Home » Search Center » Results: African Jazz

Results for "African Jazz"

446

Article: African Jazz

West Africa Roundup, Part 2: Senegal, Benin, Cape Verde

by AAJ Staff
October 1, 2005

This second update of new music from West Africa touches down on musicians in three countries with dramatically different approaches. Senegalese singer Thione Seck has created a multiethnic international fusion that combines West African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian styles in an integrated whole. Benin's Gangbé Brass Band incorporates interlocking drumming, a rich instrumental sound, and ...

597

Article: African Jazz

West Africa Roundup, Part 1: Mali

by AAJ Staff
September 23, 2005

These three albums are all by Malian artists, but the differences among them could not be more extreme. The first two share elements of West African blues, but Amadou & Mariam extract that essence and meld it with a variety of international styles, often electric, to create a wide-reaching fusion. Boubacar Traoré has always been a ...

428

Article: African Jazz

Mahmoud Ahmed: Ethiopiques 19

by AAJ Staff
September 8, 2005

Mahmoud Ahmed Ethiopiques 19 Buda Musique 2005 Ethiopian popular music went through an intense creative flowering during the early '70s, cross-referencing traditional styles with jazz, funk, rock, and whatever else could be used to get people moving. Listening to these groups three decades later makes for a weirdly ...

218

Article: African Jazz

Henri Dikongu

by AAJ Staff
June 30, 2005

Henri Dikongué Biso Nawa Buda Musique 2005 While his recordings have made liberal use of production to enrich texture, Cameroonian musician (and now Parisian expatriate) Henri Dikongué is first and foremost a folk singer. The core of the music, at its essence, lies in his voice and guitar. ...

415

Article: African Jazz

Mali and the Sahara: Compilations

by AAJ Staff
May 26, 2005

West Africa is experiencing a musical golden age. The unbelievable diversity of the region's music, often rooted in centuries-old tradition--but just as often attuned to modern production and popular accessibility--has been piling up on record and in performance at a prodigious pace. So if you don't get a chance to visit Dakar, Bamako, or Lagos in ...

333

Article: African Jazz

Abdullah Ibrahim: A Celebration & Re:Brahim

by AAJ Staff
May 14, 2005

Now entering his eighth decade, Abdullah Ibrahim has long ago established himself as a true master of jazz--whether in New York, London, Cape Town, or beyond. The pianist has accomplished two very important things in the last fifty years. First, he has brought South African jazz to the world, recruiting new fans to its ...

531

Article: African Jazz

Jazz: Out of Africa

by AAJ Staff
May 8, 2005

These two jazz-oriented recordings explore unexpected multicultural fusions with African music. The first, one of two inaugural releases on American drummer Jack DeJohnette's own Golden Beams label, delves into West African trance music in a duo with Gambia's Foday Musa Suso. The second, a 2003 recording on the Jazzbank label, finds Congolese pianist and percussionist B.B. ...

864

Article: African Jazz

North Africa: Rocking el Casbah

by AAJ Staff
April 26, 2005

Geography and history have left North Africa with an impressively mixed up musical culture. It's way too much of an oversimplification to say that Algerian music, for example, is a straightforward mix of traditional Arabic and southwestern European styles. It also includes elements of salsa and reggae, Jewish folkloric music, American rock 'n' roll, Euro club ...

764

Article: African Jazz

Zimbabwe: Thomas Mapfumo

by AAJ Staff
April 19, 2005

More than any other artist except perhaps Oliver “Tuku" Mtukudzi, Thomas Mapfumo has become Zimbabwe's musical ambassador to the world. That's ironic, because while the people of his country celebrate his music with the enthusiasm it deserves, the government--or more accurately, regime--of Zimbabwe really does not. So much so that Mapfumo eventually decided to leave and ...

882

Article: African Jazz

The Aftermath: KwaZulu-Natal

by AAJ Staff
April 7, 2005

After visiting Cape Town and taking in its jazz festival, I went on to spend a few days in Durban and outlying areas. Click on the photos below to see larger versions.The city of Durban, located on the Indian Ocean, is the busiest port in Africa, as well as a local tourist hub with ...