Montag, 27. Dezember 2010

Fellows - Brigitte 85


Hi, friends, I wish you a happy, peaceful new year 2011! For your party I've choosen a cassette from 1985 Rwanda, from a time, when it was possible to have a good time even in Rwanda.

For me this tape was the most danceable, the most Kinshasa oriented output in Rwanda at all. Even the name of the band indicated that they did not want to be a local band. "Brigitte" and "Bonne année" are real smash hits.

Enjoy!

At the years end we should make a resumé:
I've posted 25 entries (enough?).
What you liked most was:
::Visits::
5. OK Jazz - Loboko
4. Orch. Lipua Lipua - Editions Vévé
3. Omar Pene - Navetanes
2. Zao - Ancien Combattant
1. Orchestre Impala - Vol. 1
::DLs::
5. Sam Mangwana - Affaire Disco
4. Orchestre Impala - Vol. 1
3. Bantous Jazz - Les Merveilles du Passé
2. Zao - Ancien Combattant
1. Orchestre Lipua Lipua



Some fireworks near Goma. Nyamulagira in August 1986.

Dienstag, 21. Dezember 2010

Robert Wyatt with The Swapo Singers: The Wind of Change (12")


As I've promised earlier today I would like to share "The Wind of Change", a song from the "SWAPO Freedom Songs" LP, here with Robert Wyatt and produced by Jerry Dammers! It was Dammers' next step on African matters after "Nelson Mandela" and "Starvation". The horn section is by Dick Cuthell on flugelhorn/trumpet and Annie Whitehead on trombone. Annie replaced Rico on several occasions in the UK post-2Tone scene. And she's done well.
Enjoy!

The Swapo Singers - SWAPO Freedom Songs


The 1980s were the time, when the countries of southern Africa were fighting for freedom. In Namibia SWAPO organised not only this struggle but also a lot of support in Europe. One document was this LP here which led to a very pop(ular) version of a song called "Wind of Change" (I will share next).
I hope you will enjoy these songs.

Mittwoch, 8. Dezember 2010

Nicolas Menheim - Néné Chérie


Coming back to late 1990s Senegal, where Nicolas Menheim served with a strong salsa sound. He was around 1990 founding member of Africando and recorded in the late 1990s material with his own group, The Super Sabador, for two local tapes, Néné Chérie and Commandante Ché Guevara, the second one gave title to a CD reissue of these recordings on Günther Gretz' Popular African Music label which is eventually still available at Stern's.

I love the trombone sound by Wilfred Zissou. Enjoy!

Once The Beat wrote on the CD: "The standard of the music throughout this release is outstanding: This has some of the best Sengalese salsa we have heard, with strong songs beautifully sung. The horn section of Théophile Preira, Malick Barry on trumpets and Wilfred Zissou on trombone is outstanding and there is some really nice guitar from Mamadou Diack. Nicolas' honeyed vocals float majestically over the proceedings. Le Super Sabador is unique in Senegal in having a female vocalist, the magnificent Maguette Dione, described as the Senegalese Celia Cruz. She provides lead on "A Puerto Rico" and probably the best track on this release, the classic Labah Sosseh track "El Divorcio." Maguette really does have an incredible voice: I look forward to hearing more of her in the future."

Freitag, 3. Dezember 2010

Orchestre T.P. OK Jazz - Loboko


Let's welcome back our friends over at Franco Restored here with a Franco composition from 1979, released on Populaires EP 102. It's one out of six singles which exosed me for the very first time with Congolese music; another one by Nguashi N'Timbo I shared some weeks ago.
Enjoy Franco with some cracks! This single was already played a lot of times in Goma near Lake Kivu.

Freitag, 26. November 2010

Soweto (Zensor 05)


This early compilation of South African jive was Burkhard Seiler's answer to Malcolm Mc Laren who used songs from South Africa to release them as his own with Bow Wow Wow and on his LP "Duck Rock".
This LP exposed the real stuff to European ears. It was already offered by Snap Crackle and Pop early in 2009. I decided to bring it once again, here at 320 kbits and with complete cover and label scans. Track details at Discogs or on the back sleeve.

Enjoy!

