Haitian music can be very good setting fire to the dancefloor, but can also be very fresh and sweet to your ears. Here's a beautiful example with a song from Trio Select vol. 2, led by guitarist and popular singer Henry Gesner (1925-1998), very famous under his surname "Coupé Cloué".
Laba Sosseh (1943-2007) had a 40 years long african salsero carreer, singing pachanga, bolero, guajira, son cubano... He's originally from Gambia, and played during the 60s at Club Miami (Dakar, with Star Band & Ibra Kasse), at Club Sangomar (Thies, with engineer Moussa Diallo). He founded with nigerian sax player Dexter Johnson the Super Star Orchestra de Dakar and recorded for N'Dardisc (Label from Louis Fourment, Radio Africaine director).
One of his hits from this period is the love song "Seyni" (kay fonema sama khol).
Great party flyer, with DJs from the 60s-70s period in Dakar... latin records all night long! Probably the best place to perceive how much music from the other side of the atlantic ocean was (omni)present in urban Senegal. At this time, big part of DJs selections was cuban music arrived from the 50s through sailors. (It remains easier to dig latin records than african records in Dakar now). Dakar danced deacades to this latin (and caribbean) rhythms, which influenced deeply local musicians and productions.
Here's an african version of a latin track i love (Arsenio Rodriguez - "Errante y Bohemio").
Orchestre Los Commandos is from Cotonou, and played with El Rego up to 1966 (using different band names).
From what I 've been told, it seems that almost all the musicians present on the cover picture left our world, except the red shirt guy, called "13" (the surname "13" would come from his habit to write the number 13 on his shoes to attract good luck... it seems it did worked).
Gnonnas Pedro deliverers a unique latin sound from Benin. Famous african salsero, he changed his french name "Pierre" for "Pedro", and played all along the 70s initially with his band called Los Panchos de Cotonou, and then the Dadje Band.
He finished his carreer integrating Africando in 1995 and died in 2004.
Gnonnas Pedro and his Dadjes Band - Ati Mawuin Dagamasi:
Following LP is a 79 "disguised" reissue: tracks are not in the same order and spelling is different. Encoded mp3 are from this copy as have it in better shape than the original.
Disco Stock, Abidjan - LPDS 7902 [1979]
It is said in the liner notes that when Orquesta Aragon came touring in Benin in 1977, musicians were singing in the bus to Lokossa: "Assiko, Assiko, Assiko... Feso Jaye..." And the following day, Richard Egues and Gnonnas Pedro worked together on some Gnonnas songs...
