I'd Love to Turn You On #238 - Guelewar Band of Banjul - Warteef Jigeen (1981)

            I often get asked why I listen to African music when I can't understand the language. It's pretty simple, really - when the music is compelling enough, the words simply don't matter. And often enough I find out that the words are also compelling when I can dig up English translations, but I don't really seek them out, because at its best the music slays all by itself. That's certainly the case here, with this album sung in the Wolof language. The band - Guelewar Band of Banjul (or just Guelewar on some records) - doesn't have a lot written about them and I know only slightly more about the group than about the words.

Bandleader Laye N'Gom started his musical career in the late 1960s, eventually finding his way in the 70s to the successful band The Alligators. After the departure of several members, the Alligators fused with the Super Eagles to become Super Alligators. By 1973, after more personnel changes, they renamed themselves Guelewar (Wolof for "noble warrior") and began infusing their sound with the Western influences of rock, funk, and soul. In 1975 they broke up, reforming a year later with yet more new members and finally released their first recordings in 1977. In 1979, two more albums followed - Warteef Jigeen was one of them - and the band continued through 1982 when they seem to have disbanded and Laye N'Gom (now known as Abdel Kabirr) went on to a solo career. It's more complicated than that too - I'm not even sure what's accurate in this data. N'Gom provides the dates I mentioned in one reissue's liner notes, but the fairly authoritative Discogs site pegs their first album as 1980 and this one as 1981, so either they got released in The Gambia and maybe also surrounding Senegal earlier (and N'gom is correct) but elsewhere later (and so Discogs could also be correct). Or N'gom's memory of things that happened almost 40 years ago is hazy. Or whoever entered the data in Discogs is just wrong. This helps point up why I don't sweat little details like understanding the language - you can never really get to the bottom of it anyway, so why worry?

So let's now talk about what we do know. The killer title cut - the shortest thing on the album at a mere 6:51 - starts off the album strong with the horn blast of two saxophones (Laye Salla and Bass Lo Fara Biram) supported by a supple bassline (Malick Njock Njie), with drums (Adama Sall Adu) and percussion (Alieu Chan N’Gom and Koto Biram N’Gom) clattering funkily in the pocket in the background to kick things off before Moussa N’Gom’s soulful vocal comes in. The saxes drop out, and the voice and rhythm section (plus some restrained guitar from Moussa Njobdi Njie) take things for a few with an occasional sax commentary. At about the four-minute mark, Laye N’Gom’s buzzy synthesizer makes its first showing in the proceedings in a fine solo and the horns return in a grand fashion, then everything comes together for the last minute to take things out. Twice again on the album they return to this kind of driving funk - on "N.T.C. The Gambia," which features fuzz guitar, more enticing synth, and a sax solo in addition to the usual unison horn lines, and "Jilanna" which follows right on the heels of "N.T.C." and makes for a killer 17+ consecutive minutes of the album.

Around this they also essay a slow groover with "Leen Te Koun," which throws heavy emphasis on the 1, just like George Clinton would have it, and provides a showcase again for Moussa N'Gom's vocals trading off with Bass Lo Fara Biram, who sets aside his sax for a bit to take the mic. There's also the 12:01 of the slow ballad "Mamadu Bitike," another feature for both vocalists that finds everyone in the band working toward the total moody effect of the music rather than flashy soloing for the first two-thirds of the song before the percussionists come in at about 8:15 and things kick into a high gear and cut loose. The record closes on " President Diawara" which though I don't speak Wolof, I have to assume is in honor of the first President of The Gambia, Dawda Jawara (Diawara in some Anglicized spellings), under whose leadership as Prime Minister The Gambia achieved independence from the British before the country created the office of President, to which he was elected. This song has the most guitar-y solos of the album from Moussa Njobdi Njie (who elsewhere mostly works in deference to the song), plus Laye’s weird synths and more solo sax - everything they the group has done throughout the album is pulled out again at the end to recap what we’ve heard.

