Great Spirits

A & R: What Went Missing

     Some people blame the decline in popular music quality on the decline of gradual disappearance of A & R in the music business. Yet most folks outside the music business—and even quite a few within it—don’t have a clear idea of what  A &R is. It is a hoary term in the business. Literally, A & R stands for “artist and repertoire” and in the early days of the record business an A & R man—and the most always were (and largely still are) males—was responsible for signing commercially viable artists to record, arranging sessions and selecting appropriate, commercially viable songs for the artist to record. The songs tended to come from professional songwriters and publishers. At that time the business was more about hit songs than hit artists. That’s why when a song hit for someone, dozens of other artists would “cover” it, to do their own versions as quickly as possible and ride on the coattails of a hit.

     All that started to change with the advent of rock ‘n’ roll, which was outsider music originally, was to some extent beyond the purview of the professional establishment songwriters, as were country, R & B and blues, but those style rarely penetrated the mainstream. Rock ‘n’ rollers such as Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino (in conjunction with his producer Dave Bartholomew), and Buddy Holly wrote much of their material. Also much of rock ‘n’ roll was initially released by relatively small independent labels happy to jump on any good song or artist who came in off the street or was making some local or regional noise. But the professionals caught on fast and began writing rock n’n roll tunes while a new generation of professional songwriters—Lieber & Stoller and Otis Blackwell being two prime examples—who understood rock ‘n’ roll sprang up. So even until 1964, a large percentage of popular hits still came from the pens of professional songwriters—Motown being a prime example.

     Then the Beatles happened and along with them a new breed of self-contained rock ‘n’ roll bands who wrote much , if not all, of their own material. The Beatles’ inspired a generation of musicians to write their own material. Indeed that became the ideal, especially with the advent of bands in the late Sixties/early Seventies who expanded the boundaries of rock (and popular) music. In the R & B world, Stevie Wonder’s run of self-penned masterpieces from 1960’s “Innervisions” to 1973’s “Songs In The Key Of Life” h ad a similar effect in the R & B world, especially with the explosion  of self-contained progressive R & B/funk bands such as Earth, Wind & Fire, The Meters, War, Kool & The Gang and others who wrote their own boundary-pushing material. Finally the early Seventies saw an explosion of “singer-songwriters” such as James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne and others who cemented the concept of songwriter-as-performer. Indeed, Carole King, who ironically been one of the Brill Building pro songwriters of the early Sixties cranking out hits for other artists, scored one of the biggest-selling albums of all time with “Tapestry”,  an album singing her own compositions. The Beatle/Stevie Wonder/singer-songwriters—that was a trifecta that marginalized professional songwriters on the one hand and enshrined the concept of “artist-as-songwriter” as the ideal musical artist. Singers or bands who didn’t write their own material suddenly seemed less important, less “serious.” As artists (and producers) began writing more,

they found they could make a lot more money if they recorded material written or co-written by themselves. As a result, by the 1980’s, a large percentage of popular music was being written by artists or their producers. It was no longer a case of an A & R person selecting material for an artist, though of course A & R people did try to maintain some sort of control by rejecting or pushing for revisions of an artist’s original material.

But that was a difficult process singe the artist would have a personal/emotional stake in their own material The result? A decline in the quality of songs being recorded. Let’s face it, most artists—including many really good singers and really good musicians—are not as proficient songwriters as The Beatles, Stevie Wonder or Joni Mitchell. Many artists can write a really good song or two every year but usually not on a regular basis. Some excellent singers/players might never write anything better than mediocre songs.

     So if A & R people no longer ruled repertoire selection, what have they been doing the past thirty years? Well, the “artist” side of their mandate was still operative. The job still involved scouting talented new artists or finding viable veterans with the right combination of ability, fan-base, “buzz”, charisma etc. Once an artist was signed, the A & R person’s job was to nurture the artist, orchestrating a new artist’s development or helping a veteran artist conceptualize a new project. In both cases, this often involved selecting the right producer who could translate the artist’s work into either artistically or commercially (hopefully both) viable recordings.

     But beginning in the Eighties, producers—especially in the realm of R & B and hip-hop but also in pop and even rock—became increasingly dominant. Recorings started to become more often an assemblage of tracks, often electronically generated or assembled, rather than being the product of musicians playing together in the studio. Producers themselves began attracting and developing new artists who they could plug in to their productions, rather than tailoring material to artists who had developed a unique artistic identity. This to a significant degree supplanted the discovery and development work of label A & R people. Often the take of an A & R people became forging relationships and doing deals with hot producers, rather than artists.

     By the Nineties, major labels, especially, were flush with cash and became hyper-focused on quick hits. The cost of signing, developing, promoting and marketing an artist became so high that the labels were under pressure to recoup their investment on the first album by an artist, whereas in the past they could afford to wait through two or three albums of modest success for an artist to hit. Artist development—the other A & R function—began to atrophy at major labels. And for a while, they didn’t mind. The CD explosion and the huge return on hits, rendered the failures irrelevant. A major typically lost money on 80% or even 90% of their front line releases—but one hit paid for the nine failures and yielded major profits. A blockbuster mentality emerged.

      One result of these developments has been that young A & R people coming up never learned the classic A & R skills of their predecessors. If they could connect with hot upcoming producers, find an artist with the right “look”, score that big pop hit 10% of the time, they could have a job. But selecting material or nurturing artists or even understanding what a career artist might be like were skills increasingly not learned by the new generation of A & R people. By the 2000’s, the corporatization of the major labels was complete. Most of the majors had been bought by huge conglomerates whose main business was not music and sometimes not even entertainment. These companies were primarily concerned with “market share”, “quarterly profits” and “share price.” Their huge side and frequent regime changes resulted in staff turnover, including in the A & R realm—the putative creative heart of a music company.

    Another factor at play is that from the late Sixties on, artists were increasingly able to demand creative control. As long as labels were making money hand over fist, which they did for at least a couple of decades up until the early 2000’s and the rise of the internet, they were happy to indulge artists. They didn’t care if nine out of ten of their artists failed or didn’t develop beyond one hit. One might think that artists having creative control would be a good thing. In the bad old days artists had no power and were more often than not dictated to regarding what songs they would record, what producer they would use, even what studio they would record in. That often resulted in artists being squeezed into cookie-cutter formulas; at worst, artists were saddled with wildly inappropriate material or production, which was artistically unsatisfying and often commercially worthless. But too much creative freedom can be a problem also, especially in the realm of art created for the commercial marketplace. Popular music is commercial art. Most artists can benefit from an editor, an advisor, someone who understands who they are as artists but can also give them perspective, helping the artist to find a commercially viable, artistically effective manifestation of his or her work. That is needed today as much as ever and A & R people should be providing it. But as noted above, there are fewer A & R people with the expertise, knowledge or experience to do this. Major labels are less likely to give even those A & R people who are qualified the latitude that they need to be effective. And artists more often than not regard the A & R person’s involvement as a necessary evil or intrusion. Good A & R is an art in itself. The lack of it is a major reason why so much popular music being recorded today is not very special.

