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

Benn loxo listener and friend, Rob, turned me on to Aldo Romano, Louise Sclavis and Henri Texier’s jazz project, Carnet de routes.

The music is inspired by the trio’s travels around central africa, led by Magnum photographer and African travel veteran, Guy Le Querrec.

I liked Carnet de routes enough that I picked-up their third Africa-inspired release, African Flashback. This album comes with a beautiful 50-plus page booklet of Le Querrec’s photos from about 1969 until the 90s. He has taken photos all around Africa, though the central African countries seem to have caught his eye the most. I find his shots of CAR in 1970, Algeria in 1969 and of women of Mauritania particularly stunning.

Romano, Sclavis and Texier each picked four photos featured in the booklet to inspire a composition. Flipping through the photos while listening makes for great interactive listening.

You can buy all three recordings in the series, Carnet de routes, Suite africaine and African Flashback

ps- I just noticed a post last year on African Flashback on Undomundo.

Aldo Romano, Louis Sclavis, Henri Texier - Les petits lits blancs
Aldo Romano, Louis Sclavis, Henri Texier - Harvest
Aldo Romano, Louis Sclavis, Henri Texier - Bororo Dance

I liked that Maurice El Medioni track from yesterday’s post so much that I picked up more of his music today.

Back in 1947 when he was only 19 years old, Medioni, or “Boogie” to his friends, invented his “pianoriental” playing style that blends rai with elements of Latin and French chanson music.

Today’s music is off Maurice El Medioni’s 1982 release, Pianoriental, re-released by Buda in 2002. The music on this album is much more piano-based. I love the way most tracks start with streaming melodies using Arabic scales, often for several minutes, before the Algerian percussion and Latin influence kicks in.

This North African trend will continue for the next few days. I’ve had two tagines in the last 24 hours and I’m just getting started…

Maurice El Medioni - Ouine Rak
Maurice El Medioni - Touchia Sica

I don’t want to seem like a Rough Guide fanboy or anything, but the CDs they graciously keep sending me are consistently great. The latest, The Rough to Latin-Arabia, is of particular interest because lately I’ve been trying to pull my Arabic music knowledge out of the depths of ignorance.

I was going to post Rhany’s track, Chan Chan, but Paul over at Aurgasm beat to it. You also on the Rough Guide dist list? Either way, that’s cool, because I’ll post some Maurice El Medioni whose life story is conducive to a great post title. I also love any song that starts with the lyrics, “tu as assisté à ma naissance.”

Born in the Algerian rai hot-spot of Oran, Medioni got his start playing piano for American troops after Algeria was “liberated” from France in 1942. He had to flee in 1962 following a rise in intolerance towards Algeria’s Jewish population and he eventually settled in Paris.

Medioni blends rai and various Latin musical styles to create a sound very much appropriate for the Parisian cabaret scene.. or a Cuban salsa bar. There’s a good quote over at the Piranha records site that sums it up:

“The basis of my music is Andalusian, but I mix in Boogie Woogie, Jazz and Latin. Despite this my music still has the resonance of the Maghreb.”

The good people over at fly.co.uk have written much more about Medioni if you’re curious.

Maurice El Medioni - Oran Oran

Not all Dutch-African musical ventures are a bad idea!

Fra Fra Sound are a cool Kora Jazz Trio-esque fusion band who’ve been around since the early 1980s. They started by fusing Surinamese kaseko, kawina and winti (music from everyone’s favourite Dutch ex-colony) with traditional Western jazz, but recent work has been more West African sounding, in particular their 1999 release, Mali Jazz.

They usually play as a seven-piece ensemble. While some of the tracks get a little too jazz-traditional for me, I enjoy a lot of their music. The track featured today featured a particularly good example of their command of both the instruments and rhythms of Mali.

I haven’t yet seen them live but they seem to be pretty active on the tour scene. If you’re interested, check-out their up-to-date concert listing.

ps- After much delay it’s time for some re-posts. If you have any requests for old posts that you’d like to hear please send me an e-mail or leave a comment.

Fra Fra Sound - Sosomali

Ismail Mohamed-Jan, better known as Pops Mohamed, is an important figure in the South African jazz and traditional music scenes. What sets him apart from the others is his combination of fierce devotion to preserving and promoting local styles and his tendency to experiment with electronic music and production styles.

Well liked both at home and abroad, Pops Mohamed has been playing various instruments for various bands including about a half a dozen solo releases, for the last twenty or so years. One of his early influences was Abdullah Ibrahim, a great South African jazz musician featured on the Freedom Blues album I posted a track from.

The track I picked for today’s post demonstrates this particularly well, mixing several kinds of percussion and electronic noises with flute, mbira and electric bass. I also picked this one because, as those who’ve been listening to the music on this site for a while will know, I have a particular weakness for the mbira. It’s off his second latest release, 2000’s How Far Have We Come?.

Pops Mohamed - Mbira Shuffle

On this busy Tuesday morning I’m happy to say that I stumbled upon a random musical find: Dakar’s Moussa Sissoko playing with jazz pianist Joachim Kühn.

Ala Tamala, the track I’m going to post today from the 1999 album of the same name, is an amazingly energetic fusion track for the workday. Djembe, conga and piano on fire.

You can learn more about the album and order it at the label’s site (if you speak German), blueflame records. If you prefer to shop for downloads you can grab a copy on emusic.

Moussa Sissoko - Ala Tamala

A Benn loxo du taccu listener, Joe, wrote me an e-mail wondering whether I could post the first track off the South African jazz album that I mentioned the other day.

Joe sent me a copy of Sean Bergin, a South African ex-pat saxophone player, and Ernst Reijseger, a dutch cellist, playing Yakal N’Komo. He wondered whether Winston Ngozi’s version on the Freedom Blues album was the original. I have no idea, but if anyone else does please post a comment.

Either way, here’s the supposed original and a nice-sounding cover. Perfect music for 5:45pm on a sunny Dakar Sunday afternoon, no?

ps- let this also be a reminder that requests and e-mails are always welcome.

Winston “Mankunku” Ngozi - Yakal N’Komo (A young bull crying for his mother)
Sean Bergin & Ernst Reijseger - Yakal N’Komo

I’ve read both negative and postive reviews of Freedom Blues - South African Jazz Under Apartheid. Some feel that it’s an inspiring collection of uplifting jazz music by black musicians who, despite living under the brutal repression of South African apartheid, still managed to crank out great music. Others feel that the music on the album is just another example of African pop imitating American musical style, and that the “joyous” sound has more to do with sounding like John Coltrane than expressing a desire for freedom or happiness. Still others think that the real “freedom music” of South Africa sounds nothing like this.

Personally, I don’t care. Bottom-line is that “despite this” or “not despite that” there were some amazing jazz musicians living and playing in South Africa and Zimbabwe during the apartheid years. The most well-known among them are of course Dollar Brand and Hugh Masekela, but the album also features several lesser-known talents.

I had a hard time picking a track to post. I finally settled on Dollar Brand because I play piano and like to think that in another life I may have been able to play as well as he does. Give this track some time - it breaks nicely at around the first minute.

Dollar Brand - Bombella