One of my favourite Benn loxo readers, one who is responsible for introducing me to a lot of the music on this site, recently turned me on to Ignace De Souza.

Ignace De Souza is one of the those forgotten greats of West African music who was very influencial in his day. To give you an idea, in the liner notes of an Original Music compilation of his music, John Storm Robers credits De Souza’s track, Ole, as being the first afrobeat recording.

Originally from Benin, De Souza got his first big start when he got a gig playing sax with Alfa Jazz, who John Collins credits as being the first professional dance band in Benin. In later years De Souza moved to Ghana and played with several groups before forming his own. By the mid-60s, De Souza and Black Santiagos had become quite popular and began introducing Congo music to Ghana.

While a lot of the music on this Original Music comp sound pretty much like what you’d expect from the time and place they were recorded, there are several stand-out tracks. Two come to mind: Asaw Fofor for a 1960s chase scene and Anyenko for laid-back, “protofunk” summer music.

Unfortunately, great things never last. Does anyone know why the Black Santiagos split? Either way, in 1970 De Souza left Ghana before eventually settling in Lagos where he played with the house band at the Ritz Hotel. (I can’t help but associated this last bit with an image of Murph and the Murphtones at a Holiday Inn in the film The Blues Brothers.)

ps- you can still buy this album at Stern’s.

Ignace De Souza - Asaw Fofor
Ignace De Souza - Anyenko
Ignace De Souza - Ole

Paris is alive with concerts and patios. I love this time of year.

In the last couple weeks I’ve seen Tinariwen, Gotan Project and Sharon Jones. Upcoming shows include Cinematic Orchestra, maybe Marcos Valle, Ba Cissoko and Nuru Kane, maybe another Toumani Diabaté show, Cowboys Fringants, and more…

A couple nights ago I also went to see Julien Jacob and Gerald Toto at the New Morning.

Julien Jacob is great. He’s a good performer and I enjoy his music, plus he conveys a warmth on stage that makes you want to buy him a beer.

With only himself on vocals, a percussionist and an acoustic guitar he managed to really engage the crowd and create a full sound. Looking around the room I spotted several people totally lost in his music. A typically Parisian world music crowd, at that.

I wrote about Julien Jacob on this site before so you know the deal.. born in Benin, raised in France. He still lives in Brittany in the north of France.

Despite what it might sound like at first he’s not singing in a Beninese dialect - that’s no language at all, but rather sounds that he’s come up with to go with the music.

He has a new album coming out this year. You can hear clips already on his MySpace page. If you haven’t already be sure to pick-up his first album, Cotonou.

Gerald Toto took over for the second half of the concert. Let’s just say I left early. It’s a shame because in the past I’ve liked some of his other stuff such as Toto Bona Lokua. This night he just sounded too… polished and predictable. He should stick to his vocal sampling tricks and/or shake-up his rhythms and melodies.

Julien Jacob - Yacob
Toto Bona Lokua - Lamuka

When I was a kid my family would pile into a station wagon at least once a year and drive/canoe for thousands of kilometers in pursuit of the Perfect Camping Spot. I remember tent-heavens in the mountains near Jasper, amidst the paprika colours of Gros Morne, along the lakes and rivers of Quetico, after long drives to the Lake of the Woods, and in many other hot-spots of the Canadian near-north. Those epic journeys needed a soundtrack. My brother and I would spend hours making mix tapes for the ride, mostly from my father’s large vinyl collection, doing manual fades and swear word bleep-outs with the knobs on our silver casette deck.

Despite these wicked cross-fades, linking the likes of My Bloody Valentine to Run DMC to Roxy Music, the most successful car tape was probably one we didn’t make ourselves, something called Crusin’ 67. It was the kind of cheesy thing you’d buy from Time Life or while waiting in line at Canadian Tire with an armful of camping stove fuel, but we all loved it. In much the same way that my current parties demand a heavy dose of Nigerian funk and Ghanaian highlife, my early car trips demanded 1960s American pop tunes that pleased everyone in the wagon.

I’m saying all this because that was the first thing I thought of when I saw in the liner notes that Le Tout Puissant Poly Rythmo got their start in 1967 in Professor Wallace Creppy’s group, Sunny Black. Now I’m sitting here listening to Poly Ryhmo’s track, Agbaza Mimim, off their album Nouvelle Formule, and all I can imagine is my father slapping the steering wheel of his silver Oldsmobile, singing along like it was The Turtles’ Happy Together.

ps- we can all thanks Benn loxo listener, Frank, for picking this album up for me in Belgium.

T.P. Poly Rythmo - Agbaza Mimin / Djomido

Let’s be honest here: at its core, Benn loxo is all about Charlotte Dada and the amazing variety of soul and funk music that came out of East and West Africa during the 1970s. Today we go back to these roots with some horn-infused, organ-induced, heavy-on-the-bass, yet still so African 1970s tunes from the Republic of Benin.

Following the success of their two Ghana Soundz releases, Soundway released an amazing best-of compilation of one West Africa’s least known “golden era” bands, T.P. Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou. As usual, they did a great job cleaning up the vinyl and bringing the tunes back to life without over-reproducing. We can thank Soundway’s Miles Cleret for the great crate-digging.

Despite their relative obscurity outside of Benin, The “Tout Puissant” Orchestre Poly-Rythmo are still a household name in Cotonou and were one of the most prolific groups to ever exist in Africa. Cleret reckons that they released over 50 full-length LPs and hundreds of 45s.

Today’s first track sounds a lot like one of my all-time favourite shower songs, Tighten-Up by Archie Bell and the Drells. The second.. shivers. I love it.

T.P. Orchestre Poly-Rythmo - Les Djos
T.P. Orchestre Poly-Rythmo - Kokoriko

As promised, a second catch-up post to bring in the new year. And hey, I’ve never posted any music from Benin on this site so today we’ll hear a tune by the Gangbé Brass Band.

I don’t know about the group except that they’re from Benin and have a distinctly West African yet original sound. The production is polished but not too much, and the mixing is quite well done considering the potentially disastrous combination of instruments they use. I guess I’m a sucker for the horns a bit, too, since years ago I used to play trombone and sometimes still long for the days of blasting away my lips to some ska or big band deal. True horn chops, if you ask me, only come from the trombone.

Today’s track is my favourite from their 2001 release, Togbé. You can get their latest album, released one year ago, on Calabash.

Gangbé Brass Band - Gbéto