All accounts I've read piece together a view of Guelewar as an influence on music throughout The Gambia and Senegal - their early live shows helping form the blueprint for the Senegambian music that would come to be known as mbalax, and those shows were also an acknowledged influence on the primary superstar of mbalax, Youssou N'Dour. Their recordings, hard to find for decades but this one recently reissued by the Austrian PMG label, show them to be one of the most consistent recording acts of the time, with not only Warteef Jigeen out there, but a (now out of print) compilation called Touki Ba Banjul : Acid Trip From Banjul To Dakar that cops the faster half of this album both superb, and a live album of material from 1982 released by Teranga Beat in 2011 only lesser by virtue of slightly inferior (though by no means bad) sound. Do I understand what's being sung about? No. Do I still after picking up these three releases have a clear picture of the band's history? No. Does it matter? Not a bit; not when the music speaks this clearly.

-         Patrick Brown

I'd Love to Turn You On #143 - Youssou N’Dour & Étoile de Dakar – The Rough Guide to Youssou N’Dour & Étoile de Dakar

Formed from members of two of Dakar, Senegal’s most popular nightclub bands, Étoile de Dakar – fronted by vocalist Youssou N’Dour – took the city by storm, soon becoming the most popular band in all of Senegal and revitalizing its music industry, and quickly one of the most popular in all of Africa. They lasted for three years and only a few albums before conflicts within the group made it splinter into several offshoots and Youssou N’Dour catapulted to fame on an international stage. They took the Latin-tinged music popular in West Africa and imbued it with Senegalese roots, creating a music called mbalax, a term coined by Youssou from the Wolof word for “rhythm,” and rhythm is what it’s all about, creating a fast, ferocious groove that shifts regularly and willfully throughout the songs, making them sometimes hard to grasp on one shot, but riveting and rewarding for multiple listens.

And this collection, selected by Graeme Ewens, author of several excellent books on African music, is as good a way to introduce yourself to the band as any that exists. Or at least, it’s a good way to introduce yourself to Youssou N’Dour’s vision of the band, since all the songs are written by N’Dour and two of them are from his post-Étoile group Super Étoile de Dakar. The record kicks off with one of the group’s finest moments, “Absa Gueye” which introduces you right off the bat to the most important things in the band: the song starts with a guitar rhythm after which the bass comes in to lock in with it, followed by a second guitar augmenting the swift rhythms. Then come the drums, a deeper sabar drum and one of the band’s most notable features, the tama drum, pounding sometimes in tandem with the rest of the group, sometimes making a staccato solo statement on top of them. These are all followed by the ace horn section bleating out a hooky riff. And then the voices come in. You’ll notice Youssou’s tenor right away – he’s in the right channel – because he’s got the strongest voice, but you can’t miss El Hadji Faye’s high wail in the other speaker or Eric M'Backe Doye packed in the middle. Again, they sometimes sing together, sometimes comment on each other’s words, sometimes tail off into different harmonies at the same time. But “Absa Gueye” ends in relatively short order and leads to “Jalo,” the mellowest thing here, and also a good way to experience the voices with the least clutter going on around them. For this group, this is a relatively mellow beginning, and the third track, the 12-minute “Thiapatholy,” starts slower before suddenly erupting into high gear and we’re off to the races.

            Maybe instead of easing into the waters, you should dive right into the deep end with “Thiapathioly,” a masterpiece of mbalax that can seem forbidding at first, but tells you about everything that their music is in one, shifting, ever-accelerating piece. It starts out slower, but then at the 0:50 mark the horns blow out a riff and the rhythm takes off at a gallop. Lead guitarist Badou N'Diaye kicks out a solo for about a minute after that (unfortunately it’s a little low in the mix). At about 3:15 the horns play the riff that will repeat the most in the song while the tama drum beats out an insistent pattern with them and then its own pulse in the moments between riffs. Shortly after, the vocals join in the fray as well, singing together, declaiming individually, trading off phrases, but all feeling the rhythm. At 5:53 a new horn riff and rhythm set up for a moment then at 6:09 the rhythm shifts again to something even faster. A little shy of the 7-minute mark there’s another new horn riff, then quickly a faster reappearance of the old riff from earlier in the song and the tama and sabar drums step up to the speed we’re at now.  Vocals drop out for a moment while the horns, guitars and bass riff and the percussion takes a lead for a while. Youssou returns at 9:00 and at this point everyone in the band is going nuts. At 10:35ish, the rhythm shifts again to a trickier pattern, slows down a touch to a more swinging groove at 10:55 and rides that to the vocal finale of the song, just shy of 12 minutes. It’s an epic song in the true sense, and runs you through the finest that mbalax has to offer.

