Date: 2009
Release: STRUT
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If the name sounds familiar, it may be because Astatke was heavily featured on the Ethiopiques album series (Volume IV is always on heavy rotation during the summer months here at musthear.com HQ). The third record in Strut’s “Inspiration Information” studio collaboration series features a pairing between one of Africa’s great bandleaders, Mulatu Astatke, with the British-based Heliocentrics collective.

Fortunately, this is one “old meets new” project that truly captures the sound of mutual respect. One of Ethiopia’s foremost musical ambassadors, Astatke (he was the first African student at Berklee College of Music) helped create a particular Ethio-jazz sound that flourished during the “Swinging Addis” era of the late ‘60s. No slouches themselves, The Heliocentrics have become one of the UK’s most prominent collectives of musicians, inspired by everyone from Sun Ra and James Brown to David Axelrod.

Here’s a digital promo of album via Strut’s site.

http://www.inspiration-information-3.com/

You can also download a free podcast featuring Astatke discussing the record here.

Players:

• Mulatu Astatke – Piano
• Malcolm Catto – Drums and Piano
• Jake Ferguson – bass and Thai guitar
• Mike Burnham – Modular Synth and Effects
• Jack Yglesias – Flutes, Percussion and Santur
• Adrian Owusu – Guitars, Oud, and Percussion
• James Arben – Clarinet, Tenor and Baritone Sax
• Ray Carless – Alto, Tenor and Baritone Sax
• Max Weissenfeldt – Vibes and Percussion

Date: July 1973 ( recording)
Release: Blue Thumb #BTS62
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Born and raised in the hell of South African apartheid, Hugh Masekela triumphed over oppression by wielding what Fela Kuti referred to as the weapon of the future–music. The young Masekela was first introduced to the trumpet (his future weapon) by anti-apartheid activist Father Trevor Huddleston. In a few short years, Masekela had developed into a raw but powerful player. Beginning in the mid-’50s, he was one of the most sought after musicians in all of Africa, partnering up with such luminaries as pianist Abdullah Ibrahim (aka Dollar Brand) and singer Miriam Makeba. Finding solidarity and a spirit of resistance in their music, Masekela and his contemporaries took inspiration from America’s more politically outspoken black artists, particularly Miles Davis and Paul Robeson.

American jazz was looked upon as a very high African art. We were living an urban life, and our only role models were African Americans, and their experiences as we understood them from films and records.

Irrepressibly talented, Masekela knew that no amount of foreign inspiration could help him to overcome the obstacles facing a black man in his native country. As his star rose, he strained against the shackles.

Our music was always a basic political threat. We were all relegated to a third class existence, but we excelled in music, and our talent was one thing they couldn’t take away. We were blocked a lot, by the white musicians’ union, and we hardly ever got paid, but it was all done out of love…When I was 19, I had already peaked in South Africa, but there wasn’t much to ‘peak up to’.

At the urging of Makeba and the sponsorship of Harry Belafonte, Masekela left his homeland and went into exile. He enrolled at the prestigious Manhattan School of Music in 1960, with Belafonte picking up the tab and buying him a new flugelhorn. For the sensational young African musician, New York opened up to him a whole new world of possibilities.

The excellence of people like Miles Davis and Clifford Brown and Lee Morgan, that could only be achieved in the States. And by the time I got my passport, Sharpeville and the uprising were in full flow, and I knew that with my temperament, I would have soon been killed, imprisoned or forced into exile anyway.

In New York of the early and mid-’60s, Masekela was celebrated and befriended by the giants of jazz, who were drawn to the unfiltered sounds of Mother Africa flowing through his trumpet. African-American musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie and Cannonball Adderley were busy incorporating African concepts into their music, while their young African protégé was struggling to develop the technical virtuosity needed to play American be-bop and hard-bop. As he polished up on his chops, Masekela’s playing began drifting away from its African roots. But no matter how hard he tried to keep up, Hugh was no Miles Davis. In his autobiography, Miles recall some sage advice he gave Masekela:

Every time I saw him I told him to just keep on doing his own thing rather than trying to play what we were playing over here. After a while I think he started listening to me, because his playing got better.

