Hugh Jazz

The last of couple of nights have been spent at two very enjoyable gigs on the South Bank: John Grant at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on Thursday, followed on Friday by Hugh Masekela (or Philip McCartney Jr. III to give him his real name) at the Royal Festival Hall.

If you haven't already got John Grant's "Queen of Denmark" you can certainly find many of the tracks on other blogs - I know I did - so we'll go straight to Hugh. I was lucky enough to see him play the Festival Hall once before, back in the 1990s, and age has not withered his charm. If anything he is even more of a showman than he used to be.

Hugh was backed by a very tidy five piece band, with a stand-out performer in John Cameron Ward on guitar. It took them all a couple of numbers to get warmed up but once they had done so they were excellent. My only minor moan was that on a couple of occasions when they had a real groove going and had got the audience on their feet, they slightly spoiled the mood with an extended bass solo (or, worse still, a bongo solo). That's jazz, I suppose.

Hugh played some old standards like "Stimela", "Lady" and, of course, "Grazing In The Grass". They finished on real high with a rendition of "Thanayi" that was decidedly cooking, as I believe the jazz buffs say, then encored with an exceptionally funky "Ashiko". Here are the recorded versions of both songs, which seem a little sedate by comparison.

"Thanayi" - Hugh Masekela

"Ashiko" - Hugh Masekela

We were also treated to a short but sweet support set from the Mahotella Queens, who having only been together since 1964 are novices compared to Hugh. The youngest member, aged 65, got a bit over-excited towards the end and started showing off. Kids, eh?

Here are the girls in action in 1991 with Mahlatini.

Tsonga Disco: Malulektro

As explained in my previous post, there are three distinct camps among current Tsonga Disco artistes: the traditionalists, the groovy disco dudes, and the more experimental electro types. George Maluleke is normally considered to be firmly in the first camp - for an example listen to the two tracks included in my post about him in April.

But these are interesting times. George did not get to be at the top of the Tsonga disco heap for so many years without knowing a thing or two about pleasing a crowd, and so in recent times has started including a few electro remixes with his albums and/or adding those remixes to reissues of some of his earlier albums. I am not entirely sure which is which as I have not been able to establish the original release dates.

Fans of the Shangaan Disco compilation album might particularly want to check out "Xirhandza Thyaka Remix" which is available to download from Amazon and elsewhere, together with a number of his other albums. As the title rather gives away, it is a remix of George's "Xirhandza Thyaka" album. That was his 17th album, and he is know on his 25th or 26th, so the original presumably came out in the early years of the millenium. My guess is that the remix is much more recent.

You certainly wouldn't recognise these tracks as being by George Maluleke, not least because his vocals have been completely removed.

"Swa Humelela Remix" - George Maluleke (from "Uhundukile Mavala")

"Basimbilu Remix" - George Maluleke (from "Xirhandza Thyaka Remix")

Speaking of the Shangaan Electro compilation as we were, here is a video featuring the Tshetsha Boys. And a whole lotta shakin' going on.

Tsonga Disco: Madlaks

For someone whose self-proclaimed mission is to bring Tsonga Disco to the masses, I have been doing a pretty awful job recently. It is time to start putting that right, beginning today. Ladies and gentlemen, we bring you Madlaks.

If you are new to this site, a brief recap. The Tsonga people (also known as the Shangaan) live mainly in the north-eastern parts of the Limpopo Province in South Africa and in southern Mozambique. Tsonga Disco is a mixture of their traditional music and, well, disco I suppose.

Depending on who you are listening to the balance between traditional and disco elements will vary. There are those who come from the more traditional wing (the likes of Thomas Chauke and George Maluleke) and those who mix in more of a dance element (these include most of my personal favourites such as General Muzka, Joe Shirimani and Penny Penny - I have three new Penny Penny albums on order which I will hopefully be able to share with you soon).

More recently, a third camp has emerged who have turned the dial right up to bonkers, like those artists featured on the excellent "Shangaan Electro: New Wave Dance Music From South Africa" compilation. Madlaks is in that camp. Here are a couple of selections from his album "Ndlho Ndlho".

"Ndlho Ndlho (Remix)" - Madlaks

"Nwamakapani" - Madlaks

Moving on to other news, bargain of the week (at least for our UK readers) has to be on Amazon, where you can currently download Cee Lo Green's "The Lady Killer" for just £3.99. It is already a serious contender for my album of the year. I strongly recommend you go and buy it now. And if you don't want to take my advice, well you know what you can do...

Wom!

