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Fela Ransome Kuti & His Highlife Rakers: Fela's First
by Chris May
Lost recordings released for the first time! First, the back story.... In 1958, aged 19, Fela Kuti left the highlife scene in Lagos, Nigeria, where he was on the first steps of a career as a trumpeter, and travelled to London. His mother hoped he would enrol in medical school, as his late father ...
Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids: Shaman!
by Chris May
California-based tenor saxophonist and composer Idris Ackamoor, who has one foot in magical realism and the other in the politicised school of spiritual-jazz, relaunched his 1970s band the Pyramids in 2015. A year later, the group released the acclaimed We Be All Africans, which was followed in 2018 by the equally noteworthy An Angel Fell (both ...
Bloto: Erozje
by Chris May
Look closely and the sleeve art resembles a painting by Ghariokwu Lemi for one of Fela Kuti's 1970s albums with Afrika 70. In the foreground, policemen beat citizens to the ground. In the background, another policeman leads someone off to a paddy wagon. Only the policemen's mobile phones locate the scenario in more recent times. Could ...
Tony Allen & Hugh Masekela: Rejoice
by Chris May
"Unfinished" is the kindest word to describe this album, recorded in 2010 and left on the shelf until its release was prompted after Hugh Masekela passed in 2018. It should have stayed on the shelf. The album consists of eight tracks of noodling by Masekela, accompanied by autopilot timekeeping from Tony Allen, who ...
Etuk Ubong: Africa Today
by Chris May
Lagos-based Etuk Ubong is part of a long line of fiery, Afrobeat-rooted, hard bop-influenced trumpeters which stretches back to Tunde Williams, who was in the 1960s a founder member of Fela Kuti's seminal band, Africa 70. Kuti's legacy figures large in Ubong's music, which he styles “earth music" and which is characterised by urgent tempos, powerful ...
New Jazz From London: Top 20 Paradigm Shifting Albums
by Chris May
After a lifetime trying to get on an equal footing with its American parent, British jazz has finally come of age. Since around 2015, a community of young, London-based musicians has forged a style which, while anchored in the American tradition, reflects the Caribbean and African cultural heritages of many of its vanguard players. The scene ...
A tribute to Tony Allen plus some new releases
by Bob Osborne
This week a tribute to the great Nigeria drummer, percussionist and songwriter Tony Allen. One of the main collaborators, and musical director, of Fela Kuti's band Africa '70 from 1968 to 1979, he was a central figure in Afrobeat music. In later years he embraced a variety of musical styles, developed “Afrofunk" and worked with a ...
Fabio Morgera: tradizione e progresso
by Angelo Leonardi
Tornato a vivere in Italia alcuni anni fa, dopo un lungo periodo di studio e attività professionale negli Stati Uniti, Fabio Morgera è uno dei massimi trombettisti della sua generazione e s'è imposto per lo stile estroverso, caratterizzato da intenso feeling e marcato groove. Eclettico per natura, alla leadership in progetti di taglio contemporaneo—anche intrisi di ...
The Funky Side of Sonorama
by Jakob Baekgaard
If you look up “funk" in the New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, you get the following definition: “A style of black American popular music which developed in the mid-1960s out of soul music. It is characterized above all else by complex, interlocking, syncopated rhythmic patterns in duple meter." As suggested in the quote, funk can be ...
Etuk Ubong: Purpose Of Creation / Etuk's Ritual
by Chris May
Lagos-based Etuk Ubong is part of a long line of fiery Afrobeat-rooted trumpeters which stretches back to Tunde Williams, a founder member of Fela Kuti's Africa 70 band in the 1960s. The lineage's foundational provenance is centred around players such as Lee Morgan and early period Freddie Hubbard. Ubong made his own-name debut in ...