            Other songs throughout highlight their guitars (“Diokhama Say Ne Ne” especially), their gifted horn section (most of the songs), and their remarkably sure sense of (fast, danceable) rhythm even when the songs get dense and complex. But if the youthful drive of several virtuoso players jockeying for lead space sounds exhausting, maybe try the later cuts like “Youssou” which might be the best place to start if you’re not ready to dive into the deep end with “Thiapathioly.” It’s slightly slower, has fewer changes (and less jarring ones at that), great singing – maybe the vocal high point of the disc here – and another terrific horn riff. And there’s a moment when N’Dour hands the reins to the guitarist when he says “C'est ça” and the guitar rips out one of the best (and most clearly recorded) solos of the entire set. It’s a great one. The collection ends with two cuts from N’Dour’s Super Étoile de Dakar, who he took to Europe with him to tour and begin a new phase of his career. These two are directly in the spirit of the Étoile de Dakar that we’ve just heard – which makes sense since N’Dour wrote and sang lead on every cut here.

            By 1981, they’d had enough of each other, with El Hadji Faye, Eric M'Backe Doye, and Badou N'Diaye splitting to form Étoile 2000, who made one worthy (and hard to find – snap it up if you see it) album before splitting up yet again, and Youssou, tama drummer Assane Thiam, percussionist Babacar Faye, and animateur Alla Seck (the rough equivalent to a hype man – think Flavor Flav), forming Super Étoile de Dakar and conquering Europe. Since the regular albums (all worthwhile) are long out of print, this may be your best - and is certainly the most economical - route to find out about one of the most exciting bands on the planet. You could grab the more balanced two-disc collection Once Upon A Time in Senegal, which more thoroughly goes through their catalog, featuring the many other songwriters who did work for the group and overlapping with only five of the cuts here. Or get them both. You won’t be sorry.

-         Patrick Brown

What Are You Listening to Lately (Part 12)?

King Sunny Ade – Juju Music
At first I didn't love this one the way I do now - subtler dynamics and a hook value somewhat lower than Ade and Martin Meissonier's subsequent outings for Island meant that it took longer to sink in. But after much acclimatization to Sunny Ade's catalog, it's easier to hear how this fits in as a particularly brilliant sampler of what he was doing around the time on his own before Meissonier put his hands in and added some Western touches to attune it more to the Euro-American sensibilities they hoped to hook into. Not too much though - this one's a good halfway point between the uncut Juju that brought Ade to fame and fortune in his native Nigeria and throughout Western Africa and the more pointedly Western stuff that failed to break him on a Marley-like scale Stateside and in Europe. All songs are good to great - more consistent than Synchro System if not quite as dynamic and about equal to the overall quality of much more Euro-African synthesis of the great and underrated Aura (though this one's way more Afro- than Euro-). "Ja Funmi" is one of the highest points I've heard in his catalog, kicking the album off right. And it never lets up afterward, even if the dense synthesizer forest of "Sunny Ti De Ariya" and the English lyrics of "365 Is My Number/The Message" are the only times afterward that it really makes major marks as standout tunes again. But it's high quality across the board, even if it sometimes - here's that subtlety again - doesn't exactly stand up and announce the differences in tracks. There isn't a part of this I don't enjoy at any time of day or night, especially when it's played loud (as it should be).

Miles Davis – The Musings of Miles
A really interesting and a unique, if not wholly exciting, item in the Miles catalog for a few reasons. First - it's from just before his triumphant return to public form at the Newport Festival in 1955 and shows him working at the peak of his 1950's style. Second - it's on the cusp of the formation of his First Quintet and has all the stylistic marks of that era of his development. Third - great song selection and pacing, starting with mid-tempo and ballad numbers then slowly speeding up over the course of the record and closing again with a nice ballad. Fourth, and most importantly - it's a quartet, just Miles and rhythm. There is nowhere else in his entire catalog where you get to hear him so nakedly and clearly without another horn drawing your interest away (especially since he had such a knack for picking really great players to work alongside him). But back to song selection a moment, where I'd like to point out his very interesting "A Night in Tunisia," in which Miles craftily dodges the part where every saxophone player has to take on "the famous alto break" if they're gonna tackle the song, and Miles just slyly makes it his own, giving a nod to Charlie Parker and then doing his own thing with it. As much as I enjoy the rest of the record, a good if not outstanding one in the catalog, this is the highlight. And it's that not-outstanding-ness of the rest of the record that keeps it hovering somewhere better than good, but not quite great. It's all well-done, it's all enjoyable, but only on "Tunisia" does it blindside you with surprises, even if I dig his Monk-answer "I Didn't" and other parts quite a bit.

