The Great East African Trip

Keeping the ‘motoring’ theme going tonight’s post is a very nice 2 disc compilation of contemporary East African pop music, called The Great East African Trip.  A few familiar names (Samba Mapangala, Les Mangalepa, Super Mazembe) rub shoulders with rappers from Rwanda and jazzy popsters from Dar es Salaam. All in all a couple hours of highly enjoyable and diverse music from the Eastern part of Africa.

Its been a  heavy day, so I’ll leave it at that and hope you enjoy.

            Track Listing: (Disc 1)

            01 Vunja Mifupa (Samba Mapangala)

02 Dada Huyu (Ally Choy and Muhidin Nguru)

03 Nabimaka Te! (Katele, Alley, Super Mazembe)

04 Karola (Remmy Ongala)

05 Speed Controller (Afrigo Band)

06 Marashi Ya Pemba (Ndala Kasheba and International Orchestra Safari Sound)

07 Karubandika (Kasalo Kyanga and Orchestra Marquiz)

08 Nyako Konya (Badi Banga wa Tshilumba and Les Mangalepa)

09 Jesca (Said Kibriti and Msonda Ngoma)

10 Tupe Nafasi (Blondine Eya Mchama and Uwimana and J.C. Matata)

11 Georgina (Marijani Rajab and Safari Trippers)

Listen here.

Track Listing: (Disc 2)

01 Kitobero (Said Karoli feat. Benjamin)

02 Umenikosea (kidum)

03 Anyina (Ambassada)

04 Kanimba (Liar)(Kawesa)

05 Sina Makosa (Cool James)

06 Tofo Wangu (Achieng Abura)

07 Mini Na Wewe (Stara Thomas)

08 Joka (Eric Wainaina)

09 Jefwasokella (Priscilla and Qute Kaye)

10 Apako Nyingi (Joseph Hellon)

11 Fire Anthem (East Africa Bashment Crew)

12 Ono Ye Mwana (Angela Kalule)

13 Deburuyevu (J.C. Matata)

14 Mini Na Wewe (Ngoni)

15 Arnalwa (Kayamba Afrika)

Listen here.

Favorites of the Taxi Driver: Kampala Deluxe

Several years ago I visited Kampala, Uganda for business. On the last day I grabbed a taxi and asked the driver to take me to a place where I could buy some good music. “Stuff that you like,” I said.

A few minutes later he pulled up to an open-fronted shop on a crowded thoroughfare from which dust clouds puffed up with each passing vehicle. Inside the shop was a bank of soiled PCs that looked  as if they had been donated by a bankrupt internet café.

The taxi driver introduced me to the proprietor and explained that he was to put together a CD of ‘good music’.  Twenty minutes later, after the shop owner consulted several databases and copied, at lightening speed, a bunch of tracks and inserted then pulled out an old flash drive from one computer to the  other, he handed me a CD with these tracks on it.

I hope you enjoy this slice of (not exactly current) soukous as enjoyed by Ugandan taxi drivers.

            Track Listing:

             

            01 Kasongo (Super Mazembe)

02 Zing Zong (Kanda Bongo Man)

03 Boye Ye (Mbilia Bel)

04 R.D.C. (Wenge Titanic)

05 Inch' Allah (Koffie Olomide)

06 Abuse de Confiance (Lingala Ssali)

07 Wenze Wenze (Sam Mangwana)

08 Ekibis (Luciano Mobulu)

09 Vunia Mifupa (Samba Mapangala)

10 Monice Bussiness (Madilu)

11 Bonheur Plus (Madilu)

12 I Love You (JB M'Piana)

13 Compteura a Zero (Reddy Amisi)

14 Beau Souvenir (Madilu System)

15 Pon Moun Paka Bouge (Pepe Kalle)

Listen here.

Music in the Time of Terror: Ethio Stars and Tukul Band

A few nights ago I showcased the music of The Skatalites who started out playing in the hotels of Kingston in the early 1960s.  Their influence was profound and wide spread impacting musicians far beyond the shores of their native Jamaica, reaching even to the high plain of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Tonight’s post features the music of another large band that played the hotel circuit, the Ethio Stars.

Ethiopia in the late 1970s was not a happy place. A Communist led coup had toppled the world’s oldest monarchy and the much revered Emperor and Lion of Judah (according to his Jamaican Rastafarian followers), Haile Selassie.  By 1977 the military junta (Derg) was in the midst of an internal power struggle.  In a speech that year the nominal head of the Derg, Col. Haile Mariam Mengistu rattled his colleagues and rivals by producing three bottles filled with red liquid.  “Death to counter revolutionaries,” he cried and then threw down the bottles of blood to leave no one in doubt about what was to transpire.

Over the next 18 months political assassination and outright murder in the streets dominated the country. Cameras, typewriters and mimeograph machines were declared contraband. The Red Terror touched every neighbourhood and family sending shockwaves throughout the country.  Thousands were imprisoned as Mengistu strangled not only all opposition but any independent artistic expression.

