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viewing 1 To 12 of 12 items
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RETRO 015CD
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Originally released in 2001. Kiamuangana Mateta, better known as Verckys, is one of the most famous characters in Congolese music. An outstanding saxophonist with a vigorously funky sound, he was still a teenager when he started playing in prominent bands and only 20 when the great Franco recruited him into OK Jazz, the top band in the land, in 1964. In addition to being a talented instrumentalist, composer, and arranger, Verckys was a showman whose stage antics and dancing won him an avid following that stayed with him when he quit OK Jazz to lead his own Orchestre Vévé in 1969. He started his own record company, Vévé, and proved to be one of the savviest talent scouts and entrepreneurs in the Congolese music business, discovering or putting together many of the best bands of the second generation. His greatest legacy is probably the Orchestre Vévé records he made in the late '60s and early '70s, when Loko Massengo and Saak Saakoul were among the singers and the lead guitarist was Roxy Tshimpaka. Here are ten exemplary tracks for your listening delectation and dancing pleasure.
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RETRO 018CD
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Originally released in 2005. The second generation of Congolese pop groups emerged in the 1970s, and one of the engines of its rapid and prominent rise was a relatively new medium in Central Africa: television. No band benefitted from TV more than the Stukas. These guys put on a show, week after week, that was as entertaining to watch as it was to hear, and vastly more people around the country could get in on the fun than could ever get into a club in Kinshasa. The star of the Stukas was Gaby Lita Bembo, the energetic lead singer wearing flashy clothes, often brandishing humorous stage props, and always coming up with new dance moves. But the Stukas' visual appeal wouldn't have held up long without their substantial musical appeal, and RetroAfric wouldn't have put this compilation together if the band (which included guitarists Samunga Tediangaye and Bongo Wende, bassist Ngouma Lokito, and drummer Awilo Longomba) hadn't been so talented, tight and dynamic.
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RETRO 019CD
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Originally released in 2003. Captain Yaba was the professional name of Azongo Nyaaba, who was born and raised in the dry grasslands of the far north of Ghana. He was four or five years old when he started playing the koliko (also known as the molo), an ancestor of the banjo. Mac Tontoh of the internationally famous band Osibisa brought Nyaaba to the Ghanaian capital, Accra, and there he began performing with various groups and as a soloist under the name Captain Yaba. In 1994 he recorded his second album of traditional Fra Fra songs, this one with a modern funk band called Ninkribi, and that raised sufficient interest abroad for Captain Yaba & Ninkribi to tour Europe. After returning to Ghana, Captain Yaba continued to perform on his own and in groups, but in 2001 he died of tuberculosis at barely past the age of 30. Two years later RetroAfric reissued the Captain Yaba-Ninkribi album, duplicating five of the tracks in their rough and even funkier mixes.
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RETRO 022CD
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Originally released in 2008. Ry-Co Jazz was a band of musical ambassadors that spent nearly all of its 18 years on tour or in residence outside its native Congo. Led by singers Freddy N'Kounkou and Casino Mbilia and guitarist Jerry Malekani, Ry-Co Jazz introduced contemporary Congolese music to audiences in West Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and South America, influencing countless local musicians and generating new musical hybrids. Ry-Co Jazz was especially popular in the French Antilles, and it's clear from the records the band made in Martinique and Guadeloupe in the 1970s how many of the islands' sounds the band absorbed and how much the Congolese musicians contributed to the zouk style that flowered a few years later. This second Ry-Co compilation from RetroAfric covers 1963 to 1977, and follows Rumba 'Round Africa (RETRO 010CD).
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RETRO 012CD
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Originally released in 1998. When Bi Kidude died in 2013 none of the many tributes paid to her could state her age with any certainty. She herself hadn't known for sure, but researchers calculated that she was over 100 years old even though she was still giving concerts in the last year of her life. This much is factual: that Bi Kidude was born on the island of Zanzibar when it was still a sultanate and that in the 1920s she became known as the Queen of Taarab, the Swahili music of the East African coast and Indian Ocean islands. A featured singer and dancer with several of the top taarab orchestras, she toured widely over four decades before settling down in Zanzibar, where she became a sort of priestess, guiding girls through puberty rites. In the 1980s she resumed touring, traveling through the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Europe with the Twinkling Stars, the Taarab All Stars, and Shikamoo Jazz. The recordings on this album were made in Zanzibar, Tanzania; Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; Berlin, Germany; Helsinki, Finland; and Reading, England. In addition to definitive performances of taarab classics, the album includes a very rare field recording of an unyago girls' puberty rite, with Bi accompanied by an all-female chorus and drum corps.
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RETRO 021CD
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Originally released in 2006. Since the early 20th century, the center of modern Congolese music has been the twin cities of Kinshasa and Brazzaville, but there have long been other hot spots, even outside the two Congolese nations. In the 1970s and '80s Nairobi, Kenya, was home to Orchestre Virunga, Super Mazembe, all the Wanyika bands, and Les Mangalepa. They were all led by Congolese emigrés, though most included at least a few local musicians. Mangalepa never actually performed in Brazzaville or Kinshasa, but it had that unmistakable sound: high-energy rhythms, multiple voices, generous with the guitars and horns. From the mid-'70s to the mid-'80s (the period covered by this album), Mangalepa was hugely popular not only in Nairobi but throughout East Africa from Uganda to Malawi and even in eastern Congo.
