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[Septimio Sallah]

I heard the first single off this album 6 years ago, so it has been a long-term project, and Dogo has put a lot of energy into making this a beautiful album of gentle acoustic guitar ballads with traditional melodies, rhythms and percussive backing. As it is a small country squeezed between Ghana, Benin, and Burkina Faso, Togo has a lot of music that is familiar from those neighboring countries too, whether they are Ewe or Kabye people making the music. One regional artist that Dogo's music brings to mind is Gnonnas Pedro. And of course other influences crept in, from James Brown in the 60s, to Highlife in the 70s, and Soukous in the 80s. Recorded in Lomé, Togo, Dogo brought together local musicians, including his own teacher to play lead guitar. This man, Serge Kodjovi, also know as Oya Yao has played in rock bands, jazz bands and of course understands the traditional guitar patterns also, whether pentatonic or otherwise. But the group of musicians are equally talented, in fact most of them are soloists or in other working bands too. Part of Dogo's sophistication comes from his global perspective. He now lives in the USA after coming here to study, but discovers, while he is a foreigner here, he is also a stranger in his homeland when he returns. I know how he feels. This gives you a keen perspective on both places however. There's an interview with Dogo on Afropop, if you want to learn more.KALA JULA / GANGBE BRASS BAND / FAMA DIABATE
"ASRO" (HOMMAGE A KASSE MADY DIABATE) (Buda Musique)This is a live recording, made at the Crochetan Theatre in Switzerland in 2021. I was thrilled to learn it was new from Gangbé Brass Band, who have not put out an album in a decade, but sadly they are only a third of the acts. However they come out blasting with a vivid rendering of the New Orleans favorite "Big Chief," renamed "Takin." Track two, "Gèdé," also catches fire when the gang jump in. This series, "Kala Jula," of acoustic performances was begun in 2011 and has toured the globe as showcases in Mali, Switzerland, Portugal, Cabo Verde, UK, etc. This is their third release and features band-leader Vincent Zanetti, a Swiss who plays kora and djembe. The other acts remind me of Rail Band-era Salif Keita and Mory Kante, which is interesting, in the choice of material and arrangements, but with kora instead of guitar. It could be because of the recording situation, live in a big hall, which echoes the Rail Band sound from their first albums on RCAM (Rail Culture Authentique Mali). You can watch the show on Vimeo with a paid account. Parts of it are on Youtube, including "Asro," the bluesy "Treme Cisse," & "Sanuge jimba." What make it stand out (for me) is the involvement of the horn men, with great solos and tight arrangements by trombonist Martial Ahouandjinou. The atmospherics also lend much to the guitar and kora duo on "Mali Sadio," and later tracks like "Mi dovi azomé" where they really let fly with guitar and djembe as well as trap drums and a big horn presence. The guitarist is Samba Diabaté, also a balafon player, whose father was part of the famed Instrumental Ensemble of Mali. He has toured with Sali Sidibé, and also with Rail Band's guitarist/founder Djelimady Tounkara. Aha! So my supposition was right. There are more Diabatés: Mahamadou Diabaté sings and plays djeli ngoni; he brought his 14-year-old son Fama Diabaté who also sings lead and plays balafon on here. Fama is now wearing the mantle of his late uncle, Kassé Mady (who sang with Badema National as well as solo and on collaborative albums with Toumani Diabaté). Without digging through my albums to compare titles, "An ka ke nyogen fè" also sounds like Rail Band, which is hardly surprising. Vocally, Fama is a nice throwback to that era. It's an interesting effort, mixing griot traditions with jazz-funk and afrobeat, but may not be to everyone's liking. VIBRO SUCCES INTERCONTINENTAL ORCHESTRA
DRUNKARD (Dig This Way DWT0100)A reader (Nick Beddow) alerted me to this fine disc that came out in February 2022, which I probably ignored because it was labelled "Afrobeat and Soukous masterpiece straight from Nigeria." First off it is from Bangui, which we all know is in the Central African Republic. And yes they do have their own music there, which if you were uninformed you might think was afrobeat or soukous. Sax-player Rudolphe Bekpa formed the group in the late 60s and they went from a nightclub stand to being promoted to official national orchestra. Their popularity spread to Cameroun and Chad and when they got to Nigeria on tour in 1976 they started cutting albums. This fine three-song gem came out in 1978. Side A is taken up with the title cut which really gets you grooving: it's a high energy riff with thrashing drums and a sax-led horn section; the vocalist begins to approach the mike around 8 minutes in! The whole band sounds like an express train. I assume the lyrics are about drinking too much, but the focus is on the guitar and drums and how long can they keep this up?!The second side has two tracks "Marine Yanzoni," definitely has an influence from African Fiesta, not only in the guitar and arrangement but in the vocals too, for the first 90 seconds then they go into their chugging rhythm which is more Vévé-style. The last track reminds me a little of Les Veterans from Cameroun, so it's safe to say they absorbed influences from the nearest Francophone countries; still they created a unique sound and it is as fresh as ever.PAPE NZIENGUI
