépendance, made with his massive, but light on its feet, Symmetric Orchestra, blends Mande acoustic music with contemporary instruments and approaches. The Kel Tamashek band Tinariwen--compared to Diabaté's lineup ...
Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba: Segu Blue
by Chris May
Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba Segu Blue Out Here 2007 Bassekou Kouyate is a virtuoso of the ngoni (West African lute), approximating the larger kora (West African harp) in sound but with a tougher, more percussive edge. Outside his home country of Mali, where he is widely ...
Dance: Arabia, Turkey and Beyond
by AAJ Staff
Maybe it's all the bellydancing, maybe it's the European immigrants, maybe it's just plain easier access to recordings... but Arabic and Middle Eastern music has seen a dramatic rise in popularity in the last few years in North America and Europe. Of course, the music of over twenty countries can never be distilled to any single ...
Liberation Music: South Africa, Zimbabwe & Zambia
by Chris May
Protest music has a long and honourable tradition in southern Africa. In the colonial era, it began at least as long ago as 1897, when the South African songwriter Enoch Sontonga wrote his classic “Nkosi Sikelel iAfrika" ("God Bless Africa"). The song went on to become the anthem of the country's African National Congress and, translated ...
South Africa: A Rough Guide & Vusi Mahlasela
by AAJ Staff
South Africa has fostered its own musical traditions since long before the earliest days of the colonial era, but the 20th Century saw an explosion of new styles and their widespread documentation on record. The mass relocation of rural blacks to urban areas, where they sought mining and service jobs, led to the establishment of poor ...
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