Today we break from our Original Music series while I’m away with a guest post from first time Benn loxo contributor, Gerben:

“Some time ago i saw the movie Va, Vis Et Deviens which features the Mahmoud Ahmed song Yaselame Lalo. I had actually forgotten i have it on his album Live In Paris. But i did remember i have a very nice 20 minute live recording from him playing in Amsterdam that i recorded years ago from Dutch radio.

I later digitized the tape, the quality is not very good but the music is great. Apparently the Dutch radio station that broadcast it received the tape from someone who went to this concert.

There are two songs there, the first one is Yaselame. This version is more traditional than on Live in Paris (no saxophone but flutes) and very dynamic. No idea what the other song is but I am curious to find it out and I am also very curious if more if these live recordings of him exist, it tastes like so much more.

The other recording is also a tape transfer from a Dutch radio broadcast and features Super Biton de Segou with I.R.I. and Tere, equally great. Both recordings are somewhere between 15-20 years old, don’t remember exactly when i recorded them.”

This Mahmoud Ahmed track is truly amazing. I would’ve loved to be at that show. I can just see his shoulders rocking out to the rhythms. Thanks for the music, Gerben. If someone can help him out with identifying the music I’m sure he’d appreciate it. -Matt

Mahmoud Ahmed - Yaselame (Live)
Super Biton (Live)

I’m a total sucker for West African music that starts with a heavily accented, spoken introduction. Maitre Gazonga’s classic of classics, Les Jaloux Saboteurs, springs immediately to mind. (As does dancing our faces off to that track in Brittany last weekend, rocking sunglasses, punch, flip-flops and a whole lotta mustache.) Franco and Sam Mangwana’s Cooperation is another example of a classic spoken intro.

With this in mind we continue with our Original Music series with a little Godwin Opara and his Oriental Brothers from the Do It If You Can/Onye Ikekwere Mekeya compilation.

“Oriental Brothers” actually refers to quite a few related bands. Frontmen came and went over the years and the band took many forms. Opara’s Oriental Brothers were the true originals, followed by Dr. Sir Warrior’s and several others. We’ll hear from the latter later.

The opening line sounds a bit like he’s yelling, “Hello, France!” I can just picture him waving out to the crowd at Place Ste. Marthe during Fête de la musique..

Listening to the Oriental Brothers always reminds me of Dulue, who introduced them to me many years ago in Lagos. Tip of the hat your way, Mr. Mbachu.

Do any of you have copies of the original Afrodisia Oriental Brothers releases?

See you in a couple weeks. Hopefully I’ll have much Bolivian folkloric funk to share.

Oriental Brothers - Oh Dear Jesus

Great time in and around the Place Ste Marthe last night at Paris’ Fête de la Musique. From North African jams and South American dance sessions to aggressive street drummers and some damn fine Andean chicken.

Too many nights out lately. I need something simple to counter the weeks of wine in my system: old-school Kenyan sounds from Original Music’s first volume of Before Benga.

The first track reminds me a lot of that classic of classics, Swamp Thing by The Grid.

The second one is just, well, special.

Finally, Wiliamu Osale’s great tune rocks us gently into Friday morning. Only 10 hours until the weekend…

ps- couldn’t find a good shot of the Kenya Dry cover so instead to our left you’ll find Paul Nabor and Andy Palacio at their show in Paris last night.

Unknown - Thum Nyatiti Solo
Unknown - Chemirocha
Wiliamu Osale - Usimalize Mali

These past few posts have generated a heavier than normal volume of e-mail from Benn loxo readers. Thanks- I always appreciate hearing from you. One note this morning from Johnathan really stuck-out. He runs a site devoted to his 78 collection (that’s right, 78s, not 45s) that includes some real gems, a lot of them African. Check it out over at excavated shellac.

Benn loxo behind the scenes contributor, Andrew, also wrote to point out that that Amazon UK have a lot of the Nonesuch Explorer series on offer at the moment for only £5.00 or £6.00. Worth checking out.

Saw a great Andy Palacio show last night. Two encores really got the place moving and Paul Nabor was amazing.. how old is that guy anyway? He rocked the mic like no other 90-something that I’ve seen live.

Fête de la musique is tonight. I’ve never actually been in town for this French tradition before, but I have to say I’d rather be at any one of its offshoots happening tonight in Cameroon, Congo, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Senegal.. and loads more. Even Djibouti and the Comoros are joining the fray. Shows you how much important the French cultural centers in sub-Saharan African are in terms of promoting local music, dance and art.

Finally, I’m heading to Buenos Aires and La Paz this weekend. Any tips?

I guess we need some music, too.

