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Updated 1 March 2026
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It has been a crazy month for musical wake-up calls: first Tyler the Creator blew up a gas station on stage at the Grammys, after appearing in what seemed to be an African-inspired mask; then Bad Boony at the stupor bowl halftime show caused a national melt-down (suck it up, Maga wimps!) in the USA. His lyrics are awful, but fortunately no one understands them, not even Spanish speakers, but the message was loud and clear: immigrants make America, and we are here to stay, y'all... legendary Latin-American broadcaster Jorge Ramos talks about the politics of the half time show if you want more context — and if that wasn't enough, K-Pop Demon Hunters took over America like a Trojan horse. "Golden" by Huntr/x and "A.P.T." by Rosé were the top songs of last year, so now Koreans and Latino artists have completely displaced the Britpop bands, none of whom appeared in the top 20 albums or singles.
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From Jazz Crazy: "Na Mokili Se Bongo" by Laurent Batubenge: Congolese rumba on the Ngoma label from 1956
: featuring new releases, classic jazz and music from Mexico, Puerto Rico & Africa
AZUKA MOWETA AND HIS ANIOMA BROTHERS BAND OF AFRICA
KENECHUKWU (Palenque Records)
Music is so reassuring: when it's spot on we can trust it will put us in a trance for an hour or so. It's reassuring to put on an album like this and immediately feel happy and secure from the troubles of the world. Azuka Moweta and his Anioma Brothers play a kind of retro-highlife, evoking the 70s sounds of bands like Rex Lawson and Celestine Ukwu. Right from the start there's a muted trumpet and a whole lot of driving percussion: drumkit, congas and the sweet horns. There's even a trombone that pops up. Their sound is described as Ekobe music which incorporates traditional Igbo musical instruments such as pot (Udu), long gong (Ogene), maracas (Ichaka), wood block (Okpokoro), drum (Igba) accompanied by chants. I hear a wild atonal instrument also, on "Izu nwanne ka," and cannot tell if it is a reed instrument. My friend Gilbert assures me it is a three-holed flute called an Oja. There is also a player of "clips," which I guess is the susurrating ticking sound, unless that is the Ichaka. It is a style of music that represents a people, their struggles and way of life. As they say, "It is an embodiment of culture and heritage through sounds and melodies. Ekobe music is as old as the Igbo race but has remained untapped." Azuka fuses it with Highlife. "Anioma" means good land and there are almost two million of them as a subgroup of the Igbo people. Apparently, their accent gets thicker the further you go and the dialects fracture into three other languages. There are some religious praise songs, but far from church ritual they are gentle grooves with dancing electric guitars and keyboards. The longest track "Ogalanya Sound System" is pure bliss. The kind of sound you can put on repeat and doze off to, inducing wonderful reveries. Azuka started his solo career in 2018 and this is his fourth album. Palenque Records of Colombia continue to span the globe with their reach into Congo and once again Nigerian roots music. We reap the rewards of Palenque's commitment.
While the Motown artists were apolitical in their early records, they were keenly aware of racial injustice and there were several inflection points in their tours that led them to take a more engaged stance with what was going on. What's Going On, by Marvin Gaye (1971) is an important turning point, inspired by footage of police brutalizing protesters at People's Park in Berkeley during the Vietnam war. Gaye led the transformation of R&B into soul. You can see rapid evolution in the music of acts like the Temptations also. Their "Cloud Nine" (1968) marked the crossover of psychedelic rock into the Motown sound, following the success of early funk bands like Funkadelic and Sly & the Family Stone. The impact of this music was of course global. In Rio de Janeiro, Tim Maia adapted American soul into his native samba and baião music. This reissue of his fourth album from 1973 (his last on Polydor as he got into a fight with the label over royalties) shows a full absorption of American soul, not just Motown, but the style of Curtis Mayfield is digested and becomes part of what is now a very Brasilian sound with the swaggering vocals of Maia. Short rips of a lead guitar are answered by punching horns playing counterpoint to the melody. When he switches to English for two songs, "New Love" and "Do your thing," the transformation to American soul singer is complete. And as the strings swell on the ballad "A paz do meu mundo (The peace of my world)," he acts like he is breaking down and raps the outtro in a faltering almost-scream that is nevertheless perfectly controlled and serves to counteract the saccharine quality of the ballad. It's a big powerful album, larger than life, like the singer.
