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CD Review
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www.insideworldmusic.com, CD Review >>
Bembeya
Bembeya Jazz
World Village/Harmonia Mundi
Look at the cover of this latest album from Bembeya Jazz, and it's pretty easy to tell which guys in the photo have been with the band since they first formed in the early '60s. But once you slap the disc into your cd player, the freshness and vitality of the music will make you realize that the age of some of the members is of no consequence whatever. Let us be thankful that Bembeya Jazz stuck it out through hard economic times and changing musical tastes in their native Guinea. This is, after all, a band that was built to last. They were nationalized (certified) by no less an authority than Sekou Toure, the first president of Guinea after it became an independent nation. With independence achieved, the music of Bembeya Jazz fueled the celebratory mood with their swinging Afropop sound and energetic stage shows. Eventually the aforementioned lean years ensued and the group drifted apart without ever truly breaking up. When they decided to reconvene in the late '90s, they had not recorded together for over a decade. Now, with this smashingly good CD, their resurgence is complete. The songs are mostly updated versions of standards from the band's repertoire over the years, straddling a combination of classic feel and contemporary muscle that is irresistible. Musically, there are elements of highlife, rumba, soukous (mainly through the sparkling lead guitar work of original axe man Sekou "Diamond Fingers" Diabate) and bluesy Guinean folkloric traditions at work, but the sound of Bembeya Jazz is all their own. Unexpected delights like Hawaiian steel guitar give the snug drums-and-percussion grooves maximum sweetness as multiple rhythm guitars, lead and harmony voices and horns attack right and tight. Modern African music doesn't get much better than this. Passionate vocals, glorious instrumental work and relentlessly catchy rhythms are abundant throughout this disc that's guaranteed to please. 07/24/03 >> go there
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