As the ’60s wore on, Masekela began to move with the times. He updated his image by playing trumpet on the Byrds hit “So You Want To Be A Rock & Roll Star” and performing at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. The next year he hit it big on his own with “Grazing In The Grass,” which went to #1 in both the pop and R&B charts. Riding on a waning wave of popular success, he returned home to Africa in 1970, joining Makeba for a tour of Guinea. It was there that he first met Nigerian Afrobeat king Fela Kuti and the Ghanian band Hedzoleh Soundz. Kuti was setting Africa (and soon the world) on fire with his James Brown influenced brand of Nigerian jazz-funk. Kuti’s large ensemble of musicians plunked down thick chunks of interlocking rhythms over which his saxophone (and his stable of female dancers) could endlessly groove. Like the pre-New York Masekela, Kuti’s playing was incredibly soulful but technically limited.

Having overcome his own technical limitations, Masekela brought to the table a certain level of musicianship that was previously missing from Afrobeat. He felt incredibly recharged being back in Africa, ready to reconquer the continent and take the music higher. Shedding his adopted American style, he plunged deep into the Afrobeat. He hooked up with the Hedzoleh Soundz, an extremely talented band known for blending the ancient rhythmic traditions of their native Ghana with American jazz and Latin music. For Masekela it was a perfect fit, and his playing never sounded more organic, reflecting the joy of finally being able to express every bit of his musical genius through his African soul. “I found a certain vitality in Afrobeat. Playing with the band (Hedzoleh Soundz) was like being on a big fat cloud. You couldn’t fall off.”

Recorded in Lagos, Nigeria in 1973, Introducing Hedzoleh Soundz represents the culmination of Masekela’s career-long efforts to fuse the improvisational drive of jazz with the ageless rhythms of Africa. No real equivalent of this record exists anywhere. It is one of the most perfectly realized excursions by a notable jazz musician into an authentic form of African music. And no other indigenous Afrobeat or Afro-jazz-funk album surpasses the musicianship and creative energy of this one. Masekela’s trumpet rides upon a roiling sea of African rhythms, awash with ideas and emotion. The music draws you in so completely that the need to flip the record feels like a rude awakening.

The hallmark of a great album is that it kicks off with an opening track so compelling that it forces all those within earshot to shut-up and listen. “Languta” not only accomplishes that, but actually overrides all voluntary muscle control, causing the listener to spontaneously break into dance. At the same time, a dumb, blissed-out smile spreads uncontrollably across the face as one is exposed to the volatile tribal rhythms of the Hedzoleh Soundz. A rash of goose bumps rolls across the skin in reaction to Masekela’s blistering trumpet runs and belted out African vocals. The mind struggles to steady itself against the fast swirling waves of echo-effected trumpet that brings this possessed song to its Afrodelic climax. Not likely to be confused with background music, this song heralds the record’s journey into the dark heart of the funk.

But with the darkness comes the light. Deeper into the album, “Nye Tamo Ame” dances like a tropical ray of sunshine upon the soul. You’d be hard pressed to find any music that feels this good. I don’t speak a word of Zulu or Ghanian, but I know in my heart that Masekela and the Hedzoleh Soundz are singing about something sweet, spreading a musical message of love that bridges the language barrier. Smile, this is not just music for the feet.

More exceptionally powerful songs follow, thick with bass and percussion, hypnotizing minds and shredding time to ribbons. Back where he started, Masekela revelled in the joy of making African music, forgetting the past ghetto pain, the obligatory displays of technical prowess, the commercial pressures–liberated in the exuberance of the moment. “Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow,” pronounced the P-Funk prophet George Clinton in 1970. That same year Hugh Masekela left Nixon’s America to embark on a spiritual homecoming, a soul expanding African journey that resulted in his Introducing Hedzoleh Soundz. Ahhhh…those were the days.

