Browse by Label: STERNS AFRICA

Artist:	BEMBEYA JAZZ NATIONAL
Title:	The Syliphone Years: Hits And Rare Recordings
Label:	STERNS AFRICA
Format:	2CD BOX
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	STCD 3029CD

"Formed in 1961 in the small town of Beyla, Bembeya Jazz relocated to Conakry, the capital of Guinea, in 1970 and earned its 'National' designation by the sheer strength of its talent and the extent of its musical innovations. Still going strong today, Bembeya's peak period was the late '60s and early '70s, when the phenomenal guitarist Sekou 'Diamond Fingers' Diabate led the band and the great Aboubacar Demba Camara was the lead singer. For this album Guinean music experts Paul Hayward and Graeme Counsel have collected 27 tracks recorded during the remarkably fecund ten years from 1967 and 1977, when Bembeya Jazz National was the top band in Guinea. In addition to the two CDs, the boxed set includes a 44-page full-color booklet replete with period photos and record cover reproductions along with Counsel's authoritative notes in English and French."

Artist:	KELETIGUI ET SES TAMBOURINIS
Title:	The Syliphone Years
Label:	STERNS AFRICA
Format:	2CD BOX
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	STCD 3031CD

"Keletigui Traoré was already a respected professional flutist and saxophonist when he was invited to join the Syli Orchestre National in 1959. In the mid '60s he and several other members of the national orchestra formed a dance band called Orchestre de la Paillote. In 1968 they made their first recordings (including the first track in this compilation), and a year later they changed their name to Keletigui et Ses Tambourinis. Keletigui sang and so did trumpeter Kerfala Camara and bass-guitarist Manfila Dabadou Kanté, but the Tambourinis were best known as an instrumental powerhouse. In addition to his flute and tenor sax, Keletigui also played an electric organ, and his ten-man band included the great alto and soprano saxophonist Momo Wandel Soumah, guitarist Linke Condé, and bala-xylphonist Lansana Diabaté. Keletigui Traoré died last year at the age of 74. This 2-CD boxed set, complete with an illustrated and annotated 44-page booklet, celebrates his most creative years, 1968 to 1976, and is presented as a tribute to his remarkable life and music."

Artist:	RAIL BAND
Title:	Belle Epoque Volume 1: Soundiata
Label:	STERNS AFRICA
Format:	2CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	STCD 3033CD

"Mali's legendary Rail Band, so named because they were initially sponsored by one of Mali's largest railroad lines, were one of the finest West African pop combos of the 1970s. Unlike their peers in countries like Nigeria and Ghana, the Rail Band eschewed the frenetic rhythms of American soul and funk to concentrate on pioneering an electrified version of traditional Malian manding music. Their sound is dominated by the relaxed, tremolo-laden guitar work of Djelimady Tounkara, who embarks on masterful guitar excursions over the flawless grooves of the Rail Band's gently propulsive rhythm section. This two-disc retrospective contains the entirety of The Rail Band's 1975 masterpiece, Soundiata, and includes a host of other stellar Rail Band tracks from that era. Full-colour, 20-page booklet with notes detailing the history of the band and full-page reproductions of original album covers."

Artist:	BALLA ET SES BALLADINS
Title:	The Syliphone Years
Label:	STERNS AFRICA
Format:	2CD BOX
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	STCD 3035CD

"Syliphone was the national record company established in 1959 by the government of newly independent Guinea. Syliphone's premier ensemble was the Syli Orchestre National, which included many of the country's best modern instrumentalists -- among them trumpeter Balla Onivogui. In the mid '60s Balla and eight other musicians branched off from Syli Orchestre National to accept a long-term engagement at the classiest nightclub in Conakry, la Jardin de Guinée. This band, which included trombonist Pivi Moriba, guitarist Sékou 'Le Docteur' Diabaté and singers Manfila Soba Kanté and Émile 'Benny' Soumah, became known as Orchestre de la Jardin de Guinée but eventually took the name Balla et Ses Balladins. This album covers 1968 to 1980, when Balla et Ses Balladins were one of the three most popular bands in Guinea (the others being Bembeya Jazz and Keletigui et Ses Tambourinis). Like the previous releases in the series, this album is a box enclosing two CDs and a 44-page full-color booklet. The CDs contain 28 tracks selected by Guinean music experts Paul Hayward and Graeme Counsel (many of them never released on CD until now), and the booklet is replete with period photos and record cover reproductions along with Counsel's authoritative notes in English and French."

Artist:	RAIL BAND
Title:	Belle Epoque Volume 2: Mansa
Label:	STERNS AFRICA
Format:	2CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	STCD 3039CD

"The second volume in Stern's three-volume Rail Band retrospective, Belle Epoque Volume 2: Mansa contains a number of rare recordings made by the Rail Band in the early '70s, featuring the talents of the Malian songwriting prodigy Salif Kieta, as well as a host of other selections featuring Malian singers like Sekou Kante and Magan Ganessy. Though these compilations provide an admirably thorough overview of the Rail Band's discography, they are not arranged chronologically. On this volume, early '70s cuts featuring the golden-voiced Kieta often sit somewhat uneasily beside equally stellar, but stylistically distinct, offerings from later in the Rail Band's career. Despite its potentially confusing sequencing, Stern's Belle Epoque series offers the listener unparalleled access to the Rail Band's sprawling and influential body of work. Full-colour, 20-page booklet with notes detailing the history of the band and full-page reproductions of original album covers."