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RETRO 010CD
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Originally released in 1996. Ry-Co Jazz did just about as much as any band to popularize Congolese rumba internationally in the 1960s. Formed in 1959 by the pioneering guitarist, composer, and music businessman Henri Bowané, the band held its first rehearsal on a steamer heading up the Congo River and spent the next 18 years on the road (or on the river) beyond their home country. Bowané soon split off to start other bands and Ry-Co Jazz picked up new members of various nationalities along the way. The core of the band, though, was always three Congolese men: singers Freddy N'Kounkou and Casino Mbilia and guitarist Jerry Malekani. The Congolese saxophonist Jean-Serge Essous, a founding member of both OK Jazz and Les Bantous de la Capitale, joined Ry-Co Jazz in 1964, by which time the band was touring Europe. In 1967 it made the first of several long visits to the Caribbean. Everywhere it went it not only disseminated Congolese rumba but also absorbed sounds such as West African highlife, French rock 'n' roll, and Caribbean calypso and beguine. This compilation (the first of two from RetroAfric preceding Bon Voyage!! (RETRO 022CD)) covers 1961 to 1969.
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RETRO 009CD
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Originally released in 1995. Although Shikamoo Jazz was formed in 1993, its members were all veterans of popular Tanzanian dance bands of the '60s and '70s such as Western Jazz, Kiko Kids, Dar Jazz, and Les Wanyika, augmented by the Kenyan star Fundi Konde, whose career began in the 1940s. Reviving the golden oldies of a bygone but fondly recalled era, Shikamoo soon won fans all over East Africa. The songs in this album are all Swahili classics.
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RETRO 023CD
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Originally released in 2009. Bend skin beats? Music for riding motorbikes through the crowded, anarchic streets of the city. Music for dancing the way you ride that motorbike, slinging your leg over the seat, adjusting your weight -- shoulders forward, butt back -- and holding on for dear life. Bend skin beats were the sound of Douala, Yaoundé, and other Cameroonian cities in the 1990s. André Marie Tala was the blind singer, guitarist, and songwriter who started the craze with his hit, "Bend Skin," but by then he'd been a hit-maker for 20 years. In 1972 he made his first recordings in Paris with Manu Dibango and gave Dibango the idea for his global hit "Soul Makossa." The following year Tala struck gold with "Hot Koki," which James Brown ripped off for his 1975 hit "Hustle!!! (Dead On It)." Between makossa and bend skin beats were his popular tchmassi style and experiments with neo-traditional Bamileké dances, but, unusually for someone famous for his dance music, Tala is also much admired in Cameroon for his intelligent lyrics. This CD includes tracks from 1972 to 1998.
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RETRO 006CD
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Originally released in 1994. The co-writer, guitarist, and harmony singer on the first Congolese hit record, Wendo's "Marie Louise," in 1948, Henri Bowané was one of the first stars of modern Congolese music. As a composer, arranger, talent agent, and record producer in the '50s, '60s, and '70s he was crucial to the success of such great bands as Franco's OK Jazz, Kallé Kabasele's African Jazz, Rock-a-Mambo, Ry-Co Jazz, and Sam Mangwana's African All-Stars. In 1976 he produced an important album by Zaïko Langa Langa at the renowned Essiebons Studio in Accra, Ghana, and between sessions he recorded some of his own songs with Ghanaian musicians and members of Zaïko Langa Langa. However, those recordings remained unreleased until two years after Bowané's death in 1992, when RetroAfric discovered and issued them as Double Take - Tala Kaka.
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RETRO 016CD
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Originally released in 2001. Drummer Guy Warren was one of the first African musicians in the 20th century to make his career in the United States. Born in Ghana in 1923, he was a founder of The Tempos, which became the pre-eminent highlife dance band, but in the early '50s he emigrated to the U.S. He jammed with Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, and Thelonious Monk, played New York gigs with Lester Young and Errol Garner, and was for a while the drummer in Sarah Vaughan's trio. In 1956 he recorded Africa Speaks America Answers, which combined traditional West African percussion with a standard jazz trap set for an album that emphasized the African rhythms and tones inherent in jazz and contemporary "third stream" music. The LP sold a million copies worldwide, and Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and Randy Weston both covered Warren compositions from the album. Max Roach cited Guy Warren as an important influence on him. Warren made several more albums for Decca, Columbia, and EMI before returning to Ghana in the late '60s. He made the 1969-70 recordings collected in this CD in Accra and London.
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RETRO 024CD
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Restocked; featured on NPR Fresh Air! E.T. Mensah was the first King of Highlife, and although he died in 1996, he's still -- and forever will be -- the King of Highlife, the mainly Ghanaian dance music that he made popular around Africa and beyond in the 1950s and '60s. E.T. (as everyone called him) played a variety of instruments but especially saxophones and the trumpet, composed hundreds of songs and dance tunes, and led the best band on the West African Gold Coast, The Tempos. Modeled on the great American swing bands of the 1930s and '40s, The Tempos blended re-Africanized jazz, Latin music, and calypso with various local dance styles. With their records and tours over the two decades following their recording debut for Decca in 1952, they spread the highlife dance-band sound throughout West Africa (particularly Nigeria, where the young saxophonist Fela Kuti was deeply influenced by E.T. Mensah) and on to the Congo, East Africa, and Southern Africa, everywhere inspiring new dance-band styles. RetroAfric's 4-CD compilation includes all of The Tempos' hits as well as recordings that haven't been available since the days of shellac 78s, all 69 tracks remastered from the best available sources. It is the most comprehensive collection of E.T. Mensah recordings ever released. The 64-page booklet is filled with historical photographs and a biography by John Collins, the Ghana-based record producer and highlife scholar, and the package features specially-commissioned art by Kofi Ankroba.
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