Funkadelic – Let’s Take It to the Stage
George Clinton and Co. are rarely perfect at album length. Their best ones always leave you a spot or two where you can run to the kitchen and get the snacks; where you'll skip to the next track; where you won't bother ripping some songs to your Ipod; and this one is no exception. That said, I enjoy it all even if not all equally. I count four great ones and six lesser ones, including the lengthy Bernie Worrell organ and synth workout with George's dirty mouth embedded deep down in the intro. But the overall mood is great; off the cuff nasty, funky, funny, soulful, rocking - everything you'd ask of these guys (and gals). And it's perhaps the best representation of their late-Westbound period; the point where they'd given up on the extended druggy drones of the early albums but had not yet achieved the slicker sound of their Warner Bros. years. It starts out great, hits another winner with the utterly un-P.C. "No Head No Backstage Pass," scores a classic to close the A with "Get Off Your Ass And Jam" and then opens the B with the almost Gothic-metal "Baby I Owe You Something Good." These four great ones are surrounded by fun, by funk, and by as solid an outing as they'd make under the name Funkadelic (and yes, I'm including Maggot Brain) or would make until One Nation Under A Groove. Pretty great, but not perfect - and isn't that more or less what you'd expect from George?

What Are You Listening to Lately (part 6)?

Sorry I've slacked folks. Holidays, film festival, and other stuff (including laziness) conspired to keep me down. I promise I'll get back on track. I swear it.

Franco – African Classics
First disc is a chronological mess, while the second runs more or less in order (with a couple jumps). But the music makes it across the board, and it’s nice for me to pick up my third Franco “Best of” collection with minimal overlap with the other two. And what’s that? Liner notes that not only tell you a little about each piece, but tell you which CD the track is on, should you choose to follow through on some favorites? The amateur ethnomusicologist/collector nerd in me is in heaven! Only drawback for me is that not every track is as killer as on competing best ofs – the great-but-out-of-print The Very Best of Franco or the equally great and still in print The Rough Guide to Franco (or the brand-new Francophonic, just released last week to right the wrong Stern's made when they took Very Best of out of print). But for two in-print, domestically available discs studded with greatness and always delivering joy at a single disc price, it seems foolish if not downright stupid of me to even mention that it’s less consistent. It’s pretty great throughout, and if my taste favors the dancy, guitar-heavy 70’s and 80’s material while this even-handedly represents the rumba-leaning 50’s and 60’s, that’s my problem. Get it if you have the slightest inkling that you’d enjoy it.

Run DMC – Raising Hell
More consistent than the debut, though nothing here is as startlingly brilliant as “Rock Box” or “Sucker MC’s.” Even so, it’s brimming with a confidence and verve their sophomore effort lacks and from first beat to last they rarely step wrong. As a crossover move, “Walk This Way” was (and still is) a stroke of genius – or at least it was a stroke to get Tyler and Perry on board for the ride. The song slays – great original turned into great cover, and Tyler sounds as comfortable in this setting as the guys from Hollis (a great shot in the arm for his commercial potential of the day, too). What used to be the A-side is a great sequence – perfect opener in “Peter Piper” to the back-to-back anthems of "It’s Tricky” and “My Adidas” to the aforementioned “Walk This Way” to a slight cooldown with the short, funky hit of “Is It Live” and the totally live-in-the-studio feel of “Perfection.” The former B kicks almost as hard, dipping in quality only on “Dumb Girl” (it’s still funky tho) and letting up the intensity only for the jokey humor of “You Be Illin’,” but making up for any flaws with one of the best and most out-there pieces of music they ever essayed – “Proud to Be Black.” In a way, that song is the statement of purpose of both album and career for these guys, summing up in a few succinct phrases and wild scratches what the braggadocio of not even just their own career, but all of this era of rap had as its unspoken subtext – unspoken until now, of course. Shoulda been a single, though songs with “motherfucker” in them don’t get on the radio often. And the singles here signified plenty on their own. Backed by the deeper album cuts, it makes for a damn near flawless listening experience and what may in the long run prove to be their finest album.