KADI YOMBO (Awesome Tapes from Africa)Gabon is still one of the darkest parts of Africa, by which I mean you don't hear much in the way of modern music. We know there are strong traditional concerts being performed by the Bwiti. Papé Nziengui plays an ngombi harp, usually heard in Tschogo rituals, but he is outside of that tradition, and has added mouth-bow, guitar, percussion, synthesizers, and a female chorus. With all of this, Nziengui created a deconstructed modern mini rock-opera, which appeared on CD in the late 80s and will be reissued as a double LP by Awesome Tapes from Africa. This ritual music traditionally accompanies ingestion of the Iboga root, or Ibogaine, which causes hallucinations, as I can attest. (The drug is illegal in the US but could be useful in treating opioid addiction.) So you can expect a lot of echo and delay on the sound effects added to the album. The response to the album so far has been strong. A rare clip of Papé Nziengui on Youtube is possibly the motivation behind this interest. It's extremely eerie. Tetsuji-san posted a long piece of Bwiti traditional harp music on muzikifan's facebook page, and further musical comments, such as this gem, came from other muzikifans. As an apostate, Nziengui opens himself to condemnation, even the threat of execution, for betraying the sacred mysteries of the Bwiti. As a child he was spotted on a TV talent show and toured the world with the National Theatre. But now he has attained such popularity in Libreville that this may protect him from the conservative brotherhood.KELEKETLA!
KELEKETLA! (AHED024)For years people talked about Fela Kuti as creator of the new musical form called Afrobeat, but listen to this latest (though not final) recording of Afrobeat and you can hear what makes it groove: it's the drumming of Tony Allen (who died in April 2020). This group is a London-based collective that encompasses musicians from Lagos but also a large cadre of Johannesburghers. The project began when Coldcut (producers Matt Black and Jonathan More) from the UK visited the Keleketla! Library in South Africa, a media arts center, and agreed to work with local talent, including jazz musician Sibusile Xaba and percussionist Thabang Tabane, son of the legendary Philip Tabane, founder of Malombo. The opening cut "Future Toyi Toyi" should be enough to sell you on this, however it quickly falls off with the wimpy lyric refrain of track two "International Love Affair," despite the best efforts of Allen and the baritone and tenor sax to keep the beat in the pocket. Sometimes instrumentals are just better. Diaspora albums don't always work well but this one congeals around the rhythm with the jazz horn section fully up to the mark. I believe the big horn section is from Antibalas. The searing sax solo in track two is stellar. Track 3, "Shepherd Song," is back on track. "Freedom Groove" and "Crystallize" with female rapper Yugen Blakrock don't do it for me. I liked the Last Poets & Gil Scott Heron in my youth, but political rants with a smooth jazz background seem anachronistic to me now. "5&1" has another good groove, though it starts out very loungey, a double-tempo drum kicks in and the piano comes alive. "Papua Merdeka" pays a surprise quick trip to New Guinea, with a call for the independence of the West of that island from Indonesia, and again Tony Allen is the hero with a great sax beefing up the big finish. The disc returns to short edits of the first three tracks. It's cyclical but also reminds you of what was engaging about it an hour earlier. Bottom line: worth checking out, but only the opener "Future Toyi Toyi" is a keeper, imho.ALHOUSSEINI ANIVOLLA & GIRUM MEZMUR
AFROPENTATONISM (Piranha PIR3370)The Saharan desert stretches clear across Africa and if global warming continues it threatens to jump to Central America too and we will have more desert spreading where once were forests. In North Africa, cultures flowed in all directions like the desert winds and music came along for the ride, from simple one-stringed instruments to five-stringed lyres in the East and ultimately the arrival of the electric guitar in the Western desert. Alhousseini Anivolla came from Niger, first as part of Tinariwen the Toureg bluesmen of the desert who broke out with Festival performances in Mali and then Europe. His next project was Etran Finatawa another tradition-based group singing in the Tamashek language. Girum Mezmer is also a guitarist