 

    

LIVE MUSIC--A DISAPPEARING ACT?

     A few weeks back I was at BB King's in New York City to catch the seminal acid-jazz group Incognito, led for a quarter century by guitarist/leader/songwriter Bluey. The stage was packed with musicians--drums, bass, guitar, keyboards, a three-piece horn section and four--count 'em!--four lead vocalists, who also sang back-ups along with Bluey and others in the band. These days it is, sadly,rare to see an R & B, rock or pop act with a real horn section, rather than a keyboard player replicating horn parts on a synth. From the very first tune, Incognito was grooving, creating that vibrant, surging groove that only really good live musicians who play together regularly can create. The most striking thing was how often the band members were smiling....not a show-biz smile but simply a spontaneous smile of enjoyment. Bluey,  in the center, playing guitar and directing the proceedings, looked like he was in heaven. The man simply loves to play music with other musicians onstage and his love is infectious. The crowd was right with them, responding with shouts and smiles and many dancing in place; there was a healthy interchange between band and audience. Two hours in, they were still going strong; in fact they seemed to be just peaking at that point, feeding off the energy of the crowd and each other. This is what the live experience is all about and it is something that cannot be replaced by YouTube, Pandora, iTunes or even listening to discs at home. Live music will be the repository and salvation of music's vitality.

    But good live music played by real musicians is not so easy to come by these days. Disco and then Hip-Hop spawned DJ culture, where one man playing recorded sounds was the center of attention. The DJ/dance/electronic scene is  huge currently. Club owners found it is a lot cheaper and a lot less trouble to hire a dee jay than a live band. So from the late 70's on, the number of venues featuring live music began to decline. Music video--via MTV and BET--began to present music as more of a visual than auditory experience, where the musical content became less important and fashion, choreography, special effects, sets, dramatics etc became more important. In the age of video, an artist's looks became far more important. One wonders if Aretha Franklin would have had the success she did have if she had emerged as a young singer in 1985 instead of the Sixties.  This emphasis on image, effects, costumes etc became even more a part of large-scale concerts, as the artists in concerts were now competing with high-budget videos for impact. Technology made it more possible for marginal artists to get by in concert, with pre-recorded parts taking a bigger part of the proceeding. So larger concerts have become--by and large--more like visual spectaculars than musical experiences.

      As a result of all of the above a generation or two has grown up with significantly less live music experience provided by real musicians. This is especially a trend in the R & B world. At this point, there is only one significant, prominent, active R & B band that has emerged in the past two decades--Mint Condition. You could also add The Roots, though they are a hip-hop group. Contrast this with the 1970's and early Eighties where you had many tremendous self-contained R & B/funk bands:  War, Kool & The Gang, The Meters, Earth Wind & Fire, Parliament/Funkadelic, The Ohio Players, Mandrill, Slave, Atlantic Starr, Lakeside, Cameo, and many more. Some of them created the most innovative music of the decade.

     The decline in the number of venues and the decline in audiences' appetite for live music has meant that bands get paid less to play in clubs, when you take inflation into account. Sometimes even if  you don't take inflation into account. In fact, "pay to play", which started becoming common in the EIghties, is widespread now; bands often have to guarantee club costs or guarantee a certain number of tickets in order to play a venue. But even if it isn't "pay to play", often it is "play for the door", or more accurately "pay for a percentage of the door."  Increasingly club promoters don't feel any need to actually promote shows. They may run a strip ad in local media and have their concert calendar on their website. That's most often the extent of their promotion. Many don't even promote to media, beyond sending a simple listing of who's playing when; they expect the acts to promote. When there is a guarantee--unless the band has a proven really strong draw--it is commonly in the range of $50 - $75 per man., for a club gig. When I started out playing in bands in 1966, $25 a man was typical--50 years later, musicians are only getting $25 to $50 more for a gig. Allowing for inflation (gas was 30 cents a gallon in 1966--now it is more than 10 times that), musician's pay for club gigs is far less than what it was when I started out. But musicians need to play in order to grow as musicians; heck, musicians WANT to play so there are plenty of young musicians willing to accept this low or no pay.

     For me, as both a musician and listener, the greatest musical experience is live music in a small to medium-sized club. At that size, you can see the audience up close and they can see you. There is intimacy and you sweat together. The scale is small enough so that you can take all kinds of chances without worrying about looking ridiculous on a big stage with a big set-up. The sound, if done with any sort of competence, is way better than larger venues where it is way too boomy. I don't often pay the kind of ticket prices that large venues and arenas charge but I was willing to pay that kind of price to see Roberta Flack at The Blue Note. My wife and I had seats right by the stage, just a few feet from Roberta seated at the piano. She was wonderful; every note was clear and beautiful; the expressions on her face alone were worth the price of admission and seeing her hands move on the keyboard was an added pleasure. Contrast that with a large venue where the performers are in miniature due to your distance to the stage and the sound booms around the room, all subtlety lost. So it is the small venue experience that is crucial for musicians and listeners alike. It is the key to young musicians learning how to play, how to perform.  As a result, when my wife and I go out to see music--which we do fairly often--we like to go to small clubs. It is cheaper, a better experience and we have the satisfaction of supporting musicians at this level. And yet many people complain that there's no good music any more. It is there if you make an effort to seek it out and don't turn up your nose at a club that might not be plush. Your wallet will thank you but so will your heart! So turn off the t.v., step away from the computer, and go out to hear some good live music. You might be surprised just how much you enjoy it!

JOSE JAMES: THE NEW JAZZ MESSIAH?

JOSE JAMES:  A JAZZ SAVIOR?

 

       The sad truth is that jazz has been in a dead-end of sorts for at least thirty years….arguably the last new, viable development was fusion, following on the so-called “free jazz” movement, beginning in the late Sixties and through the Seventies led by such artists as Miles Davis, Larry Coryell, Weather Report, Mahavishnu Orchetra, Chick Corea etc.  Most of the artists operating under “jazz” banner since that time—especially in the Eighties “young lions” resurgence led by Wynton Marsalis-- have largely been replicating or trying to replicate past glories. In short, music labeled as jazz"" since then has largely lacked excitement or inspiration or freshness—a sad state of affairs for one of the great genres of music in the world. This is not to say that nothing of value has been created during that time but simply that the general run of new jazz has generally failed to match the creative heights and performing flair of what was created in the 30’s, 40’s, 50’s and 60’s.