Marie Louise Congo told me how Rwandans tend to be a quiet, polite bunch with prix fixes in the markets. So if you’re living in Rwanda, Uganda is the place you go when you miss hard bargaining and need some West African-style colour. Their music is definitely full of colour, and though I own very little Ugandan albums the few tracks I’ve heard have got me dancing.

Keeping with the Original Music theme I’ll post a couple tracks off John Storm Robert’s Ugandan mix, Kampala Sound: 1960s Ugandan Dance Music. A great compilation of pre-Amin gems.

Charles & Frida Sonko with Orchestra Melo Success - Nawuliranga
Kawaliwa & Mary with the AGS Boys - Fumbria Abaana

Another Benn loxo reader, Rob, came through huge this week with no less than six Original Music releases that I don’t already have. That puts my mini-collection at twelve. Nothing compared to this guy, but one day I’ll have all 39. If that ever happens maybe I’ll see what I can do about getting them re-released. I wonder who now holds the rights..

Africa Dances is an Original Music compilation from way back in 1973. It features music from 13 African countries, from Mozambique to Ethiopia to Sierra Leone. I already own about half of the music featured on the album, but there were still a few gems in there that I’d never heard.

Easily my favourite on the compilation is Miss Smodern by a South African group named, surprisingly, Smodern. This great track is begging for a clean-up and a remake. And I’ve never posted any music from Zambia on Benn loxo so we’ll hear some interesting sounds by John Lushi.

There’s a good interview with Original Music’s founder, John Storm Roberts, here. I also just found an aging blog of his on Blogger. Does anyone know him? From what I can tell he’s 71 and lives in NY.. I think I’ll try to get in touch.

ps- just realized that I already posted some Broadway Dance Band off Africa Dances way back in November 2004. Apparently I lost the album in the Dakar-Paris move.. glad it’s back in the collection!

Smodern - Miss Smodern
John Lushi - Bamgufya Ba Kwoti

When I first saw the title of Original Music’s 1995 release, Rain in the Hills, I assumed it would be a compilation of Rwandan or Congolese music, places I most associate with forest-filled, hilly landscapes. It came as a nice surprise when my earphones were filled with a very different sound: music by the Beja people who live in the hills of North-Eastern Sudan, in and around the city of Port Sudan.

The album was recorded by John Low who lived in this drought-prone area while he was working for Oxfam in the early 90s. As he says in the liner notes, you can sometimes hear street noise or people chatting at Oxfam parties in the background on the recordings. If anything, however, this gives the album an authentic feel as if you, too, were sitting in a steamy Sudanese apartment, chatting with Beja musicians.

The songs on Rain in the Hills are sung in the Beja language and in Arabic. Some sound distinctly Arabic/Yemeni while others have a more East African sound. It’s definitely new to my ears. The liner notes even claim that, as far as John Low is aware, the music on this disc is unknown outside of the Sudan and southern Egypt.

Until recently the Beja used only one instrument in their music, the basankob. In recent years the oud has been introduced, as you’ll hear today, since it has a greater musical range.

Great tracks like Days and Nights make me realize how much I have yet to discover in East Africa…

ps- Cheers to Gabriel who picked me out of the crowd at the Rajery show last night. Always nice meeting Benn loxo people in person.
pps- thanks again to Andrew for the music.

Musa Adem - Days and Nights
Mohamed Badri Hassan - Rain In The Hills

This is slowly turning into an Original music week. Today we’ll hear something from The Sound of Kinshasa - Guitar Classics from Zaire, and there’s plenty more to come.

While there’s lots to love on The Sound of Kinshasa, the track I’ll post today is especially remarkable. Gentle, dreamy… and almost Hawaiian.

Speaking of Hawaiian shirts, a Benn loxo reader told me in an e-mail last week that he was going to see the Jimmy Buffett show at the New Morning last week. Turns out he was joking, but my first reaction was, “Amazing.” I have hilarious memories of uncles in Hawaiian shirts, margaritas in tow, singing Come Monday to frightened nieces and nephews.

I was going to post some Jimmy Buffett as a joke, but it’s so crap that even the humour is eclipsed. I’ll leave you all to your own resources to give such classics as Cheeseburger Paradise a listen.

Anyway, I know nothing about Ngwalau Michel but the Orchestra African Fiesta is quite well known. At various stages they included many Zairean guitar greats such as Docteur Nico, Tabu Lay Rochereau and others. You might have heard them here before, and their album jackets remain classics of the genre.

Thanks, as always, to Andrew and the many other Benn loxo listeners who have come through with these Original Music releases and much more. Your e-mails, trades and gifts are always much appreciated.