Dienstag, 23. November 2010

Orchestre Lipua-Lipua - Editions Vévé (African 360.063)


Tonight I can share this LP on the African label from 1974. I don't know anything about Orchestre Lipua-Lipua.
By the way, it's wonderful sweet music. Moos at Global Groove already shared some music by this orchestra.

The tracks are:
1. Mombasa 1 and 2
2. Fuga Fuga 1 and 2
3. Niki Bue 1 and 2
4. Lossa 1 and 2

Listen!

Montag, 22. November 2010

Kalambya Sisters - Katelina (Zensor 12")


Back in 1982/1983 Berlin's Burkhard Seiler released two records with African Music on his Zensor label. We loved to visit him in his small shop on Grossbeerenstraße, where he sold Punk, Industrial, strange noises, Dub and Abba.

As I was already infected by African music I discovered the Kalambya Sisters as release no. 07 on his label.

When I tried to buy this music in Nairobi in 1986 nobody was able to tell me about the group.

It was Doug Paterson who gave me the following information in 2004: "They were two, sometimes three, women singers who worked with the Kalambya Boys Band.  I remember one Mary Nduku, another was Florence. In 1989, I did a CD compilation that includes a different song from the Kalambya Sisters (The Nairobi Beat, Rounder Records 5030). They come from the Kamba speaking area of Kenya to the east of Nairobi. The group broke up in the late 80s or early 90s. Katelina was a big hit so had you asked at the time it was popular in Kenya, most people would have known about them. I saw them perform several times. These days, this style "benga" music is not as well known in Kenya and it's more localized among the people speaking the language of the music."

Enjoy!

Another single can be found over at Musik City.

Mittwoch, 17. November 2010

Defunkt - The Razor's Edge (12")


Today it's something different: my computer crashed and I don't know when I will be able to make new rips of African music. So let's take a tour around the world. This one was recorded in NYC, produced by Joe Boyd, released on Boyd's Hannibal Records, with a cover by Neville Brody and fantastic music by Joe, Lester and Byron Bowie. It's Defunkt! Enjoy!

Donnerstag, 11. November 2010

Lloyd Daley - It's Shuffle 'n Ska Time


Some days back I offered you "Shimmy and Twist" by Neville Esson, one of Lloyd Daley's early productions of Jamaican pre-ska R'n'B. Followers of this kind of blog don't like to download single tracks?! Do they want more?

Lloyd Daley was producing on a comparable level as Duke Reid or C.S. Dodd did, but he seemed not to be at the same type concerning the raw sides of the business. While he continued to produce good music until the 1970s he always released less material than his colleagues.

During the 1990s the Dutch label "Jamaican Gold" released a number of CDs with Daleys material together with extensive liner notes. The label seems to be out of action since several years. My favorite, Rico Rodriguez, played the trombone on four tracks (at least): Along "Shimmy & Twist", it's Neville Esson's "Miss Ann", as well as The Matador All Stars feat. Roland Alphonso with "Bridgeview Shuffle" and The Matador All Stars feat. Rico Rodriguez with "Continental Shuffle".

It's Shuffle 'N' Ska Time With Lloy "The Matador" Daley. Enjoy all 14 tracks!

Montag, 8. November 2010

Zao - Ancien Combattant (1984)


This collection by Kasimir Zoba, called Zao, is a great one. Ancien Combattant was a big hit among the volonteers and their local counterparts in 1980s Rwanda. There it was distributed on blank tapes. Frank Bessem has collected some information on Zao (here).
Enjoy!



Coffee collection near Goma, 1986.

Freitag, 5. November 2010

Orchestre Impala - Vol. 1


Here is the first Impala tape which was released in Rwanda by Uwimana Jean with 10 tracks and 60 minutes. I can't say which year it was recorded and released.
I hope you enjoy!


Potters on a market in Rwanda, 1985

Dienstag, 2. November 2010

Dorothy Masuka - Pata-Pata


I've seen over at Electric Jive that there is someone wishing Dorothy Masuka's 1991 LP Pata-Pata.
The record seems to be orphaned. Here it is. Enjoy!