Date: 1972
Release: Impulse #9233 (lp)
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Living up to the promise of its title, Pharoah Sanders‘ Wisdom Through Music delivers just that. Although he made a name for himself as a fiercely expressionistic, almost anarchic tenor saxophonist in John Coltrane’s later bands, the music on this album is guided by gentler passions. More reflective of Pharoah’s Eastern-looking musical collaborations with Coltrane’s widow, Alice, Wisdom Through Music manages to soothe the soul without sacrificing any of the intensity that defined his earlier work as Trane’s apprentice. Much like his previous Impulse! LP, Black Unity, this 1972 offering finds Sanders and his group weaving together cosmic musical mood collages in front of which the occasional solo peaks out. What makes this record so unique is the strong emphasis on song over solo.

Pharoah sings out soulfully as members of the band join their voices together in an all male gospel chorus, creating an African-flavored call and response dynamic that lends weight to the album’s two message-songs, “Love Is Everywhere” and “Selflessness.” Throughout the record, chanting voices float over the music, calling to the spirits. The music shimmers ecstatically with the dancing bass lines of Cecil McBee, the Lonnie Liston Smith inspired piano stylings of Joe Bonner, the driving intensity of drummer Norman Connors, and the wall of African and Indian tribal rhythms provided by percussionists Mtume, Lawrence Killian and Babadal Roy. “High Life (Adaptation of Nigerian High Life)” opens the record with exuberant shouts of joy from Pharoah and the band. The song pushes strongly forward with rhythmic hints of the Carribean mixed in with a traditional African High Life celebration. Pharoah’s tenor belts out with barely contained enthusiasm, giving way to a densely percussive drum break in the middle of the song.

The title track, “Wisdom Through Music,” harks back to Pharoah’s work on Alice Coltrane’s Indo-Jazz masterpiece, Journey In Satchidinanda. “Golden Lamp” is as sensuously layered and entrancing as such Pharoah classics as “The Creator Has a Master Plan” or “Thembi.” The album closes with the generous beauty of “Selflessness,” an 11-minute epic which finds Pharoah finally letting loose, his tenor screaming out passionately until the record spins to its end. This album sounds so good, it’s no wonder that it remains out of print (as the saying goes, “Anything that feels this good MUST be illegal”).

Date: 1999
Release: COMET RECORDS 009
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The Funk goes native on this heavy back-to-Africa collection of rare Afro-grooves from around the globe. Ouelele is an eclectic mixture of African and African-derived music from 12 different artists who deliver some of the heaviest rhythms known to man. Nothing hits harder than the hardcore Afrobeat of Smahila & The S.B’s epic “African Movement,” a 19-minute Fela Kuti derived groove that keeps you spellbound with its endless energy. Soul-jazz meets South Africa in Letta M’Bulu’s swinging cover of Hugh Masekela’s “What’s Wrong With Groovin’.” All the intensity of free-jazz is channeled into the percussion heavy groove of Philip Cohran & The African Heritage Ensemble’s “Unity,” a tribal-funk jam built around a hypnotically droning violin line and a wall of drums.

Henri Guedon’s “Volcano” is a highly danceable obscurity that skillfully combines jazzy flutes and horns with raw Afro-Latin percussion and pure funk bass. Argentine native Fernando Gelbard opens up 1974′s “Alevacolariea” with an African-inspired chant sung over a lone hand drum, before kicking into a Fender Rhodes led vamp that blends the best elements of early Fusion with the soul of ancient Africa. Nigerian percussionist Ginger Johnson & His African Messengers deliver a truck-load of solid rhythmic uplift with “I Jool Omo,” a jazzy gem from their highly collectible 1967 lp, “African Party.” New York City-based Antibalas unleash a brand new and heavy Afrobeat classic, “World War IV,” an unadulterated blast of prime African funk in the tradition of “Black President” Fela Kuti.

The album closes with Batsumi’s exotic slice of South African jazz-mysticism, “Lishonile,” a 9-minute track swirling with impassioned flute and sax solos. Without a dull moment or weak track, Ouelele is definitely worth owning. And, if you find yourself Jonesing for more rare and obscure Afro-rhythms, check out Comet Records’ earlier collection, Racubah!

Date: 1998
Release: BUDA MUSIQUE #829642
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Musically trained in London and schooled in the club scene of mid-’60s New York, Mulatu Astatke stands as the exceptional musical innovator of the Ethiopian groove. Starting in 1969, he created the first bands independent of the military, which had previously dominated the country’s music scene. Having immersed himself in Caribbean music, funk, jazz and Latin grooves during his lengthy stint abroad, Mulatu returned to his native land to give rise to a brand new sound.

