Returning to Seattle for his first visit in almost eight years, King Sunny Ade and his band, the African Beats, put the Seattle audience under a spell, playing an exciting show of Nigerian juju music. Ade introduced the distinctive Yoruban popular music to American audiences back in the early 1980's with a trio of breakthrough recordings for Chris Blackwell's Island Records.

Now in his early sixties, Ade still has a great time on stage with his band, which is an interesting mix of veterans and fresh talent. This performance featured one additional guitar and no pedal steel guitar. Instead, the emphasis was on the vocalists, singing Yoruba praises and proverbs in the tonal musical languages unique to juju music. There's also an incredible array of percussionists, led by three Yoruba talking drummers, who answer the vocal choruses with intricate musical polyrhythms. The dynamic agility of these musicians is amazing: They can stop on a dime and go from a whisper to a roar, all in the same song. The performers are constantly in motion, and the musical ambience is undeniable.

Ade is known to friends and colleagues by the honorific title "The Chairman," and with good reason: He has 52 band members back home in Nigeria, with 23 on stage on any given night. For practical reasons, The Chairman brought only 15 performers with him on this tour.

King Sunny's seventy-minute set was the perfect close to a great evening of music, which began with a recently recorded live session with kora master Foday Musa Suso. That was followed by a high-energy set of Ghanaian highlife by the Occidental Brothers Dance Band International from Chicago. True musical ambassadors, the Chairman and his band from Lagos, Nigeria, bring their musical joy and exuberance wherever they play. Their exhilarating performance was a great way to celebrate 25 years of African music on The Best Ambiance!