Ngwalau Michel with Orchestre African Fiesta - Limbisa ngai

A couple weeks ago Benn loxo reader, Andrew, hooked me up with a couple more precious Original Music compilations. Man, they’re always such a step above pretty much anything else out there covering the same eras.

Telephone Lobi is a compilation of 1960s Ghanaian danceband highlife released in 1995 by Original Music. The Lobi, by the way, are an ethnic group who speak a language of the same name in Ghana. They’re known for fiercely resisting French colonialism back in the day… with poisoned arrows. Ouch.

Anyway, for today’s post I picked a track by the Red Spots that I love, a track by the Professional Beach Melodians because they have an amazing name, and a third by Police Band #1 because they also have an amazing name plus I think we should all dance on this rainy day.

We’ve been posting danceband highlife and Original Music tracks on Benn loxo since ‘04 so I won’t bore you with the details. But remember: they’re out of print so grab ‘em whenever you can.

As it happens, the music on Telephone Lobi goes really well with another, totally different, group I’ve been into lately: Quantic. I’m really bummed I can’t make their show at the Maroquinerie on June 30th. If you’re in Paris it’s a must-see. But hey, I’ll be somewhere between Argentina and Bolivia, so who’s complaining!

Red Spots - Oya Ke Me
Professional Beach Melodians “Uhuru No. 2″ - Akwantu
Police Band #1 - Me Ye Fun
Quantic - When You’re Through

Gentle, Cameroonian jazz to ease you into your Monday.

I don’t think I ever mentioned this, but I saw a great little Herminia concert a couple weeks back. She was even smaller and older-looking than I imagined, but her voice filled the room.

The venue was the Mam’Bia, a good Cap Verdian restaurant near Strasbourg St-Denis in Paris. It’s small so only about 50 of us were at the show.. your typically random mix of “world music” people: old, young, strange, seemingly normal.

The woman I’ll post today, Cameroonian Anne-Marie Nzié, is a bit like Herminia in that her voice is still as powerful as ever at the age of 67. I don’t know much about her except that her one and only wide-release, Beza Ba Dzo, is a great listen. It features the likes of Manu Dibango, Brice Wassy and others.

The most interesting part of her biography is when she had to spend a long time in hospital after falling from a mango tree in the mid-1960s. It was there, in her hospital bed, that she was introduced to Hawaiian music by her brother. After finally leaving hospital the two started performing together, him on Hawaiian guitar, Nzié providing the vocals. That’s an original start to a career if I’ve ever heard one.

Anne-Marie Nzié - Sarah

Hi from Roland Garros. Just saw the lovely Ivanovic get thumped by Henin. As I wait for the photo editors to finish up I thought I’d get a quick post in. (That’s a pic of Roland Garros to the left.)

A while back a Benn loxo reader suggested I have a listen to a 4 CD compilation of Angolan music recorded betweeen 1960 and 1975, Angola - as 100 grandes músicas dos anos 60 e 70.

What a find. Often compilations like this are stuffed with fillers, with maybe two or three gems per disc. However, Angola 100, as it’s known in English, is jam packed with an amazing variety of great songs by musicians, most of whom I’ve never heard of.

The compilation is from the archive of the Portuguese record company, Valentim de Carvalho, who recorded hundreds of tracks by local Angolan musicians from 1960 until independence.

ps- Benn loxo reader, Tony, wrote to say he’s posted a summer African music mix for all to hear.

Elias diá Kimuezo - Zé Salambinga

If you’re in Paris and feel like seeing some music you can catch me at these shows in the near future:

• Tonight: Les Espoirs de Coronthie at the Satellit Café
• June 13th: Rajery at the Satellit Café
• June 20th: Andy Palacio at the New Morning

Find me and I’ll buy you a beer on Benn loxo. I look a bit like this, or just listen for a guy speaking French with a confused Parisian/Dakarois/Quebecois/Anglo accent.

Anyway, it’s Friday. Relax. Let’s hear some good music.

I was reading this article in the BBC the other day and ended up on an Internet quest to learn everything there is to know about Bob Denard. What a fascinating (and frightening) guy. He’s best known for landing 30 men on the shores of Grande Comore and kidnapping the Comorian president, however that was just one of his four coup attempts on the islands. You have to admit that’s pretty gutsy.

Following his last coup attempt the French intervened and all was well again. Needless to say, les français didn’t want trouble so close to one of their neo-colonial outposts, Mayotte.

Abou Chihabi had a booming career in the Comoros until that same Bob and some other mercenaries shook-up the islands in 1978, assassinating the president and reaffirming French economic dominance.

Chihabi fled to Kenya and then France where he slowly developed a successful music career. His 1997 album, Folkomor Ocean, is great.

Abou Chihabi - Upwa Nvubwe Uhoza