Today we bring you a couple of selections from a CD I picked up in Paris earlier in the year in one of the countless tiny African music shops near Marcadet-Poissoniers metro - "Panache" by the exotically named Yulianna Wom.


I have not been able to find out a great deal about Yulianna. I assume she is from Cameroon as the contact address on the CD is in Douala, although the album was recorded in the unlikely setting of the Euro Gospel studio in La Louviere, Belgium. Yulianna wrote and produced the album herself, with the help of musical maestro Didier Likeng. According to Sterns website it was released in 2001.

Most of the album canters along at a perky mid-tempo but, as it is Sunday, we will give you one of the slow tracks as well.

"Me M'Ading Wo" - Yulianna Wom

"Za'a Bike" - Yulianna Wom

One thing I haven't established yet is whether Yulianna is a distant relative of Barry Wom, drummer with the legendary Rutles. I assume not but you never know. Here they are in concert in the Shea Stadium in 1965.

Soul D'Ivoire

To help get you fired up for the weekend, here are a couple of selections from an excellent compilation album called "Ivory Coast Soul". As the name suggests, it is a collection of soulful tunes from Cote d'Ivoire, mostly from the 1970s. Great stuff it is too.

"Zadie Bobo" - Ernesto Djedje

"Adoue Pla Moussoue" - K. Assale

And here's something else for the weekend.

Spirits Beautiful

Last night I was at the Cafe OTO in Dalston to see Mike Heron and his band.

To provide a bit of context, Mike has been one of my musical heroes for roughly thirty years, since I discovered a copy of the Incredible String Band's "5000 Spirits, or the Layers of an Onion" album in a second-hand record shop and fell instantly in love with his music. While I have seen him live a number of times, it has always been in combination with others (the String Band reunions and various cameo roles at other concerts). This was the first opportunity I have ever had to see him perform a full set. And it happened in a nice, intimate venue - the audience of me, Green from Scritti Politti, and all the other old farts probably didn't quite reach 100 - with a few decent, locally brewed pints of porter.

So there is absolutely no prospect of getting an objective review from me. It was utterly fantastic and I was grinning from ear to ear from start to finish. Here are the original versions of just two of the many highlights.

"Douglas Traherne Harding" - The Incredible String Band (from "The Big Huge")

"Spirit Beautiful" - Mike Heron (from "Smiling Men With Bad Reputations")

The band comprised Mike's daughter, Georgia Seddon, on keyboards, Mike Hastings (whose day job is guitarist with the Trembling Bells), and Solveig Aakvik on fiddle. It was entertaining watching Georgia, who spent the whole set looking warily at over at Mike. That must be one of the problems of working with your Dad - no matter who they are or how good they are at what they do, they are only ever a matter of seconds away from doing something really embarrassing (Old Pa Goggins excepted of course).

Georgia did a short support set, as did Mike (Hastings) and Solveig. As well as being an excellent electric guitarist, as he showed during the Trembling Bells set on Saturday, he is pretty nifty on the acoustic as well. I think there is definitely a bit of a Bert Jansch feel to his sound. Judge for yourselves.

"Inchconnachan" - Mike & Solveig

And from way back when, here are old gang. Mike still closes his shows with this.

Eureka!

Those of you who were around back in September may recall me mentioning that I had been lucky enough to the see Eureka Birds in concert while in New York. Well now Justin Levy from the band has kindly sent me an advance copy of their new six track EP, called simply "Eureka!". Copies should be available soon from their website and elsewhere. The website also has details of Justin's short solo tour of the East Coast (of the US not the UK - he won't be playing Lowestoft), which kicks off tomorrow night with a hometown gig in Baltimore.

I really like the EP, and to me there is a warmth to it that wasn't there on their (still pretty good) self-titled debut album. Whether that comes from the additional band members, or the production, or just a bit more maturity in the writing and performing I don't know. But it works for me.

Being an old fart I don't know much about modern music, so I can't sensibly attempt to define or describe their sound. But to use a frame of reference I can understand, it seems like Eureka Birds are reinterpreting the best aspects of 1970s AOR and MOR, in the same sort of way as John Grant does on "Queen of Denmark" and Josh Rouse has done more than once. Fair to play to them, because when it was good it was very good. And for these younger folks who can filter out the worst excesses it doesn't lead to the same unpleasant flashbacks as for those of us who were just too young to be conscripted in the punk wars.

To illustrate what I mean, compare and contrast.

"We'll Get By" - Eureka Birds (from "Eureka!" EP, 2010)

"Downtown Tonight" - Racing Cars (from "Downtown Tonight", 1976)

Here is another mellow marvel from 1976. You didn't have to be attractive to have hit singles in those days. It was a simpler time.