Stereolab – Mars Audiac Quintet
My second most favorite by Stereolab though I’d point out that I’m not really to be trusted since A) I pretty much stopped picking up new albums by them somewhere around the turn of the millennium and B) I think that all their albums except the divine Emperor Tomato Ketchup are of more or less equal quality (high). But some – this one, for example – are slightly more equal and find their way into my listening more regularly than others. This fact is helped along by little strokes like the terrific lyrics of “Wow and Flutter,” the Krautrock influence that puts a fine, artsy, electro-acoustic sheen on things, and the brilliance of “Des Etoiles Electroniques,” a little slice of heaven which just floats above and beyond the rest of the record. A shame it comes in so early – would’ve made a nice linchpin in the middle of the record. But it’s pretty great throughout – more rock-heavy than later albums would prove to be, yet infused with the breathy melodiousness that makes it seem lighter than air, a fact punctured by the seriousness of the lyrics: usually political, always leftist, often in French. It’s one of the best spoonfuls of sugar they’ve created to make their socialist medicine go down.

What Are You Listening To Lately (Part 5)?

See older posts for description of this regular column.



Orchestra Baobab – Made in Dakar
The title really says it all – while they still show influence from all over Africa, the Caribbean, and beyond, this record more than any other I’ve heard by them subsumes those influences into a sound that’s straight out of Senegal, paying respect to the dominant mbalax style of Senegalese music even if it’s not the only sound you hear. About half the songs date to the 70’s or earlier – updating traditional songs and older pop music is one of the hallmarks of Orchestra Baobab’s style – but if you didn’t grow up with them you’ve never guess the vintage of these tunes simply by listening. Nor would you be able to guess from the energy level here that many of these players had been at it for nearly 40 years as Orchestra Baobab – but you could guess from the easy rapport they have with each other. At times it’s like the songs are merely an extended sequence of conversations on different subjects (lyric trots in English provided in liner notes). Especially notable are the (instrumental – in both senses of the word) voices of Issa Cissoko on saxophone and bandleader Barthelemy Attisso on guitar – these two have always taken the lead roles in the music of Baobab over the years and their camaraderie here characterizes the learned, laid-back feel that’s still charged with energy throughout. Between their last album Specialist in All Styles (fitting title, that) and this one, they seemed to have tapped into some kind of magical pipeline for great music they can turn on at will – though they don’t abuse the privilege. It’s got an elder statesman vibe that never feels aged, they just lay the shit down like they’ve got nothing to prove. Which at this point, they don’t – they’re acknowledged masters. One of the best recordings to hit the U.S. shores in 2008.


George Russell – Ezz-Thetics
There’s something wonderful and evocative about Russell’s music that I can’t quite pin down (and I’m not about to dive deep into musical theory just to dig his ‘Lydian Concept’). It keeps me a little confounded but it also draws me back to give another shot at understanding things – or following them, anyway – next time I pull this out for a listen. Of course, if you’ve read many of my reviews, this is basically a paraphrasing of what my favorite art does – holds out a little mystery while keeping me wanting to go back for more. Even without the mighty Eric Dolphy on hand, I would find this record enjoyable, but Dolphy always bumps the value of a record up a bit and it’s his extended solo on “’Round Midnight” here that is the record’s crowning moment. But it’s followed not far back in quality by a great “Nardis” and Russell’s own great title cut. His other two compositions (plus trombonist Dave Baker’s “Honesty”) also get off great moments – written and/or played with that unique approach that keeps me a lot intrigued and a little baffled. I don’t “get” it yet, but I love it, and part of that love probably comes from not getting it.