      So there has been a great hope among jazz fans or other music lovers who appreciate the genre that a new messiah would appear, a great musician who is a catalyst for something new and exciting. Much of this hope has been directed in the desire for a fusion of hip-hop and jazz. It is easy to see why so much hope would be placed in this direction. Such a fusion would open jazz—at least theoretically—to youth once again and possibly make it relevant as a contemporary genre. It would connect jazz once again to “the street”….harking back to a time when jazz was popular music, the dance music of a couple generations. And it would be the fusing of two profound (at least for the generation that came of age with hip-hop) elements of African-American culture—jazz and hip-hop, restoring jazz to its original African-American milieu.  And so there have been a number of attempts at jazz-hip-hop fusion whether from the rap side as with Guru’s “Jazzamatazz” experiments or from the jazz side as with Branford Marsalis’ “Buckshot Lefonque” album. These attempts have largely failed to win over either jazz fans or hip-hop fans and for a good reason—they aren’t particularly great, the whole is not more than the sum of the parts, and, at best, they are mildly interesting.

     There has also been a hunger for a new vocalists from the hip hop generation who would operate in the the jazz milieu. But this hunger—and the strong desire for a viable hip-hop fusion to emerge—has led to premature celebrations. Folks just so badly want it to work and are in love with the idea, the concept, that anyone even trying to make it happen gets a certain amount of props. But the question always remains, as with all music: is it good, is it exciting, is it something you want to listen to again and again? In recent years there have been major underground buzzes on two male vocalists operating under the “jazz” banner:  Gregory Porter and Jose James. Both have been snapped up by major labels; Porter’s album is still in progress but Jose James’ “No Beginning No End” album has just been released by Blue Note.

     Jose James has been bubbling up since the release of his first album in  2008 on a small indie label. Still in his thirties, James has more cutting-edge credentials than Porter, who is older, whose background is in Broadway and who melds R & B and jazz rather than James neo-soul/hip-hop/jazz mix. On the basis of the buzz, I checked out a couple of James’ albums and was completely underwhelmed. His vocal presence was not strong and while the fusion of elements seemed workable, the compositions really seemed to lack substance. It seemed to be a classic case of style over substance. As a result, I approached his new album with skepticism.

      “No Beginning No End” kicks off with a nice, slinky groove under a chant-like melody that has energy and sounds fresh. A very encouraging beginning. The second track, a collaboration with French/Moroccan chanteuse Hindi Zahra, is an innovative mix of jazzy musicianship, fresh melody and Moroccan rhythms. It is the strongest track on the album, though it’s pleasures are more textural than compositional. The third track, “Trouble”, works off a subtle Al Green/Hi Rhythm Section groove and feel to great effect.

        So on the basis of these three tracks alone, “No Beginning No End” is Jose James’ best album. But is it a great album? A breatkthrough?  Though the album has a very appealing sound—warm, fresh textures and grooves—it lacks strong compositions and a strong vocal presence. Jose James’ voice is an earthy, resonant instrument with an appealing burr; he has a great sound. But his singing consistently fails to deliver much in the way of dynamics or expression.  On many tracks it seems almost like just another textural element so you really don’t get much of a feeling of personality or artistic persona. Some tracks—the gospel jazz of  “Do You Feel” and “Bird Of Space” have more urgent playing and focused energy in the backing tracks and perhaps because of that James sings with more presence and definition. But his singing rarely rises above the merely pleasant, in a Bill Withers kind of way (though Withers was a master at infusing low-key vocals with expression).

      The other issue is that the compositions in general are just not particularly memorable. Overall they are pleasant, sometimes subtle and sometimes interesting lyrically but they lack depth and power. So, the verdict?  This is the most best, most enjoyable James album to date. But on the evidence, he is not yet the jazz vocal messiah we are waiting for.

FETSUM: A PAN-AFRICAN REVELATION!

 

 

FETSUM:  A PAN-AFRICAN REVELATION 

      There really are no borders now. It’s a concept that has been talked about for a long time but with the advent of the internet and the widespread access of smartphones all over the world, virtually everyone on the planet is at least potentially in touch. Virtually the entire history of recorded music is available and most of it is accessible on YouTube to anyone with an internet connection. So people are absorbing sounds, melodies and rhythms as never before, and being influenced by them. All of which makes someone like Fetsum—an Ethiopian making music in Germany with German musicians, singing mostly in English and drawing on the musical range of the whole African diaspora as well as other musics.

       I have to thank Tom Schnabel for turning me to Fetsum. Tom was the originator of Morning Becomes Eclectic on bellwether non-commercial radio station KCRW-FM and he has been a champion of great world music artists for all of the 30 years I’ve known him. He still does a world music show on KCRW—which streams on the internet. You really should check out www.tomschnabel.com if you’re at all interested in world music.

Anyway, thanks to Tom posting a link to a video of Fetsum performing (Fetsum did a couple showcase performances in the States), I ordered his CD, which is released by Sonar Kollektiv, a small German label.

    Here’s a live performance clip of Fetsum, doing a sung not on the album: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3IFPZlIUY4  

    The first thing that strikes you about Fetsum is the quality of his voice….it is rich, warm and sweet and though he doesn’t sound like Bob Marley his phrasing reminds me of Bob, among others.  The opening song on the album feels like a classic Southern soul song but it is rendered in a way that let’s you know that it is of a different time and sung by someone who is not from the American south.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6HoDO5zySk   Say Who You Are

     The album moves from soul to Afro-Caribbean pop to reggae to atmosphericballadry with entrancing electric guitars reminiscent of the Sahel and electronicwashes of sound….”Letters From Damascus” is essentially desert blues reminiscentof Ali Farka Toure. Fetsum sings of love but also spiritual concerns. Interesting that he chooses to roam musically across the pan-African musical universe rather than settling in one genre. If he chose, he could be the next pan-African reggae phenomenon, as evidenced by this straight-up reggae cut.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDSEY4tY3QU    Emotional Android

The only thing a bit off-putting about Fetsum is he seems to sing in several different accents—not languages—but accents, in English, depending on the music he’s playing. But that’s a minor quibble. We can only wait with anticipation the day he comes to perform in our locale. I know I will make my reservation early!

TWO AFRICAN DIVAS

TWO GREAT AFRICAN DIVAS

     As a collector of music with vast quantities of CD’s, LP’s, 45’s and cassettes, I realize that I cannot possibly listen to most of the music that I possess. Nonetheless it is a pleasure going through the stacks, through numberless CD’s that I haven’t listened to in years—if ever. I almost always stumble upon forgotten gems and sometimes items that I never realized were gems. Browsing a shelf of CD’s by African artists recently, I came upon recordings by two female artists—Setona and Manou Gallo. I could recall nothing about their music. So I pulled them out and took them with me to listen to on my long commutes. To my surprise and delight I found both to be really special, compelling and impressive. In short, in a world where many worthy artists work within formulated genres, these two artists are not only very good but also unique.

