Playlist and Notes 27 February 2024

On today's show we explore the interchange of jazz music between Africa and the United States. 

Playlist 27 February 2024

 Louis Armstrong – Potato Head Blues (2:57)

·       Tune Recreation Committee – Kwane’s Jive (4:43)    

Randy Weston – Portrait of Cheikh Anta Diop (8:58)

·       “whether you say jazz or blues or bossa nova or samba, salsa – all these names are all Africa’s contribution to the Western Hemisphere. If you take out the African elements of our music, you would have nothing.”[2]

·       Cheikh Anta Diop – Senegalese historian, anthropologist, and politician.

 Mulatu Astatke – Nétsanét (5:32)

·       From the compilation CD: New York – Addis – London: The Story of Ethio Jazz 1965-1975

 Ethioda – Musiqawi silt (5:01)

·       Montpellier, France

 Black Flower – Magma (6:34)

·       Band’s Website: https://www.blackflower.be/.

·       Five-piece Ethiopian-inspired from Belgium

Solomon Linda’s Original Evening Birds – Mbube (2:43)

·       Recorded in 1939, the next song was the first record to sell 100,000 copies in Africa. The Zulu-language song, Mbube.

·       “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” by The Tokens (1961) probably the most famous version

·       Featured in the film and play the Lion King. The family sued for royalties and reached a settlement in 2006, more than 40 years after Solomon Linda’s death.[3]

 Reggie Msomi’s Hollywood Jazz Band – Midnight Ska (2:28)

 African Jazz Pioneers – Yeka Yeka (4:08)

 Abdullah Ibrahim – Soweto (4:09) 

Jazz Epistles (Dollar Brand) – Scullery Department (7:01)

·       Inspired by Art Blakey, from 1959, one of the most important early South African bands with its leader Dollar Brand

Bix Beiderbecke – Three Blind Mice (2:47)

 

[2] Giovanni Russonello, “Randy Weston, Pianist Who Traced Roots of Jazz to Africa, Dies at 92,” New York Times, 1 September 2018.

[3] Sharon Lafraniere, “In the Jungle, the Unjust Jungle, a Small Victory,” New York Times, 22 March 2006, page A1.