An album of instrumentals, Ethiopiques Volume 4 is a case study in the inventive blending of influences that comprised the Ethiopian groove. Strains of funk and reggae timings permeate the thick and chunky bass lines, which are pushed prominently forward in the mix. Multiple saxophones swirl with the hypnotic, snake-charming sounds of the East, while at the same time resonating with jazzy tones reminiscent of John Coltrane and Lester Young.

Guitar is a main ingredient here, growling with funky distorted wah-pedaled fuzz riffs that sound like they were lifted straight out of an early ’70s black-exploitation flick. Drums and percussion combine the punchy funk of James Brown and the Meters with the heavy Latin rhythms of Mongo Santamaria and Willie Bobo.

Fusing all of these elements together, Mulatu unleashes a potent brew of afro-jazz grooves that pull you in and leave you in a mystical trance-like state. Whew! Even when the record stops, these mood-inspiring sounds linger on like a drug. Get your head on right, light a candle, sit back, and you too will understand… Tropical in its roots, funky and intoxicating in its impact, Mulatu Astatke‘s distinct brand of Ethiopian music features some of the most soulful hip-grinding instrumentals ever recorded in Mother Africa.

Date: March, 1993
Release: CAROL 2335-2
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When Peter Gabriel started the Real World recording label in the late ’80s, he created an important new outlet for the distribution of the world’s foremost musical talents. At least, that was the idea. Like any other business venture, Real World has had its share of hits, but a lot of what comes out on their label is garbage, regardless of what continent the music hails from. Some discs, though, like this one by Kenyan musician Ayub Ogada, are absolute treasures.

Ogada plays the lyre-like Nyatiti, an instrument integral to the rituals and social customs of his Luo people. The music floats out hypnotically, inducing trance: plucked notes circle in soothing, drone repetitions, bathed in sleigh bells and some lightly rhythmic percussion. These are not the complex, pulse-accelerating rhythms of say, Afro-funkster Fela Kuti or Prince Nico Mbarga. Rather, this is an unhurried, playful music, perfect in its sparseness, that goes down easy.

Ogada’s mellifluous voice – part incantation, part invitation – anchors nearly every song, but is most beautiful on the slower tunes, such as “Kronkronhinko,” and “Obiero.” Check it out.

Date: 2001(release)
Release: Strut #013
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Today I went back to the Amoeba Music store in Hollywood and gushed my gratitude to Lance the clerk for strongly recommending that I pick up a copy of Nigeria 70: The Definitive Story of 1970s Funky Lagos. He smiled knowingly and gestured towards the sky: it just so happened that it was this very album that was blasting out from the speakers above. I gave him his props, then turned to survey the store. The African music section was thronged with the curious, ears ablaze, their eyes eagerly searching out the source of these throbbing grooves. The eternal music pusher, I handed a stranger this gem-packed two-disc anthology of funky Nigerian music from the 1970s, and pointed upwards. “Is THIS what they’re playing?” he asked excitedly, studying the eye-catching cover photo of an African funkster posing proudly in knee-high white platform boots. I nodded gravely. “Wow,” was all he could say. As I left the store, I noticed that only a few copies of Nigeria 70 remained on the shelves. Los Angeles record buyers are full of surprises.

Nigeria 70 appropriately kicks off with a track from the mighty Nigerian who gave Afrobeat its name, defined its sound, and brought it worldwide fame: Fela Kuti. For those already familiar with the shamanistic brew of this musical powerhouse, the remaining tracks on these two discs will offer a sonically stunning alternative to Fela’s distinct brand of Afrobeat. While hugely influential on his fellow countrymen (particularly in raising their political consciousness), his musical virtuosity remained unchallenged, as few imitators could afford to employ large ensembles of talented musicians, let alone play with that same black magic stirred up in Fela’s marathon improvised jams. But instead of trying to approximate Fela’s massive Afro-jazz-funk grooves, many of his musical contemporaries stepped out from under his shadow, imaginatively fusing a wide array of musical styles to the funky polyrhythms of the Nigerian Afrobeat.