     Setona grew up in Kartoum, Sudan but was born in Kordofan, the locale of an ancient African kingdom on the trade routes from West Africa, which means that the local music was influenced by West African musicians and vice-versa. She comes from a family of musicians so it is no surprise that she became a singer. Yet, based in Cairo since 1989 after fleeing government repression in Sudan, her greater fame stems from her mastery of several traditional Sudanese arts—henna body painting and some female body care  practices. As an entrepreneur, Setona has provided these services—as well as traditional song and dance-- to women preparing for marriage in Egypt for many years. As such she became known as “The Queen Of Henna” and reputedly Prince sought her out apply her henna decorating skills to his body. Her music, much of it rooted in Sudanese traditional music, is nonetheless wide-ranging. She incorporates West African elements as well as popular Arabic elements. So even though her vocal style is recognizably Sudanese, her music is fresh, with many surprising twists.

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di-HUbPcycI

      Her album “Queen Of Henna” issued by Blue Flame Records is truly wonderful.

       Manou Gallo’s story is equally fascinating. In reading about her life I suddenly realize that I have seen her perform with Zap Mama in the mid 1990’s at Festival Internationale in Lafayette, Louisiana. I remember wondering who the strikingly pretty, petite woman with the big electric bass was; she was playing exuberantly, radiating joy. Born in the town of Dida, in the Ivory Coast, Manou had little schooling, running wild and free in the dusty streets and woods of her home but was a musical prodigy from an early age. Obsessed with rhythm, she was one of those children constantly beating on things and singing, steeped in the traditional music surrounding her. At the age of eight at a funeral ceremony she spontaneously jumped up to the platform where the musicians were and began playing drums—doubly shocking not only because at such a young age she was playing them well but because females were forbidden to even touch the drums, traditionally. As a teenage she was invited to join the popular group Woya and Marcelin Yace’ the leader of Woya became her mentor, giving her an electric bass and teaching her musical techniques and recording techniques. She went on to become a part of theatrical performing groups and was part of a recording by Ray Lema. Eventually she made her way to Brussels and became part of the pan-African musical and cultural scene there, eventually joining Zap Mama. Her first solo recording, “Dida” came in 2004. Since then she has recorded another solo CD, toured around the world in a wide variety of projects and recently produced the hot new Zimbabwean group Mookoomba’s first international recording. Manou Gallo is one of those rare artists who truly transcends musical genres and boundaries.  Her ear is wide-ranging and it comes naturally to her to combine elements of traditional music, Afrobeat, Caribbean music, South African music, funk,  Latin styles and more. Like Chieck Lo of Senegal, her talent makes it work. Her music is so wide-ranging it is impossible to give a fair representation of it in just a couple of clips.

But here are two from different ends of Manou’s musical spectrum:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDRLYu1RyhI

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtPr_eiHeRE

     It has been an amazing journey for the little girl who grew up poor and wild (‘like a little savage” she has said) but is now bringing her music to the entire world.  

     Finding these two wonderful CD’s inspires me to keep on digging through my collection!.

 

  

The Jamaican Jazz Genius Of Ernest Ranglin

THE JAMAICAN JAZZ GENIUS OF ERNEST RANGLIN:

       One of the great pleasures in life for me is to be listening to the radio and suddenly hearing a song that electrifies me, makes me stop talking or doing anything. At that moment the music compels me to listen. As soon as the song is over I pray that the dj says what the song and artist is, something that tends not to happen very often on commercial radio  but does most of the time on non-commercial radio. Thank God!

Well, a few Saturdays ago my lady and I were cruising back from seeing a friend sing in a club in Philly and as is our habit when we’re out on Saturday nights, we tuned in to The Blues Show on WXPN in Philly, hosted by Jonny Meister for over thirty years. For many of those years my own show immediately preceded his show. Jonny has great knowledge and great taste and he mixes in a healthy sprinkling of new releases among older classics. After midnight he has a segment called “Blues & Beyond” in which he stretches from blues into jazz and groove music. I almost always hear something really good that I hadn’t heard before. On this particular night on the “Blues & Beyond” segment I heard this mesmerizing Afro-Caribbean groove, with a kind of South African tinge, not immediately identifiable or classifiable, topped by some taste jazz guitar soloing. It was fantastic!

 

     At the end of the set, Jonny (my God bless him!) announced the song as “Manenberg”, followed by “Memories of Senegal”, both by a group called Avila. featuring Ernest Ranglin. “Mannenberg” was a composition by South African jazz musician Abdullah Ibrahim.  That all made perfect sense.  Ernest Ranglin is a Jamaican guitar master who has played on countless Jamaican ska, rocksteady and reggae hits but he’s really a jazz man at heart. And he has also collaborated with African musicians so his musical vocabulary spans America, Africa and The Caribbean in a way that few musicians do.

      To those who are familiar with Ernest Ranglin’s talents he is god-like.  Now 80 years of age, he plays at the same high level he has always played at. But the thing is not that many people outside of Jamaican music circles and Jamaican music fans worldwide know who he is. And this is a shame.  He is one of the planet’s great guitarist, technically

tremendous and really unique in his musical perspective. Born in the Manchester region of Jamaica, like so many Jamaican youth, he built his first guitar out of a sardine can and wires. But he obtained a real guitar and began learning it. Charlie Christian was an influence. You see jazz was heard by people in The Caribbean, Latin American and Africa and it had many acolytes in these regions.By the time he was a teenager he was playing with the likes of Monty Alexander (who went on to be one of Jamaica’s foremost jazz musicians) and popular big bands led by Val Bennett, Eric Deans and others. There were many accomplished jazz players in Jamaica. In the Fifties Ernest started doing a lot of session work, playing on mento sessions; mento is a Jamaican roots music that some compare to traditional calypso but quite distinct from calypso. When a style of Jamaican R & B evolved he played on those records also, on such hits as Theophilus Beckford’s hit “Easy Snapping.”