Montag, 1. November 2010

Dandy Livingston - Rudy A Message To You


GG just posted The Specials. I hope that we all have this LP, don't we? The record opened my ears for music again. Even if it's long ago, I still love them and the things that followed under the banner of 2Tone. And as you may know from earlier posts, I made aquaintance with Rico Rodriguez via The Specials: already the first track on their LP was Rudy, A Message To You! What a song! It was written and recorded by Dandy Livingston (b. Robert Thompson, 1943 in Jamaica) with Rico on trombone in 1967, re-recorded by Rico in 1970(for the b-side of a Laurel Aitken single) and appeared finally as a great Specials single.
I want to share with you the 1980 re-issue of Dandy Livingston's single which was a bit remixed by Clem Bushay of whom I know nothing.
The ugly cover for this single I must share with you - it's Trojan at its best, isn't it?

Donnerstag, 28. Oktober 2010

Sam Fan Thomas – Makassi


When I’ve been working in Rwanda, only some African music was distributed over there; it was on tapes, on a series that started in the early 1980s, called “African Hits”. Volume 4, called "Success 1985" brought the two hits by Sam Fan Thomas, African Typic Collection and Sabina, to my ears, and I remember everyone dancing to this music.
Both were originally released by Sam Fan Thomas on his international debut, Makassi, produced in Paris in 1984.
More on Sam Fan Thomas over at Makossa Original.
I hope you will enjoy!

Montag, 25. Oktober 2010

Alioune Mbaye Nder - Aladji


Aladji is Nder's tape from 1998. he started singing in 1991 with Lemzo Diamono, but left the group in 1995 to start with his own project, Le Setsima Group. Enjoy!
Tracks:
1. Serigne Mansour
2. Aladji
3. Nguëam
4. Thiaat
5. Tivaouane
6. Drogue
For more information see his discography at Toshira Endo's page and Wikipedia.

Mittwoch, 20. Oktober 2010

Manu Matabaro - Umwana w’umunyarwanda


Rwandan singer/songwriterManu Matbaro aka E. Sekimonyo with a little cassette here from the 1980s, accompanied by Inono Stars.
Tracks: Face A: 1. Umwana w’umuyarwanda / 2. Ururabo / 3. Icyo nkundira mu kinyaga // Face B: Umwana utagira iyo ajya / 2. Amatage / 3. Imbabazi bambe. Enjoy!


Girls in Rwanda, 1979

Freitag, 15. Oktober 2010

Pape Fall - Doomou Ndeye



Pape Fall, born 1947, is one of the well known salseros from Senegal who earned a little interenational reputation during the late 1990s when he featured high on Earthworks' compilation "African Salsa". Here we present his second K7, Doumou Ndeye, who's tracks made on the afore mentioned CD. More on Pape Fall at The Leopard Man's site and Jama Rico wikia. Enjoy!



In St. Louis, 1990s.

Donnerstag, 14. Oktober 2010

Happy Birthday Rico | Neville Esson - Continental Shuffle


Yeah, today is Rico's birthday and we wish him all the best, health, good luck, lots of friends and, and and ... for another 50 years.

Listen to Shimmy & Twist from 1960, 50 years old but still fresh.

Rico, born 1934, is son of Cuban-Jamaican parents. He was raised in Kingston and attended the famous Alpha Boys School. He recorded since the late 1950s with all important Jamaican producers. This one was recorded for Lloyd Daley and was originally released on blank label with Neville Esson as featured artist. Is was reissued in 1994 on a CD called It's Shuffle'n Ska Time with Lloyd "The Matador" Daley on Jamiacan Gold. If you're interested in the whole CD, please let me know. It's actually not available.

Soon there will be more music from Africa on this blog site.

Montag, 11. Oktober 2010

Sam Mangwana - Affaire Disco


Today I would like to share a well known artist with many well know songs. Many of Sam Mangwana's LPs have been reissued via the blog-sphere; this one - I think - is not jet distributed here. I bought my copy around 1984, and as I made a K7 copy the LP remained almost untouched for years.
"Affaire Disco" is a kind of song, that enters your ears and will stay there for long. And when I've been driving in Africa, listening him singing "Ojeh, Africa" I heard all the misery and all the fun of this beloved continent at the same time.
The LP was recorded in Paris with Syran, Pablo and Bopol. Enjoy!
The picure below is from Nairobi, ca. 1986/87.

