Extra!_Extra!_M_Couzens_Music_Review_Festival_Afro-Beat_Airwaves_Album

CD with 44-page booklet (AACD 068) & 2xLP Gatefold deluxe (AALP 068)
UK distribution by Proper (vinyl also distributed by F-Minor)

Come fly through the Afro-Beat Airways of Ghana and Togo, ‘70’s style, with a bevy of super musicians well equipped to guide you through any West African shock waves you may encounter. Its’ accompanying booklet dubs this compulsively mandatory compilation as an ‘organ-driven Afro-beat, cosmic Afro-funk and raw, psychedelic boogie’ collection...’showcasing an amazing diversity of local rhythms spiced with Afro-American funk, soul and jazz.’

Uppers International provide a smooth beginning to our flight with ‘Dankasa’, a track infused with sounds designed to lift you out of your grey-skied doldrums via percolating drums, chant like signing and vibrant back up with subtly jazz infused breaks. Here the group offers a distinctively original blending of Ghanaian rhythms, singing in Dagbani, Hausa and Gurundi – all languages of the region.
Apagya Show Band ups the ante with ‘Ma Nserew Me’, confirming that this mix is underpinned with percussive flavourings designed to bring its soul to the fore. JB like horn blowing, slyly funky drumming and repeated ‘Hit It’s’ from the band leader send listeners into easy to gyrate to heaven – pure Ghanaian funk!

Apagya Show Band featuring Gyedu Blay Ambolley & Ebo Taylor

The Fela inspired horns and funky guitar of ‘Me Yee Owu Den’ smartly performed by K. Frimpong and His Cubano Fiestas blend surprisingly well with its’ buoyant percussives. If you feel inspired to perform a fast paced cha-cha to this number, it would still be in African Style, though at nearly nine minutes, this track has more twists than a cobra. Shamelessly showy, while at the same time, irresistibly gritty, it’s a number designed to sneak up and grab you. With Kwesi Frimpong’s sublime vocals wafting over the top of this heady mix, it’s an inspired fusion of Afro-beat and highlife.

Marijata’s ‘Break Through’ quickens the pace, heavy on organ, leading horns and strutting sounds of the ‘70’s, with strident African drumming. Is it a precursor to ‘Superfly’ or its’ West African reflection? Either way, it certainly seems to embody the present penchant for definitively retro jazz/funk tracks. Not surprising to find that Marijata’s influences at the time included Mandrill, Curtis Mayfield, Isaac Hayes, Herbie Hancock, Santana and Jimi Hendrix, among others.

‘Ngyegye No So’ by African Brothers Band, starts off on a kick that for me, represents all that’s best about West African music – ardent singing, vibrant drumming and a strong sounding message inherent to its hypnotic, loping delivery. As a former dabbler in that instrument, the tickled organ’s a bonus. The singing on this song gets more mesmerising and melodic as its 6:17 trip winds down.

Just when I thought this compilation couldn’t get any better, Orchestre Abass’ Togolese gem ‘Awula Bo Fee Ene’ weaves its heady spell, via uninhibited signing, tribal sounding drums and the mandatory (for the times) organ. Dance on - it’s the only way to travel the infectious roads this excellent track traverses down.

Abass

Ebo Taylor and the Sweet Hearts’ ‘Odofu Nyi Akyiri Biara’ announces itself with brassy, hip-shaking horns which may well set you in motion before you even notice its strong guitar playing and rhythmic drums. However, as the track winds on, its’ expressive guitar playing and drumming threaten to outshine even its sparkling horns. Unexpectedly charismatic singing mid way heightens its’ already considerable character and charm.

‘Okpe See’ is just what any self-respecting doctor, witch or otherwise should rightfully order. Pagadeja Custom Band makes great use of organ, guitar and drums as fitting companions for strong, but lightly tongue in cheek singing from the band’s front man and there is some mean guitar in the break – clearly rendered and striding, as cleanly blaring West African horns lend clarity and choppy drums generate a pulsating beat in the background. Whatever the front man questions in his song, his back-up singers answer.

Dr. Frank’s Professionals are just that, professional and then some. As horns and drums reverberate in tandem on ‘Afe Ato Yen Bio’, singers do the same, joining in the joyous noise. This is infectious stuff, best listened to while in constant poly rhythmic motion. Sway along and by all means, delay ending this trip as long as you can. By this juncture, it was impossible to tell whether I was just getting into stride with this superb collection or whether it was actually improving as it went along, but, I didn’t care, as long as the journey continued!

The 3rd Generation Band, whose singer has a very personable, conversational tone, comes on like gangbusters with ‘Obiye Saa Wui’. Its pointed signing, warmly pounded drums and oh, so African horn playing shouts Afro-Beat with the organ slipping into the middle of its’ pulsating blend to pepper the beats. Whatever we’re being encouraged to do or think on this track seems a certainty.