 

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veWRWeWlsOg

 

He played  on the soundtrack recording of the James Bond film “Dr. No” and on the first Jamaican song to become an international hit, the pop-ska “My Boy Lollipop” by Millie Small.  By the early Sixties he was also recording jazz and traveled to London to perform as house guitarist at the venerable jazz club Ronnie Scott’s, working with many notable American jazz musicians who came to play. He was at the center of the development of such styles as ska, rocksteady and reggae, playing on Bob Marley & The Wailers’ “It Hurts To Be Alone”, the Melodians’ classic “Rivers Of Babylon” and countless others hits. He also recorded a couple jazz albums with Monty Alexander that were released in America. In the Seventies he moved to Florida and focused more on jazz for the next couple decades. I was lucky to seem him in a rare New York city club appearance; what struck me was his precision, economy of style and flair for playing tasty licks that just sparkled. He—already gray-haired when I saw him—just simply played with complete command and ease, without any particular showmanship.

 

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mjcmkNkpxA

 

In the late Nineties, Chris Blackwell’s Palm Pictures label released a number of jazz/reggae recordings ( a fusion I had been expecting and hearing hints of for a long!) by Monty Alexander, Dean Fraser and Ernest  that really fulfilled the potential of that fusion.

Here’s a cut from one of Ernest Ranglin’s albums:

 

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcMx7o2_L7I

 

It is a kind of miracle that, as his recording career enters its SEVENTH decade, that Ernest Ranglin is still here to dazzle us. That is a somewhat miraculous and a blessing.

       The genesis of Avila was Ernest Ranglin’s appearance at the venerable High Sierra Music Festival in California (one of the great world music festivals) in 2011. The festival organizers assembled a band that could do justice to backing Ernest Ranglin—Yossi Fine, who has played with everyone from David Bowie to the world-music group The Toure-Riachel Collective, Inx Herman, who has played with Paul Simon and the Grateful Dead’s Mickey Hart, on drums and percussion and keyboardist Jonathan Korty. The combination worked out so well—they just meshed!—that it seemed only natural to go into the recording studio. The result is Avila featuring Ernest Ranglin; it is available on Amazon or direct from www.avilastreetrecords.com.  The music holds up throughout on a selection of mostly original compositions by Ernest and the other musicians, except “Manenberg.” It is a very satisfying set.

     Too often, we celebrate great artists when they pass away. This is wrong. We need to celebrate them, enjoy them, appreciate them, receive their gift, while they are here. Fortunately, Ernest Ranglin is still here. Pick up the Avila CD and seize any chance to see him live. You will not be disappointed!

A NEW GOLDEN AGE OF AFRO-FUNK!

     THE WEST AFRICAN AFRO-FUNK REVIVAL

 

       The Seventies was quite a decade for music; it gave rise to the classic reggae sound in Jamaica, the progressive funk scene in the States and the punk rock scene in the UK; you could probably throw in the rise of disco and the beginning of rap. Less well recognized but just as vital was the vibrant Afro-pop scene in West Africa during that decade. There Fela created Afrobeat, Sunny Ade and Ebenezer Obey brought juju  music to a height, Senegalese bands created the mbalax style, Malian groups such as Les Ambassadeurs broke new ground and Ghanian groups such as Osibisa, Bunzu Soundz and a host of others took highlife in new directions.  But beyond these macro entities were hundreds of lesser groups who were combining elements of funk, rock and myriad combinations of all the African styles mentioned above plus traditional melodies and rhythms. Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, Bob Marley, The Meters, Mandrill, War, Kool & The Gang—all of these were being heard and absorbed by young African musicians who performed  in clubs. Of course this was happening in many parts of Africa but it was in West Africa that the most ground-breaking and fertile fusions were happening. By the mid-80’s, for a variety of reasons, much of that scene had died out or had been superseded by other styles, especially as cheap technology made it possible to make music without maintaining a band—no small advantage in countries were musicians had few resources (often they didn’t even own their own instruments; often the bandleader, a hotel owner or manager would own the instruments!). Many of these lesser-known groups were little heard outside West Africa or outside the expatriate communities of their countrymen. I had the pleasure of playing in one of these bands—Bongos & The Groovies—and, typically, none of their many albums were released outside Africa.

        But a little over a decade ago wondrous things began happening. First came the Afrobeat revival. Ironically it was the passing of Afrobeat’s creator—Fela Anikulapo-Kuti –that seemed to spur the rise of Afrobeat bands in the United States, Europe and in Nigeria. Some of these bands were very good, others were lackluster imitations. In the United States the best of Afrobeat bands was Antibalas who, through their wide-spread touring, introduced Afrobeat to the jamband world and spread the Afrobeat gospel.

     The other important development was the re-issuing (or more properly, issuing, since many of the recordings had never been released previously outside Africa) of collections of vintage Afro-pop recordings by independent labels such as Strut, Soundway, and Analog Africa.  The people behind these labels were relentless collectors of music from the 70’s and amassed caches of great vinyl ‘45’s and LP’s –-a crucial step since the master tapes for many of these recordings had been lost or destroyed. The bands and singers featured  on these recordings—some of whom only had one or two singles released during their heyday—were in many case the artists who had churned out the varied Afropop sounds in bars and clubs across West Africa. I must distinguish between Afropop or Afrofunk and Afrobeat. Afrobeat was definted by Fela’s schema—the chattering guitars, the big horn arrangements, the declaimed vocals and the particular rhythm patterns he utilized. Sometimes the Afrofunk bands played Afrobeat numbers but more often they were creating their own meld of Afro rhythms, funk and rock.  After the ground-breaking Afrofunk compilations met with some success, the labels that issued them began releasing collections by individual artists—bands such as Orchestra Poly-Rhythmo de Contonou from Benin (Dahomey), The Funkees (from Nigeria) and Orchestra Baobab from Senegal, as well as artists such as Ebo Taylor. In some cases—such as Orchestra Polyrhythmo de Contonou, and Ebo Taylor—the artists began recording and perforing again, releasing excellent new recordings. Meanwhile Antibalas took things to another level by being the house band for the hit Broadway play “Fela”, which ended up touring the world.

         As a result, we’re living in a kind of second “golden age” of Afro-funk, with the music more widely available than ever before and many artists both veteran and new playing the music.  Evidence of this if found in three great new releases-- a compilation of vintage recordings by Nigeria’s Tunji Oyelana, a recording by KonKoma,  a new UK group of mostly veterans of the 70’s West African scene and a new album by Antibalas.