A 1970 recording from Puerto Rico reminds us of the salsa dura tradition and how it aligns with those Borincuan sounds. The band is tight and delivers a mix of originals and covers. The singer Papo sounds like Hector Lavoe which is a plus and when they take it down to bass and piano on "Balanceate" (by Louie Ramirez, also performed by Ray Barretto) you can tell they were jamming in concert. This is the longest track at 6'39 and roils back to full boil with counterpoint horns and a trumpet solo while the bass bomps majestically against the timbales. Half the tunes on the album are originals and half covers, but these were made new by the fresh arrangements and chances are, unless you are familiar with some deep salsa (Apollo Sound, Joe Cuba Sextet), they will be new to your ears. And if you a salsa aficionada you will appreciate the great mix and the punchy front line of horns: double trombones and a trumpet: the band is a nonet as the cover shows. We guess Roberto is the guy in the middle; apart from the three horn players there are a bongocero, a cowbell player and while two guys hold congas one of them may be another percussionist or coro. That leaves piano, bajo and vocalist. This album does not grow on you: it grabs you by the vitals and says Dance, fool! I am grooving as I write this so keep making typos. Overall their sound is a great tribute to the legendary Willie Colón and the Fania sound. The album was recorded in two sessions so I am thinking side A and then side B, the latter is looser and jams. It goes out with a blast on "Oye tu son Borinquen," claiming this pulsating sound for their island home.
MUSIC FOR A REVOLUTION VOL 2
GUINEA'S SYLIPHONE RECORDING LABEL (1968-80) (Radio Martiko)
A second helping of popular Guinean music from Radio Martiko, from the 1970s when authenticité, decreed by president Sekou Touré, created a network of 30 regional orchestras who were encouraged to play indigenous music (updated to add electric instruments alongside traditional ones) instead of music derived from European sources, though Cuban and jazz influences persisted. With a grant from the "Endangered Archives" project of the British Library, Australia-based scholar Graeme Counsel documented virtually all of the almost 8000 songs recorded by the state-run Syliphone label in the early 2000s. Clean reissues on Stern's, Syllart and other labels followed, revealing the cream of this material. Some of these naturally overlapped (such as Syllart's Discothèque series and his 40th Anniversary series) but we bought it all to go with the original vinyl LPs many of which were still in circulation or also reissued in replica. So for many of us this is the third time the music has come back, and while it is great, there is not much point in buying it just to hear the tracks in a different order, unless you are keen on having it on vinyl for 35 euros. On top of which the cover is quite unappealing: as a friend commented it looks like it was generated by AI with the prompt "aboriginal art." There are two tracks from Balla et ses Balladins, otherwise ten other bands get a track apiece.
The first place to go looking for this music is Stern's 2CD set Authenticité: the Syliphone Years, with a 44-page booklet by Graeme Counsel. There you will find Sombory Jazz's "Nana," Syli Authentic's fabulous "Fabara," and Simandou de Beyla's "Festival," three of the tracks included here. Syli Authentic from Conakry were all in their mid-teens when they recorded this, sadly the name of the guitarist has not been preserved. The two Balladins tracks are also on the Stern's 2CD set dedicated to that band. This reminds me of the richness of the Guinean musical heritage which sends me off on a listening tangent to Balla et ses Balladins in my own collection. The lead-off track by Super Boiro was on 40th Anniversaire vol 1; Kaloum Stars' "Maliba" was on Discothèque 74; Quintette Guinéenne's "Douga" was on SLP54 Musique sans paroles from 1976, reissued on vinyl by Stern's in 2015. Horoya Band's "Zoumana" was reissued on their essential album Paya Paya, from Dakar Sound. Kaloum Star's "Gbassikolo" is one track on here I have not found on an earlier reissue: it is a rare single from 1974. The other is 22 Kankan Band's "Deny" from 1976 which appeared on their debut album Dans le Vent and has a wild "out-there" guitar solo on wah wah pedal. This compilation is of course a great set, featuring many fantastic tunes and solos, with notably great horn playing. While I have two dozen of the original Syliphone albums I am content with them and the two dozen reissued CDs. The biggest song on here for me is Balla's "Paulette" which was on Objectif Perfection, also reissued by Popular African Music in 1993 with 4 bonus tracks. Listening to it in context, rather than as a random plum, is a better approach. Written by guitarist Ibrahima Kouyaté, it features a duet between Kanté Manfila and Benny Soumah. Bandleader Balla plays trumpet and his partner Pivi plays trombone and more frequently alto sax, the horns blending perfectly. And speaking of duplicates, I need another copy of that in my "Go bag" for when I escape to the desert island.