who comes from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where he has led the band of Mahmoud Ahmed and also appeared with Angelique Kidjo. The two met at a 2005 Festival and decided to collaborate. To this album they brought a percussionist and several other talented East African musicians: Habtamu Yeshambel on masinko (a one-stringed Ethiopian violin that sounds like the Malian djourkel) and Anteneh Teklemariam who plays a five-stringed lyre. In addition a 78-year old mandolin player from Addis named Ayele Mamo joined in. Anivolla sings and the others jam. The album was recorded live in concert in Nairobi (the sound is beautifully captured) and it transcends the usual monotonous desert blues of the Niger bands with layers of interest here added by the guests, the violin, mandolin and lyre all playing in counterpoint and weaving their own ideas around the melodies, while the slapped calabash keeps the beat. The guitarists occasionally break out but are encumbered by the perpetual A-minorE-minor seesaw of the tunes. They do break forth on the instrumental "Isouwad." Although the participants don't speak the same language they share the same 5-note scale and communicate beautifully throughout this disc.TOUKI
RIGHT OF PASSAGE (Touki)I am always a bit leery of white guys playing African music and spontaneous jam sessions that lead to albums, but I am willing to be wrong on both counts. Amadou Diagne, a kora player, first encountered Cory Seznec, playing his 5-string ngoni on the ancient pavements of Bath in rural England. The two hit it off and decided if the chance arose they would make music together. Touki, their collective name, means journey in Wolof. So they went their separate ways. Then a British Arts Council grant brought the Senegalese and the Franco-American together to record this album. It's mellow and very traditional sounding, though of course the English lyrics really put me off. "Met a girl, tied the knot, then I went on the road... listen to the sound of the train," etc, etc. Cory's background is in blues guitar and bluegrass banjo (some of which you can hear on "Yaen Yalay," very nicely pulled off); and he is steeped in American folk traditions. But Seznec is no parvenu: it appears from his past discs he has been skirting Afrobeat guitar and ngoni for some time, so adding a kora and singer is a step forward. Overall this is a most enjoyable excursion into African fusion music.ORCHESTRE ABASS
(DE BASSARI TOGO)(Analog Africa)The latest discovery of Analog Africa comes in the shape of an album of Togolese funk from 1972-5, originally released as singles on the Polydor label. Organ, guitar, shuffling drums, and a vocalist grunting and growling in the best Afrobeat manner. Elements of Fela Kuti are apparent in the singing as well as in the riffs. All I can say about Orchestre Abass comes from label boss Samy Ben Redjeb who notes Arabic elements to their music from their location, the northern Islamic part of Togo. The founder of the group, Malam Issa Abass, was murdered in 1993, but Samy tracked down Abderaman Issa, the guitarist and one of the songwriters. It has been reissued on limited edition vinyl and is also downloadable from bandcamp. There are six tracks, two of them previously unreleased, discovered in a vast trove of abandoned Polygram master tapes in remarkable preservation in a warehouse in an undisclosed location in Central Africa. "Kissagui" the last track is the most interesting to me as it seems the least derivative of Fela. However Samy is a great champion of what he calls "the Islamic funk belt" which stretches from Northern Ghana to Northern Cameroun and includes bands like Super Borgou de Parakou as well as Abass. If you liked the Afro-beat Airways compilation, where they were featured, this one is for you.AFRICAN GEMS (Sharp Wood Productions 043)The Charles Duvelle commemorative album, which I reviewed last month, got me to dig out some of my treasured OCORA albums and I started looking at the names of the people who recorded the music. Some other music pioneers, Hugh Tracey and John Low have been lionized, not only in the Sharp Wood Series, but also Original Music of John Storm Roberts who produced wonderful reissues of their recordings. What convinced me to buy African Gems was partly that it's what you might call "tribal Africa's greatest hits," but also that Sharp Wood's A&R man, Michael Baird, is a percussionist and drummer and is going to have a different take on what the great field recordings are from your humble reporter (I admit I got my Doctor of Rhythm doctorate from a mail-order college who gave me credit for "life experience"). The importance of these recordings is obvious: between 1965 and 1984 four white men, an Englishman, a Frenchman, and two Belgians, traveled the heart of Africa recording tribal music. Since then war, famine, HIV/AIDS, not to mention the onrush of modernity, have made this traditional music quietly disappear from the earth. But they captured vital