‘Mumunde’, Apagya Show Band’s offering, offers intoxicating drumming through which its singer(s) interweave like shoots gracefully growing through a dense jungle of sounds. Permeating to say the least, with compulsive organ playing in its midst, punctuated by resonant drumming and soulful guitar. With a bridge reminiscent of J B’s Famous Flames and African chanting, it’s a grooving jewel.

Rob’s ‘More’ thumps its’ way into consciousness with some springy, bad ass ‘70’s guitar puncturing its solid wall of horns and drums. Rob, who first learned music at school in Benin, pronounces his talk-singing with a decidedly funky accent, which includes a respectable amount of ‘gimme more baby’s’, no less, and a dropped off ending, nodding at self-proclaimed influences like Otis Redding, James Brown, Wilson Pickett and Ray Charles, though his twisting vocal style’s all his own. Perhaps his strong US influences are the reason his lyrics are in English. Extra musical oomph on this track is courtesy of Rob’s favourite backing band, the African army band Mag-2, short for Magnificent, the two standing for 2nd battalion.

Cos-Bar-Zam’s ‘Ne Noya’, a fine representation of lesser known (than Ghanaian) Togolese music, provides contrast via lyrical singing and drumming with simmering organ adding emphasis. An impressively rocking drum solo at the break is up-beated with the singer’s rhythmic chanting, crowned by tasteful organ playing. Heady stuff, so much so that it wasn’t surprising to learn that none other than Fela Kuti himself had contracted the band to appear at his Afro-Spot night club in its pre-Shrine days. Togo is also represented by two other groups on this compilation – Orchestre Abass and Itadi, though Analog Africa’s earlier compilation, Scream Contest also explores Togolese music via three different artists from that country.

This compilation’s openers, Uppers International return with ‘Neriba Lanchina’ and a savoury second course it is! Fairly reverberating with confident call singing, drumming and organ, the track seems sure of where it’s leading us from the outset. Its break stirs this intoxicating mix further, emitting pepped up organ playing that is sure to keep feet moving. Just in case they tend to lag, jazzy guitar, ever threatening to break into a funky gallop, lends the singers’ stabbing voices extra support.

Uppers International’s Chester Adams

The aforementioned Ebo Taylor, one time Feli Kuti jamster and in his own words, arranger of ‘some of the most important records in Ghana’ returns for the closing track on this mandatory collection, ‘Come Along’ but this time his band is named ‘The Pelicans’, birds who nowadays, like bands like this perhaps, are something of an endangered species. With strong emphasis on horns in its melody line, Taylor sings about the ‘heaven in her eyes’ in English, albeit with a winning African lilt. The way every line he sings is followed by an echoing line from the horn section mirrors US soul and funk of the era. A sublime sax solo enables bonus time as does a trumpet spot, making it seem as though at nearly six minutes this track is nowhere near long enough.

Without the invaluable knowledge and input of Dick Essilfie -Bonzie, founder of Essiebons, Ghana’s most important independent record company, and Gerard Akueson, who founded Akue, Togo’s prime label, this essential and important collection would not have been possible. In the case of the former, highlife music, so called because said bands had generally played for ‘high society,’ though initially a fusion of indigenous dance rhythms, swing, bebop, jazz and Christian chants, eventually merged with the more modern styles of colonialist military and police bands, who were copied in turn by then ‘native groups’/ ‘village brass bands.’ Many local musicians though largely self taught were very talented and thus their music became very popular. And that, Essibons affirmed in the compilation’s liner notes, was how ‘the music scene in Ghana became an African affair.’ As Akueson stated: ‘Modern Togolese music was primarily influenced by two things: Ghanaian highlife and rumba congolaise.’ The former arrived in the guise of touring bands, while Congolese music made its mark via Radio Leopoldville, broadcast in many African countries. Togo also had a number of musicians who infused their traditional music with highlife, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Afro-Beat Airways has been so titled because it was inadvertently, the result of Samy Ben Redjeb’s unplanned journey to Acura when his flight to Lacuna was unceremoniously cancelled, and replacement flights were unavailable for weeks. On his now legendary, historically important substitute trip to Ghana, Ben Redjeb sifted through stacks of master tapes and rare photos and conducted several interviews in order to compile this definitive time capsule and its’ informative 44 page, full colour booklet. The result is a bona-fide treasure trove of too long shelved, about time they were revived compulsory performances (they are far too great to simply be referred to as ‘tracks’) from Ghana and Togo, destined to ensure fellow enthusiasts countless days and nights of impossible to resist dancing and being happy to, priceless gems!

Editors Note: The vinyl edition of this album includes two bonus tracks: ‘Operation Bye-Bye – Orchestre Abass and ‘Obive Saa Wui’ – 3rd Generation Band