         I’ve been waiting a long time for someone to release Tunji Oyelana’s recordings. Until now, there had never been a Tunji Oyelana CD available; the only evidence of his music were scattered tracks on a few compilations. Partly this was no doubt due to the fact that Tunji Oyelana wasn’t among the most popular musicians of his era; but it was also partly due to the unique—somewhat esoteric-- niche he occupied. You see, Tunji was—and I believe is—a college professor, as well as an actor, dramatist, and, of course, musician. He approached music-making from a different vantage point and though his musical artistry clearly was important to him it was not his main career. The sound of his music varied quite a bit, often quite sparse and grounded in folklore and at other times virtually Afrobeat. And not all of it is great. But Soundway has done a magnificent job in releasing a two-cd compilation of his work from 1966-1979, cherry-picking the most groovalicious track. As evidenced by one of his most popular tracks—“Ifa”—Tunji Oyelana sounded like no one else:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWAhmyIUj70

        Meanwhile, KonKoma was intentionally formed by saxophonist Max Grunhard and producer Ben Lamdin around two veteran Ghanian musicians—Alfred Bannerman and Emmanuel Rentzos. Bannerman had been in the 70’s Afro-rock band Boombaya and had been active on the fertile London African music scene for a couple of decades at least. Rentzos had played with Bannerman in  the early 70’s Ghanian outfit Santrofis.  Both had also played with such artists as Bobby Womack, Osibisa, Hugh Masakela and Peter Green.  The band’s debut album, titled simply “KonKoma”, is a beautifully recorded album sounds entirely fresh—ranging across a number of Afropop styles but never trying to simply re-create past glories. As such it is highly enjoyable and musically satisfying. Here’s one of the strongest cuts from the album, titled simply “Handkerchief”:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHgmsl9Wj50

       Finally there was Antibalas. Formed in 1998 in New York City by saxophonist Martin Perna, the band had an incestuous relationship with the Daptone label/ collective of musicians who were spearheading a funk/soul revival. Some of the same musicians who played on Daptones funk recordings also played in Antibalas. The band’s earliest recordings were necessarily derivative but never completely so. For one thing there was always a Latin component in their musical consciousness and often in their playing. They understood the connections between Afrobeat, Afro-Cuban and other Caribbean styles and African –American funk and played with a sensibility that drew on all of these. This enabled them to avoid being simply Fela imitators. When I saw them in the early 2000’s backing former Egypt 80 keyboardist Dele Sosimi, it was the most satisfying evening of Afrobeat I had seen since I had been in Nigeria in the Seventies, which is saying a lot since I had seen a number of Fela’s 1980’s and early 90’s shows in the States. With the release of their fifth album, titled simply “Antibalas”, they have delivered their definitive statement, in no small measure because their lead vocalist Abraham Amayo has truly come into his own.  The lead cut, “Dirty Money”,  is a commentary on the financial shenanigans of Wall Street folk during the past few years—in the best tradition of Fela’s political broadsides:

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMXlEqlnAIg

        So there you have it. And these 3 CD’s are simply the latest—and among the best—of the new golden age of West African Afro-funk. A new generation of musicians will have the opportunity to hear this music first hand and hopefully carry on the work of these musicians into the next generation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A WOMAN LIKE BETTYE LAVETTE--AIN'T NONE BUT ONE!

    I first heard of Bettye LaVette in the most serendipitous way...reading a UK magazine called Blues & Soul that I found in Kano, Nigeria, where I was living in the mid-Seventies. The article hailed her as a quintessential "deep soul" singer, so naturally I sought her music out...and it did not disappoint. But her music was mostly available on hard-to-find 45's until Motown released her first full album release in 1980...which I bought in a bargain rack for $1.98 or something. I fell in love with one of the tracks, "Right In The Middle( Of Falling In Love)", a slice of Memphis-style R & B that should have been a hit but wasn't. One day in 1999 or so, I happened to see a bootleg CD of Bettye LaVette recordings...most of her best stuff from the Sixties, which I grabbed right away because the music was just not readily available otherwise. As I listened to the CD, I remember thinking: "wow...Bettye LaVette is the best unrecognized soul singer of the past forty years! (I later found out that she rejects the term "soul singer").  I had known she was good but hearing a bunch of her recordings all at once showed me just how great she really was.Here's a clip from the 80's of her recording one of her Sixties classics; the original is slower and more dramatic but this version is good:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFpFxB4Wqcg

I called up David Nathan, ironcially the writer whose piece about Bettye I had originally read in Blues 'n' Soul magazine so many years prior; I had come to know David much later. I expressed to him my amazement that a singer as great as Bettye could be living in relative obscurity; I asked him if he knew where she was. He answered, "sure, she's in Detroit, I talk to her all the time!" I asked him for her number and called out of the blue, just to tell her how much I appreciated her music. She asked me what I did in life; I said I worked for a record company. She said it so happened that she was looking for a record company and on top of that she was coming to New York and couldn't we meet? A couple weeks later I was escorting her across a snowy street, she in her fur coat as we made our way to my office on a wintry day. As we talked, her aura led me to visualize her in a Detroit nightclub amongst the night people doing that night-life thing--champagne flowing, music playing, reefer in the air and sexy clothes on the people, party time. Anyway, it turned out that she was looking for a label but was without a booking agent or any quantifiable sales history. My heart sank as I realized I could not in good conscience get my company to sign off on offering a deal. That bothered me profoundly since my whole reason for being in the music business was to help bring to public awareness extraoardinary artists such as Bettye (ironically, if I had seen her perform before that moment, I might have gone on  a kamikaze mission to try to make it happen anyway; as good as Bettye is as a recording artist she's even better as a performer!). But I said I would try to help her. It took a while but I finally was able to hook her up with Dennis Walker, who had produced and written a number of Robert Cray's breakthrough recordings, among others. He scored a deal with a small label to produce an album on Bettye and that started the ball rolling. The story is too convoluted to tell completely here but one thing led to another and by and by Bettye was playing major festivals, getting major critical acclaim, recording some of the most amazing performances one could ever hear and eventually performing at Barack Obama's inauguration. In shrot, in middle age, forty-plus years after her first hit record, which she made when she was 16, Bettye LaVette was getting the recognition she deserved. And I had the pleasure of becoming a friend of hers and her husband Kevin.

     The occasion of all the reminiscence is the simultaneous release this week of Bettye's new album THANKFUL AND THOUGHTFUL and the publication of her autobiography, A WOMAN LIKE ME. The album delivers a number of the powerful, radical intepretations of rock, folk, and R & B songs that have been the hallmark of Bettye's re-emergence. For instance, on the new album she takes a folk standard, Wean MccColl's "Dirty Old Town" , and re-makes it into a stark portrait of contemporary Detroit. She makes a nasty blues of "I'm Not The One", a song by the rock group The Black Keys. Other songs by Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Sly Stone, Tom Waits, Gnarls Barkley etc, get the full Bettye LaVette treatment--dramatic re-imaginings delivered by a master of phrasing; they really become short plays, with Bettye deploying an actresses' techniques. It is my favorite recording by her out of all of her "re-emergence" albums, except possible the Dennis Walker set, also called A WOMAN LIKE ME, which has sentimental appeal and is very much in a Southern R & B vein which I have a weakness for. So that's the new record--get it without delay, it is hot out the oven this week.