INDIAN TALKING MACHINE PART TWO
INSTRUMENTAL GEMS FROM THE 78RPM ERA (Sublime Frequencies)
Robert Millis of indie rock band Climax Golden Twins returns with another hefty stack of shellac from the Indian subcontinent, featuring Hindustani, Carnatic and folk music recorded early in the 20th century as the British Raj loosened its political grasp of the region. Indian classical music was at its height then and there are ragas and sitars but also many other kinds of music suggesting further developments from wild Chinese-sounding xylophones with harmonium to the very first recording of a sitar. And for fans of Ravi Shankar, you will hear Allauddin Khan who was his teacher. This is a beautifully presented double LP. It starts in 1959 and goes back to 1904. In addition to magical sitars there are a lovely shenhai solo from Mahboob Ali, a fine dilruba (which is a bowed instrument known as "thief of the heart"), while tablas and harmoniums swell in and out of earshot. A haunting violin from 1938 has that distant smoky scratchy quality evoking loss and longing you will recall from grainy black & white Indian films. The track that sounded Chinese to me is Narayandas Mansukhram playing kashta-tarang (xylophone) from 1930. Another similar obscure instrument heard here (twice) is the jalatarang which is musical bowls in different sizes, made of metal or ceramic, filled with water, played with mallets to create a sound reminiscent of Indonesian kulintang and of course as we know, Indonesian court music originated in India. There are lots of interesting unusual instruments, some quite entrancing: clarionet is heard with its medieval plaint bouncing off a jew's harp, and "been" (with a bagpipe-like drone) leads to "sundri" and other reed instruments that you probably were unaware of, like me. I saw piles of dusty 78s for sale in the bazaars in India and even working 78 players, but the logistics of carting one home seemed insurmountable. And as a crate-digger you need focus: you can't go off at a wild tangent or you will miss the parade of life passing by, though I have to admit on the many times I have been to Paris I have never visited the Louvre because little record stores occupied my attention. Here Millis has done the heavy lifting and it's great to listen in on his session with so many lovely melodies unwinding.
I know Joseph Kamaru from his work with City Sound Band, a popular Benga act from Nairobi, Kenya in the 1970s that operated out of his music shop on River Road. He also worked with his own family band Kamaru Super Stars, and two other oddly named line-ups: Kamaru Celina Band and Kamaru Mixed Grill! Celina was his sister; who knows what the mixed grill was ... zebra and ox? This new compilation, assembled by his family, features 17 tracks covering his whole four-decade career and a wide variety of sounds from reggae to gospel to Taarab. "Gari la trela" stands out. It's one of three songs here that he recorded backed by City Sounds Band. The dancing guitar breaks down to a really nice dropped-out bridge but then there is no part two, which is a let down. It's from an album called Safari ya Japan, though on the cover they are clearly stuck in a matatu park in Nairobi. The band did go to Japan on a goodwill tour to back president Moi. But as with Kenyatta, Kamaru became disillusioned with the presidential successor, and did not fail to criticize the government for inherent corruption and inaction. There is an odd bouncy momentum to "Njohi Ndiri Mwarimu" from 1966. In this song from the early years of independence Kamaru says "alcohol is deceptive and can cause embarrassments." The off-kilter beat is a traditional Kikuyu one known as muthuguci. Kamaru switches between Gikuyu and Kiswahili in his lyrics. The lively "Karolina" from 1982 also has a moral about a young girl who drops out of secondary school to enjoy urban dissipation in the big cities, only to end up thrashed. I think I ran into her at the Starlight club. It's a snappy Benga number with good saxes. The City Sounds lead guitarist returns effectively on "Riria Mugutwenja" (1975), which warns the rich and powerful that the working class will rise against them one day. The bass and drums on this track are also noteworthy. This compilation chronicles Kamaru's strong political views and his biting satire, tamed with religious belief in divine justice, while supporting the ideals of the wananchi that led to the Mau Mau rebellion.
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BACK IN PRINT (Second edition, November 2012)
A DISCOGRAPHY OF DOCTEUR NICO
By Alastair Johnston
Poltroon Press, 2012, expanded to 88 pages; list price $19.95. Available now. Click HERE for details.
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