PRICE:
$20.00
IN STOCK
ARTIST
TITLE
London Is the Place for Me: Calypso, Kwela, Highlife, Jazz -- The Music of Young Black London, 1 & 2
FORMAT
2CD

LABEL
CATALOG #
HJR 002CD HJR 002CD
GENRE
RELEASE DATE
5/14/2013

Honest Jon's assembles volumes 1 & 2 in their highly-acclaimed London Is the Place for Me series on one 2CD set. Volume 1 was the second album on the Honest Jon's label, originally released in 2002. When the Empire Windrush, an old troop-carrier, arrived at Tilbury on June 21, 1948, and inaugurated modern Caribbean immigration to Britain, it also supplied calypso with its best-known image -- on Pathé newsreel, Lord Kitchener singing his new composition "London Is the Place for Me." Kitch had boarded with Lord Beginner at Kingston docks, Jamaica, on Empire Day, May 24. In London they joined a milieu of fine band musicians familiar with Caribbean musical forms and already represented on numerous recordings crucial to the development of British swing and jazz music. Travelling with their own core audience, the Trinidadian calypsonians brought with them the vocal music of Carnival. Traditionally, this ranges from social satire to sexual double-entendre, from voodoo to the most pressing issues of the day, from sporting events to competitive insult. The experiences of Britain's growing Caribbean population was to be fabulously rich in raw material. Volume 2 remains mostlyfocused on the '50s, with classic calypsos running alongside the African jazz of Ambrose Campbell -- the father of modern Nigerian music -- and some blistering high-life. Amongst the contributions from the '60s, there is some South African kwela (featuring Chris McGregor), and a jazz-dance percussion workout from the Trinidadians who put the Notting Hill Carnival on London streets.