Samstag, 9. Oktober 2010

Nguashi N'timbo - Manguta


Manguta was for me the first step towards African music. In summer of 1980 I spent four weeks in Rwanda preparing a fund raising program for a youth project in Gisenyi. There was my friend Emmanuel within our group as an interpreter; one afternoon he said that he will go over to Goma to find some recorded music, and he asked me if I would also be interested. Of cource, I was! When he returned, his collection was small, some ten or twelve 7inch records we shared on the spot. Only: I didn't know anything - no names, no music.

Back home (in Berlin at the time) I cleaned the music an listened. Wow! That was something - great. And the undisputed hit for me was this song "Manguta" whom I really love since that time. (The other singles I hope to share in future.)

Without internet I couldn't get any information about the person behind this name N'timbo. Even years later there was nothing to find. Today it's better; but still no serious biography. We don't know when he's born, if he's stll among us ... I really want to make an interview with Nguashi N'timbo. If you know more, please leave me a note.

Ok, what I know from various sources on the web you can find here at the Jama Rico Wiki.

Recently the friends over at Franco et le TP OK Jazz Restored presented N'timbo's LP Manguta. I decides to put the LP again up as well as the single. In a comment overthere someone mentioned that the versions on single and LP are different. I'm not shure. I also added bigger cover scans.

Interesting is that the LP was made and released in Abidjan, not in Zaire.

Here is Manguta on 7", and here is the LP. Enjoy!

Dienstag, 5. Oktober 2010

Bantous Jazz - Les Merveilles du Passé (1962-1964) (Vol. 1)


Just a short post with music from the early 1960s Congo. Released in 1985 this LP on the African label was waiting for me in - Paris, where else. I hope that this volume with cat.-no. 360.146 has not jet been presented in the blogosphere; a summary (to be continued) of blog reissues for this label you can find here.
The tracks are:
  1. Gary Mobali Ya Tembe
  2. Watchi Wara
  3. Oiga Mambo
  4. Boka Ya Ngele
  5. Kumbele Kumbele
  6. Osengi Lisusus Pardon?
  7. Angele Na Mouyondzi
  8. Okei Liboso Tala Sima
  9. Ezali Na Bato Banso
  10. Bolingo Botioli
You can hear wonderful relaxed songs from bandmembers Kouka Célestin, Nino Malapet, Jojo, Casino and Papa Noel as well as their version of "Watchi Wara". Enjoy!

This picture of banana traders was taken in former Zaire near Goma in 1986.

Mittwoch, 29. September 2010

Omar Pène - Navetanes


Recently Nauma shared with us a newer record by Omar Pene, Aduna offered earlier this year a tape from the 1980s. Now I would add something from the late 1990s. It was a time when I made several voyages to Dakar and Thiès and where I bought at least some tapes. Let's start with Navetanes.


Omar Pene made and still makes great music. And he is my age group! He could have birthday the same day. But I don't know exactly his date. Wonderful imagination, strange idea. So please enjoy!

O.k., I have a technical question. My tapedeck is not of best quality and most tapes are extremely overmodulated while I can't help the problem. Do you hear it? Please give me a feedback.

To Oro: thank you for your good wishes. A long life - I don't know, my ressources are not comparable with yours or those of some other friends here. I'll go slowly and try to go step by step.