From the rocking psychedelic guitar sounds of Blo‘s “Chant To Mother Earth” to the Islamic-flavored groove of Bala Miller & The Great Music Pirameeds of Afrika‘s “Ikon Allah” (not to mention Ofo & The Black Company’s thrilling combination of the two on”Allah Wakbarr”), Nigeria 70 samples the full spectrum of Afro-funk fusions to come out of Lagos. Loaded with rarities from Nigeria’s famous to its most obscure players, these two discs present a colorful and varied Afro-centric mix of jazz, rock, funk, blues, soul, reggae, disco, Muslim and indigenous influences.

But despite the impressive originality of many of the artists featured on Nigeria 70, it would be wrong to underestimate the influence that Fela had on the Nigerian scene. After all, it was Fela who successfully inserted biting social commentary into the groove, constructing a bullet-proof Afrobeat that transformed the Nigerian dancefloor into an arena for protest and movement in the face of successively repressive military dictatorships (Fela was imprisoned several times, a testament to the menacing power of his music).

Tony Allen, the drummer credited with pioneering the dauntingly complex Afrobeat technique, was one among many who internalized Fela’s lessons. In 1979, a year after ending his long tenure as Fela’s all-important drummer, he formed Tony Allen & His Afro Messengers, recording “No Discrimination,” one of several overt message-songs included in this collection. Incorporating elements of jazz scatting and guitar, “No Discrimination” is a horn-heavy and strongly Fela-flavored plea for peace and tolerance.

Similarly indebted to Fela is the Sahara All Stars Band Jos’s “Enjoy Yourself,” a philosophical, eight-minute, in-the-pocket jam. On the darker side of things, Fela’s misogynistic leanings are echoed in Bongos Ikwue‘s earthy folk-funk tune, “Woman Made The Devil.” Let there be no doubt, this song is an extremely guilty pleasure.

Exploding with extra-thick bass, heart-thumping percussion, blaring horns, slanky guitars, sweaty vocals, funky drummers, evolved influences and raw soul energy, Nigeria 70 might very well live up to its rather large claim of being the “definitive” collection. Whatever the case may be, this boxed-set makes for some incredibly great listening. Just ask anybody lucky enough to have been at Amoeba Music Hollywood on Saturday afternoon.

Date: January 16, 2001
Release: Ninja Tune #56
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Like America itself, Antibalas (Spanish for “Bulletproof” or “Anti-bullets”) is a vast and multi-ethnic superpower. This fourteen-plus musical collective is a tight union of Latinos, whites, Asian-Americans, African-Americans and Africans who all call New York their home. Their music moves like a burning spear launched from the heart of Mother Africa to skewer the Big Apple with its funk. Every Friday night Antibalas brutalizes grateful New York audiences with AFRICALIA, a ferocious concert series touted as “America’s only live Afro-beat party.” In every way, the group pays homage to their source of inspiration, the Black President, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. Their sound and message closely follow that of Fela, whose radical politics and electrifying Afro-beat shook world music and Nigerian politics until his death in 1997.

With missionary zeal, Antibalas play their asses off, doing everything they can on Liberation Afro Beat Volume 1 to draw the people into Fela’s African-born movement of political funksters. Their music sustains the blueprint Fela laid down, with lots of drums and percussion breaks, thick bass lines, funky rhythm guitar, throbbing Hammond organ, and catchy horn riffs, all interlocking in hypnotic polyrhythms.

While Fela lives on as the holy ghost hovering over their music, the spirits of other great ancestors also make their heavy presence felt. The deep funk energy of the JBs and Tower Of Power unmistakably permeate the grooves all over this record. Antibalas is able to project the mighty sounds of their musical elders by employing a vast arsenal of hard hitting horns and drums.

Despite their numbers, this big band of dedicated musicians are tightly integrated by conductor Martin C-Perna Antibalas, creating one powerful Afro Beat Orchestra that demonstrates why music is the weapon of the future. Like an insurrectionary force whose moment of truth has arrived, Antibalas is moving out of the shadows and into the light. Get ready to move.

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