One aspect I could not guess when I begun Muzzicaltrips blog, is the number of people around the world it would lead me to meet or to exchange with. Today's post comes from one of theses interesting exchanges, as it's a contribution from Norway, proposed by Olav Aalberg, great connoisseur of music from Cabo Verde:
This one is for ears looking for free expriments. From his 1959 "Free Jazz" LP, which open great perspectives in US jazz during the 60s, Ornette Coleman did not stop to innovate. As many free jazz musicians, looking for african roots could take part in the approach. So Dancing In Your Head LP includes an interesting experiment with musicians from Morocco, the Master Musicians of Joujouka, recorded between 1973 and 1975. Being a sufi brotherhood, music from Joujouka aims to reach a trance (a kind of mystic musico-therapy also present in Gnaoua culture) and naturally allows jazzy experiments. And I guess it's not just by chance that the cover artwork represents 2 faces of the same head.
This LP from Nigeria is realized by The Natural 7 International but the label credits The Sea Birds International. Anyway, Eddy Dada delivers an hybrid soukous sung in pidgin english and the following track with reggae-dub flavor.
Three brothers from south-east of Nigeria founded the Oriental Brothers band: Godwin Kabaka Opara (who left in 1977 before this LP), C. Ezebuiro Obinna (surnamed "Warrior") and F. Dansatch Opara. At this time Nigeria was more with Juju and Fuji, but as a major highlife band in the country, Oriental Brothers band remained recording great albums with hypnotic and evolving guitars and percussions.
Oriental Brothers International Band A Origbu Onye Ozo :
Okoi Seka Athanase recorded this wonderfull album in Decca studio (Lagos) with help of Black Santiagos horn section. This goes from deep afro soul to highlife and soukous.
Abel Lima is a singer from Cabo Verde islands, forced to clandestine imigration by boat at age of 13 to escape the totalitarian regime.
He came back 16 years later, when Cabo Verde became independant in 1975, as politically engaged with PAIGC (Amilcar Cabral's African Party for Independance of Guinea an Cabo Verde).
In the liner notes, Abel Lima explains the evolution of his home village Povoaçao: he quit a small peaceful village and when he came back he discovered only desolation as more sophisticated foreign fishing boats were fishing extensively, letting local people without any resources. In parallel, he also explains through his own experience how hard being an imigrant is, due to mistreatment and exploitation.
A very engaged artist, which seems to be compatible with raw funky tune...
Abel Lima e Les Sofas - Corre riba corre baixo: Bernard Brito (Joaozinho): bass Serge Neves: drums Abel Lima: voice Afonso Evora (Martinho): guit Nouhoun Coulibaly: voice, tumba Admir Evora (Mimis): guit, recoreque
Michel Kingue (1933-2007) contributed to introduce makossa to occidental ears in late 60s playing clarinet and saxophone. Among his collaborations with Gilles Sala on Songhoi Records, here is Nout'am from 1977. First part of the track is a folk style song which turns into killer afrofunk...His daughter Weyah is pursuing the family musical tradition and explained me that title of the track might be misspelled as in duala language "ndut'am" means "pain".