Artist:	FRANCO & LE TPOK JAZZ
Title:	Francophonic
Label:	STERNS AFRICA
Format:	2CD
Price:	$22.00
Catalog #:	STCD 3041/2CD

...Africa's Greatest: A Retrospective - Vol. 1: 1953-1980. Nice package, 2CDs in slipcase, with 48 page book. "Francophonic finally gives Franco his due. Vol. 1: 1953-1980 comes out on the 70th anniversary of the artist's birth. Vol. 2: 1980-1989 will be released next year, the 20th anniversary of his death. Each volume is a boxed set containing 2 CDs and a 48-page book. From Sterns -- 'one of the world's finest disseminators of African music,' according to The New York Times -- both albums are researched, compiled, annotated, illustrated and designed by the same people that produced last year's Voice of Lightness, a retrospective of Franco's rival, Tabu Ley Rochereau, which garnered high praise from National Public Radio, Rolling Stone, The New York Times and Pitchfork. This first Francophonic volume is the album that will confirm Franco's international reputation as Africa's greatest."

Artist:	RAIL BAND
Title:	Belle Epoque Volume 3: Dioba
Label:	STERNS AFRICA
Format:	2CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	STCD 3043CD

"With Belle Epoque Vol. 3 - Dioba, the estimable Sterns Africa label has completed another definitive archive project documenting West Africa's post-colonial 'belle epoque' of the 1960s and 1970s. The three two-disc volumes in the series present the hits, highlights and lesser known treasures made by the Rail Band, the era's pre-eminent Malian modern-roots band -- which featured world music stars-to-be Salif Keita and Mory Kante, both winningly represented -- in a collection that is both as scholarly and as vibrant as the label's The Syliphone Years series, showcasing the contemporaneous bands of neighbouring Guinea. Dioba showcases the Rail Band in all its splendid moods and colours: from Keita's spiritualised and virtuosic 'Maki' and 'Soyomba,' through Ganessy's fierce going on feral 'Kadia Kandian' and 'Djamban,' the re-Africanised Stax-Volt soul of Kante's 'Mariba Yassa' and his mesmeric take on Afrobeat, 'Sinsimba,' spacier and nimbler than originator Fela Kuti's style, on to the rumba-infused 'Foliba' and 'Talassa.' Two 1982 tracks, 'Diby' and 'Diabate,' feature the psychedelicised keyboards of Alfred Coulibaly, a late but valuable addition to the line-up, inhabiting adjacent territory to that being explored by the American keyboard player Marco Benevento on Me Not Me (The Royal Potato Family, 2009), two and a half decades later. 3rd and final volume in the critically-acclaimed Belle Epoque series that tells a 13-year story -- from 1970 to 1983 -- of Mali's legendary group. Full-colour, 20-page booklet with notes detailing the history of the band and full-page reproductions of original album covers."

Artist:	MISIANI & SHIRATI JAZZ, D.O.
Title:	The King Of History
Label:	STERNS AFRICA
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	STCD 3051CD

Subtitled: Classic 1970s Benga Beats From Kenya. "Misiani and his band, Shirati Jazz, did not invent benga, the energetic dance music of the Luo people of Kenya and Tanzania, but they were the ones who defined its modern form, with its hypnotic electric guitars and fabulously active bass, and made it popular throughout East Africa. Their records, released internationally in the late 1980s and early '90s, introduced benga to the world. Because of benga, D.O. Misiani, who was born in Tanzania in 1940 and died in Kenya in 2006, is probably now the second-most famous Luo in the world. (The most famous? That would be the American-born Barack Obama, whose father was a Luo from Kenya.) Misiani was a guitarist, singer and songwriter. He wrote songs on all kinds of topics, not least love and politics. Both of those topics got him into trouble. His love songs necessitated his hasty departure from his hometown when he was 20. His political songs got him jailed in Kenya and deported back to Tanzania. But he remained undaunted and unsilenced, and every controversy added to his legend and spread his fame. When Europeans and Americans 'discovered' contemporary African music in the '80s, D.O. Misiani & Shirati Jazz was the East African band that attracted the most attention. Those albums have been out of print for years, but benga has never faded away and D.O. Misiani & Shirati Jazz are unforgettable."

Artist:	ETOILE DE DAKAR FEAT. YOUSSOU N'DOUR
Title:	Once Upon A Time In Senegal - The Birth Of Mbalax 1979-1981
Label:	STERNS AFRICA
Format:	2CD
Price:	$18.50
Catalog #:	STCD 3054CD

"Youssou N'Dour is the most famous African pop star in the world. Since his first appearances in America (on tour with Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel and Sting in 1988), he has filled concert halls and arenas across the continent and earned a reputation as an enthralling performer, a commanding bandleader and one of the greatest singers alive. His duet with Neneh Cherry, '7 Seconds,' was a global smash hit in 1994, and his album Egypt won a Grammy in 2005. Etoile de Dakar was the band the made Youssou N'Dour famous in his native Senegal. He was 19 when he and ten other young musicians got together in Dakar in 1978. Their style was a brash, innovative blend of traditional West African music, Latin music and American rock and soul music that came to be called mbalax (the Wolof word for 'beat'), and in Senegal it caused a sensation that has yet to subside. Etoile de Dakar's cassettes were all runaway bestsellers, and their all-night shows were the makings of an enduring legend. Youssou and his fellow singers, El Hadji Faye and Eric M'Backe N'Doye, were known not only for their voices but also for their wild dancing -- and yet their amazing tama-drummer, Assane Thiam, almost stole the show night after night. That exciting era is captured in Once Upon A Time In Senegal. Two CDs contain 23 tracks selected from the historic cassettes Etoile de Dakar recorded between 1979 and 1981. Six of these tracks are rarities that have never been released outside of Senegal until now. The set includes a 24-page booklet of period photographs and an essay by Mark Hudson, the author of The Music In My Head, a novel inspired by Youssou N'Dour, Etoile de Dakar and mbalax mania."

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