     Now about the book. One reviewer said it is was as if Bettye is telling stories with a glass of champagne in one hand and a joint in the other. That's spot on because I have heard her tell many tales in exactly that posture--funny, serious, ironic, sobering tales, delivered with Bettye's ever-colorful flair for vivid language and her sly delight delivering shocking statements deadpan. She's the sort of person who delivers the unvarnished truth as she sees it if you ask her something--don't ask her if you're not ready for the stone cold truth--or even if you don't ask! As she said recently, she knew everyone in Detroit coming up--whether it was Berry Gordy, the Tempts, The Supremes, Aretha Franklin, and a vast array of producers, musicians, pimps, hustlers, scenesters, politicians, groupies and so on. And as Bettye said recently about Motown folk: "I've seen them all drunk, broke or naked--sometimes all three." The book opens with Bettye being dangled out a hotel window by her angry boyfriend/pimp. Obviously she lived to tell the tale..but that sets the tone. The book shows her to be a quintessential survivior, a fearsomely talented woman who at 16 thought she was breaking through to stardom only to wander in a forty-year wilderness of near-misses, bitter disapointments, wrong turns and tantalizing opporunities. And along the way she's seen the ones she came up with soar to great heights--and more often than not crash and burn. Now, at long last, she's soaring. She is recognized for the great artist she is. Simply put, this book is a great read and you don't have to know a lot about her music to enjoy it. It is a gritty slice of music history. Most likely after reading it, you'll be motivated to seek out Bettye's music...and you'll be glad you did. Here's a clip of her performance on Leno this week:

    http://www.freep.com/article/20120926/ENT04/120926052/Bettye-LaVette-performs-Dylan-song-on-the-Tonight-Show

     Life is funny, you never know where it will lead. I'm sure glad I picked out that Blues & Soul magazine from amongst the many magazines spread on that woven mat on a Kano, Nigeria street. Who knew that I would come to know the singer who first captivated me forty years ago? And who knew that Bettye LaVette would, after so many near misses and bitter disappointments, would triumph in the end?

 

BOBBY WOMACK: THE BRAVEST MAN IN THE UNIVERSE

BOBBY WOMACK: THE LAST SOUL MAN STANDING

       Bobby Womack is many things: great songwriter, wonderful guitarist, deeply expressive singer, compelling street philosopher and a moving performer. For those who are familiar with the breadth and depth of his work over the past fifty years, he is a monumental figure, an artist who has done a lot to define soul music with his own unique style, melodically lyrical but punctuated by his trademark monologues, what used to be called “raps” before "rap" as a genre existed. He’s scored dozens of hits, written dozens of others yet it is fair to say that he is under-recognized by the mainstream music arena as well the contemporary R & B world. As impressive as his musical contribution has been, his life story has been just as amazing. He has been present at many pivotal moments in musical history and has navigated myriad personal ups and downs, including serious substance abuse. Bobby Womack is a survivor. 

       A quick overview:  Growing up poor, though not destitute, he got in the music game early via the family gospel group with his brothers, overseen by his very religious musician father. The great Sam Cooke took the boys under his shortly after Sam had left gospel stardom for the secular music world and had become one of the biggest stars of the late Fifties/early Sixties. Sam was a mentor to Bobby both musically and business-wize, as Sam was a very forward-thinking, business-minded artist, one of the few at that time to control his own destiny in the business. Sam re-named the Womack Brothers group The Valentinos and began recording them for his own SAR label—scoring their first hit in 1962 with the Bobby’s original “Looking For A Love.”  When Sam was murdered in 1964, in a very Freudian move, Bobby, age 20, married Sam’s widow Barbara, who was at least ten years older; this made him a pariah in the African-American community. At some point, Bobby also became his step-daughter’s lover, which led to Barbara shooting him (though not fatally and they remained married for six more years). Meanwhile, this same step-daughter married Bobby’s brother.  In 1964 also, The Rolling Stones covered Bobby’s song “It’s All Over Now”, which became their third American hit. Much of the Sixties found Bobby writing or playing guitar on hit records by everyone from Aretha on down. How good a musician was he? Well, he wrote “Breezin’” which became one the biggest pop guitar hits of all time when George Benson recorded it.  His solo recording career started almost by accident in 1967 and he started having hits. Drugs became part of his life and he was the last person to see Janis Joplin alive, hanging out with her before her drug connection came by to give her the heroin that killed her. In the early Seventies he contributed to Sly & The Family Stone’s “There’s A Riot Going On” and was part of the scene hanging with Sly, Ike Turner and a wild cast at Sly’s house. Throughout the Seventies he scored hit after hit, sometime innovative versions of other people’s songs as well as his own compositions, often delivered with his lyrical, preaching style—soul classics such as “That’s The Way I Feel About Cha”, “I’m Through Trying To Prove My Love To You”, “Daylight”, “Across 110^th Street”, “Harry Hippie”(written for his murdered brother), and many more. He re-surged in the Eighties with The Poet trilogy of albums. By the late Eighties various demons, excesses and bad breaks had sent him into the wilderness. And all of this is only a limited summary of the amazing and daunting life of Bobby Womack. Check out  MIDNIGHT MOVER, his autobiography for more. And now he’s back with a new album simply called “The Bravest Man In The Universe.”

      I’d been hearing about the album for awhile. In fact I had seriously considered approaching him about doing an album. An artist I worked with for Shanachie, Calvin Richardson, had at my suggestion recorded a tribute album of Bobby Womack songs—and had done a great job at delivering his style. I arranged for a copy of the album to be sent to Bobby and one day called him to see what he thought of it. He felt Calvin had done the songs justice and seemed pleased. But in the business climate of  2009, it was hard for me  to see how the economics could work to make an offer to Bobby and also I was not sure what would be the right kind of album to make. It is always tricky recording legendary artists in their later years. If you take the route of doing it in a retro style, you run the risk of coming up with something that is just an lesser version of their prior greatness that appeals only to hard-core existing fans. If you try do a contemporary album with them, the likely result is an album that does not play to the artist’s strengths. The best way is to take an approach that is not strictly retro but yet has a feel and space that relates to the artist’s specialness. But that is easier said than done. I heard that rock artist Damon Albarn was going to be involved in producing a new album with Bobby. The word was that they were going to do something very contemporary, with no effort to recreate a classic R & B or soul style. So I was very curious to see how that would work out.