The Derg regime fell in 1991. In 1992 I met and interviewed hundreds of refugees from Ethiopia who had lived through the Red Terror. The stories they told were horrific. The level and variety of deprivation and torture they had endured was hard to fathom. I had never encountered such a strong sense of violation and humiliation in a group before. As I listened to their stories late into the night I found it hard to follow the political narrative they shared. So many abbreviations for so many liberation fronts and so many factions in the Derg. I found it impossible to keep hold of the story’s string.

After a few days it dawned on me that the circuitous tales I was hearing were accurate reflections of the lives of the men and women who were telling them.  The average urban Ethiopian had had to develop a keen sense of telling which way the wind was blowing to survive. Loyalties had to switch off and on if one had aspirations to get a job or finish university.  And to prove loyalty or to secure the patronage betrayals had to be made. Personal ethics had to be put to one side.  I have felt a deep sadness for those men and women ever since for their having been sucked into a system that demanded they betray themselves and their friends and beliefs just to live.

Which makes the case of the Ethio Stars interesting. I in no way want to suggest that the members of the band (and others like it) were co-opted by the Derg.  They were undoubtedly musicians trying to keep their passion and vision alive, even in the darkest days. And they deserve the deepest respect for doing so. Yet to play in hotels in Addis, to have access to recording studios and musical instruments at a time when the everything was controlled by and in service to the State, must have required some painful cowtowing and uncomfortable compromising from the band. That they (may) have done so and yet produced such fine and genuine music is a tremendous tribute to them.

Ethiopian music has become a minor rage in the past several years and rightly so. It is well informed and sophisticated, drawing on deep indigenous cultural streams. The country has produced a large number of truly amazing highly accomplished jazz-oriented musicians.  The record, which actually features two bands, The Ethio Stars and The Tukul Band, is a strong example of such streams. The Ethio Stars play a more complex jazz and reggae (those clever Skatalites!) sound with lovely soloing on the trumpet and saxophone.  The Tukul Band’s sound is more rustic and seems to have stronger folk and traditional roots.  Altogether a nice window into music making in a time that was hell.

            Track Listing:

            Ethio Stars

            01 Tiz Balegn Gize

02 Eshet Eshet

03 Yetentu Tez Alew

04 Kermosew

05 Yekereme Fikir

06 Aderech Arada, Befikir - Menged Lay Woodike

Tukul Band

07 Bugalu

08 Akale Woube

09 Konso Music

10 Sound Of Washint & Masinko

11 Wallel Beli

Listen here.

The Secret Life of a Nurse: Alberta Hunter

Alberta Hunter

Let’s start the New Year with an old favourite, Amtrak Blues.

Like most people of my generation this record was my introduction to Alberta Hunter. A friend pulled it out one day with a cheeky grin. I stared at the cover and sighed inwardly, “Oh brother!”  An aged black woman singing the blues was not my cup of tea in the high noon of Dire Straits and The Boss. But I’m a nice guy so I smiled and offered a bit of false enthusiasm.

They talk about Damascus Road experiences, when one minute you are blind and the next you can see the glory. Well, Amtrak Blues was one of those experiences.  From the moment I heard the tinkling ivories of the Darktown Strutters Ball and Alberta’s sassy voice I was speechless.  The music was old timey but very contemporary.  It swung as loosely as it did in the Roaring 20s but grabbed your attention with modern production and a deep driving bass rhythm.  “Who is this woman?” I asked my friend. 

“Alberta Hunter. She’s over 80 years old.”

By this time she was singing one of my favourite blues songs, Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out.  I was brought up listening to a white folk trio’s version of it. But that day Alberta sang it, I finally got the full agony, bitterness and desperation of the thing.

Alberta Hunter came to Chicago about a hundred years ago from Memphis. She sang in sleazy, violent clubs and Speakeasys before moving to New York to be closer to the big time.  She found her way on to stage and cabaret and was soon singing in some early American jazz bands.  During and right after WWI she found herself in Europe singing in musicals with Paul Robeson or singing on records with some equally grand names of jazz.  Throughout the 20s, 30s and 40s she was much in demand especially as a live performer. Audiences loved her bawdy sassy ‘damn-I’m-good’ attitude. And she always attracted top notch musicians to share the stage.

In the mid 50s she pulled a very modern trick. She changed careers. Left the footlights and glamour to become a nurse! For the next twenty years she served the sick and frail in a New York hospital, without once letting her colleagues or bosses know who she was or the life she’d led.

In the late 70s John Hammond, discoverer of Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Billy Holliday (among others) heard her singing in a club and enticed Alberta back into the studio. The result was two wonderful albums of a Lioness in Winter. Her voice had changed, become deeper, but her attitude was as cheeky as ever. Her eyes still sparkled. Her laughter was still outrageous.  Amtrak Blues was the first of those two albums.

This record broke down some invisible wall in my head. Suddenly I was willing to explore whole new vistas of jazz, blues, swing and old timey music. You could say it was this old forgotten black woman who got my musical ass in gear.

Thank you, Alberta, it’s been an incredible journey.

            Track Listing:

            01 The Darktown Strutters' Ball

02 Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out

03 I'm Having A Good Time

04 Always

05 My Handy Man Ain't Handy No More

06 Amtrak Blues

07 Old Fashioned Love

08 Sweet Georgia Brown

09 A Good Man Is Hard To Find

10 I've Got A Mind To Ramble

Listen here