Samstag, 25. September 2010

Rico Rodriguez - Dial Africa


You wanted to know how I found the name for this blog? No? O.k. I tell you anyway:
"I've heard Rico twice in my life in concert. That was in 1981 with the Specials at the Metropol Theatre on Nollendorfplatz in Berlin. (The second time was in Freiburg in Nov. 2004.) What I've heard in 1981 changed my life - it revived my musical interest. This music hit my soul while I ignored "pop music" completely since several years. After buying and hearing all the 2Tone stuff, Rico's involvement led me to search for Man From Wareika and subsequently for other related music. What I found was wonderful, not only Bob Marley but digging deeper I found The Congo's Heart Of The Congos (and it's follow-up Face The Music) and other Lee Perry productions; I discovered Linton Kwesi Johnson who's Bass Culture was another eye-opener. The music guided me further in two directions: to Jamaica's musical history (finding the Skatalites and lots of original ska as well as pre-ska music) and to Africa (finding a new musical continent and my place to work as a volunteer for several years in the 1980s).
Never stopping to look where to find Rico's credits on a record - hungry for his wonderful horn lines -. But since ca. 1983 and after my return from Afrika there was nothing more. What happened? The music press didn't say a word ... It was early in the new decade when he seemed to be back to life. Good to know.
So far my personal remarks.
Rico's music transcends something important, an almost spiritual feeling that has never lost its roots in life's reality. The foundation was laid already in the 1950s when he had to realise his poverty, when he had to play for food with the fishermen on the beach near Kingston. In Rico's words: "Because you were poor and had to eat, you stay down where the fishermen draw their nets, so you'd have food every day. Fishermen always give you fish, they like to hear you playing." (from an interview in 1973, quoted by Cane-Honeysett, 1995)
At the same time he made his first experience with Count Ossie's Rasta community at Wareika Hills. Rico says: "They're more developed, mentally and musically, than the average musician. When you play with them you can really explore. Most of what I know I learned from playing with them." (Williams, 1981)
This rasta experience - the playing of the burru drums - gave Rico his link to the African roots, "his heavy African vibe" and one of his musical roots that had to be searched for by other black American musicians by going back to Africa personally like Don Cherry who once asked Rico: "How can you play like that ... To play like you I had to go to Africa to learn." (quoted by Hanafusa, 1998) or like his great collegue of the early Jamaican ska years, Ernest Ranglin, who went In Search of The Lost Riddim finally 1997 to Senegal.
On the other side, Rico was classically educated at school and the interest of the young musicians during those early days of popular Jamaican music was jazz. So was Rico's and he remained linked to this music: giving many references during his recording career, from "Take Five" to "Red Top" to Jazz Jamaica - leading to a whole musical direction with the renaissance of the Skatalites in the 1990s, various ska-jazz-groups (e.g. Jazz Jamaica and New York Ska-Jazz-Ensemble) and not at least to an Island Records label called Island Jamaica Jazz with releases by the great names Ernest Ranglin, Dean Fraser ("It make me feel good to know seh well a younger man, from the same school like myself, is so excellent that you don't have no man fe better than him. No man better than him, he a de best ..." Rico on Fraser), Monty Alexander and - again - by the Skatalites.
Jazz kept Rico open minded. Musically open for new developments and for experiments he was able to realise or to participate in during the 1990s when he was no more depending on earning his living by doing other things than music. So - if Rico will be able to continue making music - he is now beyond 70 - it will surely be good music.
Enjoy the music, enjoy yourself. "
These lines I've written between 1999 and 2004 to introduce myself on a website dediceted to Rico's music which I compiled and developed over 10 years. Then GeoCities was closed down and I started the same project but with much less time and not only concentrated on Rico over at Wikia (biography, discography etc.). I also transfered the discography to the English Wikipedia and a German translation of his biography to the German language Wikipedia.
But now you may listen to Dial Africa, live. Enjoy!

Freitag, 24. September 2010

Orchestre Impala - Présentation



All those phantastic blogs on good and African music were motivation enough to start another one in the same vain. Lost or nearly lost sounds from different places I've come across over the years.
I'd like to start with some music from 1980s Rwanda (with more to follow), where I've been working in those times. This wonderful country with it's tragic history was never a musical powerhouse. There was no record industry, only a few tapes were produced. The best known orchestra in those times was Orchestre Impala (de Kigali) who released ca. 10 tapes; a late compilation from ca. 1988 I would like to share today.

Rwanda in those days was a very poor country. Rwanda was not jet controlling the eastern parts of Congo, then Zaire, was not exporting valuable raw materials but some coffee and tea. Electricity was available only in the towns; the biggest, the capital Kigali was not more than big village, no city at all.
The music is mostly slow, controlled, nothing goes wild ... And there is a kinyarwanda version of the Bellamy Brothers' song 'Let Your Love Flow" - funny.