      “The Bravest Man In The Universe” starts with just  Bobby’s raw cry and strings…promising enough!  But then a really mechanical, moronic drum machine comes in that is completely at odds with the feel of Bobby’s vocal. Similarly, the second track finds Bobby’s soul-wrenching vocal undermined by a bassline that makes no sense in relation to the aching lyricism of the vocal; it only undermines it. Contradictory emotions surface: on the one hand, Bobby’s voice and phrasing clearly still have what it takes to put across a song. Though his voice may be more ragged and the upper range may not be there, Bobby Womack’s vocals were never defined by a pure tone or impressive range. On the other hand, the music seems to be working at cross-purposes with Bobby’s singing. It gets a little better with the third track, a gospel tune highlighting acoustic guitar and vocals; not a great but a great vibe. Five tracks in, “Whatever Happened To The Times” shows how things could work. The backing track sets a reflective mood, more textural than beat-oriented, and Bobby delivers and evocative song about a man reflecting on his life. On “Nothing Can Save Ya”, the Guinean singer Fatamatou Diawara puts an interestingly effective twist on a strong Womack composition, though it is not a true duet as Bobby’s role is limited. The album ends with an electro update of the gospel chestnut “Don’t Let Nobody Turn You ‘Around” enlivened by one of Bobby’s trademark monologues. It works ok.

      So to sum up, Bobby did his job on “The Bravest Man In The Universe”, both as singer and songwriter. With better production, this could have been a very good album, maybe not hitting the heights of Bobby Womack classics, but still good with a fresh twist.  Unfortunately, some songs have completely unmusical backing tracks; others have backing tracks that make sense within themselves but don’t work with Bobby’s melodies or singing. And you have a couple where things come together pretty nicely. But all in all, it is a missed opportunity. I read one interview in which Bobby said at times he didn’t really understand what they were doing. In more astute hands, this kind of approach could have worked. The good thing is that the album has gotten a lot of media attention, put Bobby Womack back in the public eye and hopefully that will lead to some opportunities for him. I’d say Bobby has a few more killer songs in him and Lord knows the world could use them right about now!

Highlife And Sweet Talks

GREAT AFRO SOUNDS FROM SWEET TALKS

        The term “highlife” conjures up many things. For someone in their sixties or seventies from Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone or Liberia, it may well inspire primarily nostalgia, because highlife music was THE West African popular music of the 40’s and 50’s, continuing on through the Sixties until its popularity began to fade in the 70’s, though there were still vibrant highlife scenes in Nigeria and Ghana into the 80’s The style has never really died out and I saw recently that a new generation of highlife artists is emerging in Eastern Nigeria.  Yet highlife  also was strongly associated with the colonial elite in West Africa and so for many it may carry unpleasant associations with a period best left behind.  But as a musical style, highlife has a complex and interesting history. Some say its genesis was more than a century ago; other say eighty years. I’ll go out on a limb and say it was the first truly African pop music to transcend borders, cultures and nationalities. Maybe it was simply the first African pop music. But the interesting thing is that it really was an amalgam of Western(American and European) elements, Carribbean elements, both Afro-Cuban (the clave rhythm was prominent) and Trinidadian and various West African traditional elements.  It is commonly thought the a key catalyst was arrival in West Africa of repatriated Africans—former slaves or descendents of slaves—from the Caribbean mainly but also the U.S.  And of course the colonial element is in play as the requirements of colonial authorities for marching or ceremonial brass bands and also colonial society for band entertainment certainly contributed to highlife’s development.  The other interesting thing is that the term “highlife” can refer to three distinct styles of music, which sound significantly different from one another, though clearly there are key elements in common. Probably the most prominent style was the “big band” highlife, which involved trap drums, multiple percussion , guitars, bass, and a full horn section that delivered not only ensemble parts but trumpet and saxophone solos that drew on jazz, as well as vocals. But there was also “guitar band” highlife, which involved usually small ensembles of guitars and multiple African percussion instruments—but not trap drums usually, with call and response vocals. And then there were brass bands in the villages that lacked the size and sophistication of the urban big bands. 

         I’ve never been a big fan of highlife in any of its manifestations, though I’ve always appreciated the musicianship and that uncanny highlife pulse which is easy-rolling, lilting,  and lyrical. It is the type of music you can dance to for hours in a hot climate and as such is quintessential popular African dance music. As a musician, when I performed with Bongos Ikwue & The Groovies in Nigeria, I found it challenging to play to the occasional highlife number Bongos threw into the mix, partly because although I had heard a little highlife in America, I had only passing familiarity with it and partly because I play keyboards which usually have no role in highlife ensembles. Getting that highlife feel was hard for me; I’m not sure  I ever really did.  As Bongos told me, “you can’t play it like rock!”  I found it difficult to lay back in the groove and hit the notes with sufficient restraint and lyricism. 

        Ghana is generally considered to be the capital of highlife, both because it is generally considered to have originated or at least first flowered there, but also because for at least three decades highlife was so dominant in Ghana’s popular music scene. The Ghanaian government, after Independence, had a policy of supporting indigenous music so musicians were subsidized, instruments were provided, music schools established, venues were sponsored. This certainly played a role in the flourishing highlife scene in Ghana. Nigeria had a very vibrant highlife scene, especially in Eastern Nigeria, but the country was so much bigger than Ghana and had a much more diverse musical palette that highlife never dominated in Nigeria to the extent it did in Ghana. 

        Among the many classic highlife bands who emerged in Ghana after the initial wave of popular bands such as E.T. Menah’s band, the Tempos, The Ramblers and others, were the Sweet Talks, one of the best and most popular of the “second wave” of highlife bands in Ghana. Their albums were first- rate and they scored many hits though I don’t know that they were ground-breaking. But one of their albums stood out from the rest—mainly because it was not a pure highlife album. Titled “The Kusum Beat”, it was a killer fusion of Highlife, funk and Afrobeat (no doubt absorbing the influence of that noted ex-highlife musician Fela, who was hitting his peak in the early Seventies with his Afrobeat and, it should be noted, Fela performed frequently in Ghana, which was like a second home to him –his mother had been an intimate of Nkrumah). Issued in 1974, “The Kusum Beat”, consists of four tracks that vary the funk/highlife/Afrobeat/folk ingredients in different ways but the results are not easily categorisable.  The overall sound reminds me very much of the countless bands I saw in Nigeria,  who were doing variations of this mix. Though not only featuring the strongest vocalists and not necessarily the best when it came to compositions, these bands nonetheless had relentless grooves, great for dancing of listening.  When I hear “The Kusum Beat”, I immediately think of sitting at a round metal table, sipping Heinekens, chatting with friends in an open air nightclub/bar in Nigeria, watching the dancers. This would go on from say 9:30PM to the early morning, when the heat of the day gave way to maybe not actual cool night air but at least comfortable warmth. There were hundreds of these bands across West Africa in the 70’s  Listening to “The Kusum Beat” reminds me of those times but also stands as one of the most enjoyable recordings of that sound in that era.