| LES BELGICAINS
NA TANGO YA COVADIA 1964-70 (Covadia)
The compiler of this great new collection has stirred up a controversy with the title! The "Belgicains" were educated Congolese who went to Belgium to study after Independence. However, the suggestion that they wanted to be more white/European is absurd: they simply wanted a better education which had been denied them under colonial rule. This was before the wave of American-ness that caused young blacks in Kinshasa to start bleaching their skin, which occurred in the late 60s. At the same time the Black Power movement was getting started in the USA, when American blacks began growing out their afros and wearing dashikis and African fabrics to reassert their black identity. What is important, from our point of view, is the music which is fantastic and beautifully recorded. There are instruments like timbales you don't normally hear in Congolese music of the era and sophisticated sax solos (both of which appear on the opener "Mwana nsana" by Ebuka Ebuka); otherwise the melodies, guitar stylings and rhythms are recognisable rumba and pachanga. The Covadia name is oddly familiar too: we find out it was a later project of Nikiforos Cavvadias, who ran the Ngoma label in Congo. The mid-60s were a transformative time in Congo, now renamed Zaire by Mobutu, and it was a tough place for whites to succeed in business, despite Ngoma's long history of nurturing and promoting indigenous music. Moving to Belgium, Cavvadias used his old contacts with Decca and Fonior to record and start a new label and issued 30 singles, the cream of which are gathered here. Europe was catching up to Latin rhythms and the Yéyé was big in the Francophone countries, thus Jean-Pierre Nimy Nzonga founded a group called Yéyé National with a fellow student, Maxime Mongali as singer. Nimy would go on to write the definitive book about Congolese music which is a great resource to me in my own researches. It is the Dictionary of Immortals (Dictionnaire des immortels de la musique congolaise moderne, Academia-Bruylant, 2010). Yéyé signed to the label, followed by Los Nickelos, the only band here I knew (they have a CD on Sonodisc including their hits "Bolingo ya téléphone" and "Revelation bolingo ya Nzambe") and the great Charles Lembe, here called Carlos Lembe. Yéyé's first hit "Mathinda" was covered back home by Franco & OK Jazz. Afro Negro were invited to perform at the Congolese Embassy for a visit by the Belgian Queen Elisabeth in 1965. Their set was half an hour but the Queen urged them to play on and she enjoyed their music so much they played for two hours. Their "A la mode" has a definite affinity to the Rochereau sound. One of the Ngoma bands, Dynamic Jazz, were in town and Cavvadias got them to record for him under the pseudonym Ebuka Ebuka. Afro Negro's "Palado palado" is a dreamy ballad (not to be confused with Bavon Marie-Marie's song from 1968 with the same title). Carlos Lembe gives a new twist on "Pare Cochero" of Johnny Pacheco with his wiry guitar ornamentation. Some of the Belgicains had been musicians back home of course, gigging with Grand Kalle's African Jazz and Tabu Ley. When they returned home after graduation, Yéyé were invited to play with Franco and Tabu Ley. But most of the bands were students, playing for fun, so when they got back to Zaire they had careers as business leaders and executives in the developing country. This is an outstanding compilation, beautifully packaged. Every track is a gem.
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It's been 3 years since Kolonel Djafaar released their sensational EP Cold Heat, and so I was primed for their new album Getaway. They are an evolving group of Belgians who play jazz with an Afrobeat drummer and some 70s touches, including Farfisa organ and guitar with simple effects like reverb and echo. There is also what I would call primitive synth, i.e. basic twiddling on a Moog. The new album has hints of psychedelia and Ethiopica (?), both converging on "I call her Winnie," but it also reminds me of soundtracks by the likes of Bernard Hermann and Ennio Morricone. I checked the credits for "The Getaway" with Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw (1972): the soundtrack was by Quincy Jones, but I don't remember it. I just remember the leads in their stylish designer togs getting crushed in a trash compactor without losing their cool. Nevertheless there is a theatrical ominousness to tracks like "Convoi Exceptionnel" which soars into a funky crescendo. The brass (tenor, baritone and trumpet) have definite soul chops, and lead the line on simple ditties like "Kelmendi" which echoes Jamaican jazz, like Ernie Ranglin or Monty Alexander, both of whom would fit in seamlessly with the groove. There are many catchy hooks on here: "Siren's Glitch" has an Arabian sinuousness to the melody. Maybe Djafaar is a reference to the wily vizier in the 1001 Arabian Nights? "Phil's First Tear" kicks off like a Memphis soul jam, then the Ethio horns charge in. The drummer keeps it in the pocket. This is the core of the album, before we slide back into a more mellow downtempo groove, which is really perfect for on-the-nod listening. "Apologies in Advance" ramps up the percussion but slides into overload on the Echoplex, as if they ran out of ideas. They should have ended it sooner, much sooner. The last cut is devoted to Lodewijk Lefevre on the baritone sax which is a very good way to go out.
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| BROOKLYN SOUNDS
BROOKLYN SOUNDS! (Vampisoul 297)
Big farty blarty brass defined the Latin Soul branch of Salsa as it filtered through the sounds of New York City in the early 1970s. With roots in Puerto Rico and Santeria, the young rebels who rejected the Latin ballroom dancebands of Titos Puente and Rodriguez liked ragged vocals and heavy horn leads on twin trombones. The percussionists (bongos, timbales, guiro, etc) were not put behind baffles to mute their acid tones, but came up front to fry the microphones in the studio... And let's imagine that scene: A clandestine midnight session organized by Boogaloo pioneer Bobby Marin on a frosty night, colder than a proverbial you-know-who's you-know-what, with a bunch of freezing punk kids from the barrio eager to get their big break. You can feel the thawing as the singers collide and brawl on the first cut "Suéltame ya," but they get more serious for "Mirame, San Miguel," where they have something to prove. They are in sync: the cowbell and timbales and shekere are battling to drown out the vamping piano and the singers have to really reach deep to outmanoeuver the horns. It's gritty and fraught with tension, which comes out on the track "Rain" sung in English by Leo Rosado. The cover is a monochrome shot looking up at a snow-covered fire escape: this exemplifies New York for these expats from the Caribbean: An escape to what, to where? "Perdicion" is the stone groove on side B where the horns are following one another without any sure idea of where they are going, and the pianist Willie Rodriguez (who worked with Celia Cruz and Johnny Pacheco), takes a fine turn, before turning it over to the singer and the hard hands of the percussionists (Julio and Kelvin Fonseca, Eddie Rodriguez).
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Taken from the vaults of Discos Tropical, this series looks for bangers (not sausages): guaranteed club smashes, and presents them as double-sided 45s; here three gems amounting to about 16 minutes of great cumbias, with big brass, accordion, and twangly guitars, not always at once. Though Colombian in origin, these discs resonated particularly with Mexican DJs as their sound systems gobbled up the offerings. The selector is the always reliable DJ Bongohead (Pablo Yglesias). "Cumbia Gua Gua" by Cuarteto Del Mónaco has the spindly spiraling guitar with wah wah which also influenced the electro-cumbia movement in Peru, which has recently seen a big resurgence. While you are on bandcamp, checking out this album, be sure to check out Mampön, which is a contemporary band, who also have a single out on Rocafort. The A-side has a really cool surprise clarinet solo. The B-side is "Papeles rotos," a protest song in a novel style called "Afrobeat."And, looking through their site, I see I missed two volumes of rare tracks by Alfredito Linares.
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