Postal Service - Give Up
I dunno, maybe it’s really better than I give it credit for – it’s catchy as hell, mildly experimental, smart. I think if I had been in or just out of college when this came out it might have a permanent spot on my top ten – at least until I hit my mid-30’s. But I feel about it the way I feel about probably 90% of the smart indie rock that crosses my ears – I can recognize the intelligence and respect the craft, but it feels like it was meant for someone else. Had I come to this another time, I’d probably parse these lyrics the way I do Talking Heads and Eno. I like it, I really do. I enjoy it every time I have an opportunity to hear it. I think it’s a cool idea and a great execution – Gibbard and Tamborello are a real simpatico pair who could even have been in the same studio (but of course weren’t) and not done any better. But even though they’re both roughly my age, I feel a little old listening to it. The more I think about it though, the more I think it's the indie rock equivalent in pop-experimental sensitivity of Upstairs at Eric's.

What Are You Listening To Lately (Part 4)?

I think I speak for many record store employees when I say that the most dreaded question a customer can ask is “What are you listening to lately?” Most of us are on our own strange little personal journeys that are miles away from what anyone else we know is interested in. But I can promise you, we all have a pretty similar reaction when that question comes up: we brace ourselves and usually throw back a quick "What have YOU heard lately that you've liked?", because it would take too long to explain exactly what we’re actually listening to lately and why. With that in mind, here's a snapshot of what I have actually been listening to lately – what’s in the walkman, on the stereo, what I’m picking when I’m at work, and what I’ve been playing when I’m in the shower.

Various - The Indestructible Beat of Soweto
This blew a lot of people’s minds when it came out, but mine wasn’t one of them. Rather than having my music-world shattered by the realization that there were vibrant, thriving pop music scenes elsewhere in the world, this was part of my growing up/learning process. Not literally this album, mind you, but those P. Simon/P. Gabriel/T. Heads records that sent people out looking for this album or others like it were ingrained into my teenaged pop music DNA the way that the Shangri-Las and Jan & Dean are part of the Ramones’ DNA. So I just accepted this as part of the pop norm when I found my indirect way into it via the Art of Noise working alongside Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens. I’m telling you this not to tout some false sense of a superior position, but to note that it means that I came to this strictly as music, not a cultural phenomenon – Apartheid was over and Mandela freed by the time I actually picked this record up - and I still find it to be an absolutely superb example of how a compilation can work to summarize/anthologize a scene, a musical movement, a socio-political phenomenon, and also how easy it is for music in a language that the listener doesn’t understand to vault over any resistances and hit you right in the gut. It’s universal. And knowing the circumstances under which the music was made only pushes my admiration and enjoyment up to the nth degree. And if you’ve never heard anything like this, it may well blow your fucking mind.


Los Lobos – Colossal Head
I’m at a loss to understand why this in considered a lesser Los Lobos album while Kiko is revered as a high point in their career. Kiko trades heavily on atmosphere (provided by engineer Tchad Blake and producer Mitchell Froom, whose slightly bent take on Americana suits these modern traditionalists (traditional modernists?) to a T) while this one refines the formula and offers up better songs to boot. There’s nothing on Kiko with half the energy of the ebullient “Mas Y Mas,” no lyric there with the weary depth of “Revolution” or that spills over with the joy of “Life Is Good.” And don’t get me wrong, I think Kiko is great, I just think this one’s better and more potent, like a concentrated reduction of everything that went into Kiko – experimentalism, ambience, energy, great playing. Why, it's just about as good as the Latin Playboys first album.


Parliament – Mothership Connection
The album opens and closes with brilliance, but that middle stretch is totally pro forma P-Funk. Luckily, those three tracks are also the shortest (and also luckily, pro forma P-Funk has still got the goods for dancing), and I give G. Clinton et al props for keeping the theme of the album going, for making them of a piece with the better material that surrounds them, even if they’re lesser by comparison. And those four great once are pretty titanic slices of funk – starting with the stoned radio DJ rap of “P. Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)” and moving directly into the album’s central theme/title track “Mothership Connection (Star Child),” in which Clinton and co. suggest vaulting over Earth’s problems into the cosmos. Closing out the B-side (or the CD) they offer up one of the their most durable and popular grooves, “Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof Off the Sucker)” and the ridiculous “Night of the Thumpasorus Peoples,” a trifle they probably slapped together in the studio that has proven to be inexhaustibly entertaining (to me at least) over the decades. They’re more consistent elsewhere in their catalog, but they’ve rarely ever peaked as high as the best of what they offer here.