musical moments, documents of life as valid as books or movies, maybe more so because of their immediacy. Tourists go looking for it, and perhaps are treated to a mock or recreated initiation ceremony but things slide out of reality, lose their context. In 1983 I visited the Mbuti pygmies (first celebrated by Colin Turnbull), and they put on a concert for my companions and me; they hocketed, jumped about imitating monkeys and generally tore the place up -- for a small fee. We spent a week camped near them in their forest village made of leaves and twigs, and traded them sugar and flour for pot, or to take us hunting. We were offered precious stones (probably bogus), gold (ditto) and even bark cloth, which was lovely but too fragile to transport. I traded a thrift store HARVARD t-shirt for a lovely sanza (thumb piano). (The t-shirt was immediately turned for cigarettes to the local "bigmies" -- normal-sized Africans who lived off the pygmies.) Several of the little people wore necklaces that had stones and seedpods on them. One day I asked one of them who spoke French the significance of those necklaces. Some Italians were here a few months ago and gave them to us, he said, would you like one? I have no doubt one of those necklaces is now in some ethnographic collection with a note, "Ituri rainforest 1983: Mbuti pgymy." So to the disc: the opening track comes from OCORA 25 Cameroun (the one with the cover that was plagiarized by Analog Africa for their disco reissue). It is outstanding, but then so are the 11 cuts that follow. A track like "Mbilé" by a kendé (xylophone) soloist is so rich you have a hard time believing it's only one performer. He accompanied a wrestling match in Chad in 1966 and here the track is restored to its full length. The kendé is an upright xylophone struck with four mallets, according to Duvelle, who also took a photo of the performer. Then we are treated to the "traffic jam" effect of seven ivory horns with percussion (Duvelle in Congo, also 1966). It's interesting that "out" jazz arose around this time and was also a product of African-American horn players. (Note the use of the word "horn"!) The segue into Alur horns from Uganda is great and the reason I wanted to give Baird the reins on this set! The horns from Chad performing "Sirhélé" are also extra-classic. It too slides seamlessly into one of the mind-blowingest pieces of "world music": "Gandja" music from Centrafrique. This is an initiation ceremony complete with chorus and ankle-rattles but the horn polyphony is completely trance-inducing. I admire the way the ten short themes flow together and marvel at their seeming lack of time signature. The anthology ends with an epic topical song sung to a home-made guitar with the choral singer frantically tapping a bottle. It brings us back to earth, though one can see why this music is the stuff that we sent into space to convince alien lifeforms that we earthlings have soul.TOKO TELO
TOY RAHA TOY (Anio Records)Remember D'Gary's 90s album of Malagasy guitar A World Out of Time which was produced by Henry Kaiser? After two decades he has returned (well, he has been touring with Bela Fleck and otherwise still plying his axe), and teamed up with Regis Gisavo who plays accordion, and Monika Njava, a singer who has performed with Deep Forest. They are called Toko Telo, which means trio, and celebrate their traditional Southern Malagasy music. Monika draws her lyrics from folklore but adds commentary from everyday life to keep them current, so corruption and environmental concerns, which we all share, are also part of her songs. In "Rapolany" a lonely woman stays out all night looking to meet men. She returns at sunrise and the neighbors whisper behind her back: her life floats up and down like a plane. It's a two-minute ditty which also floats up and down. In "Jiny Karo Karo" a young woman dreams of owning plaid jeans but can't afford them. Gizavo is unknown to me, but has the strongest pedigree. After winning Radio France's Prix découvertes in 1990 he performed with Cesária Evora, Richard Bona, Manu Dibango, The Mahotella Queens and Boubacar Traoré. That's some resumé. While he can adapt to any style his accordion is the perfect balance to the acoustic guitar on this mellow outing. His song "Mikea" is about the attrition suffered by the Mikea people whose forest homes are being destroyed. D'Gary sings about cattle rustlers, and in "Hainao Moa" about a drunk man who has to hitch up his cow to the cart carefully, because he wants to get home in one piece. We've all been there!THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF CHARLES DUVELLE (Sublime Frequencies SF110)There's a brilliant travel book by Redmond O'Hanlon called Into the Heart of Borneo. He and a friend undertake a dangerous trek into the depth of the jungle, hoping to meet a tribe that have had no contact with the outside world in over 50 years. One of the Rockefellers, Michael, was allegedly eaten while trying to make contact with the