"International" is an appellation that hundreds, or perhaps even thousands, of West African bands attached to the end of their names in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, not because their members were sourced from multiple countries (they usually weren't), but to express to potential audiences how broad the appeal of the music was. In the case of Chicago-based highlife revivalists Occidental Brothers Dance Band International, the International carries both meanings. This is music with the potential to appeal to many types of listeners, and the band spans not only borders but the Atlantic Ocean, with members from the United States and Ghana.

Former British colonies Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria have long histories of highlife music, beginning with the acoustic palmwine sounds of coastal towns and progressing to big dance bands and ultimately the guitar bands of the last 40 years and the recent rise the hiplife rap/highlife hybrid. It's the guitar band and palmwine periods that OBDBI draw much of their inspiration from, with a dash of jazz for good measure.

Founder/guitarist Nathaniel Braddock met vocalist/trumpeter Kofi Cromwell and percussionist Daniel "Rambo" Asamoah on a trip to Ghana. The pair spent much of the 80s playing in the highlife band Western Diamonds in their homeland, and Cromwell wings in English, Fante, and Twi on Odo Sanbra. The mix the band cooks up is as intoxicating as the palmwine that lent the original music its name, and the group closes with a version of the standard "Yaa Amponsah", done in a spry but laid-back arrangement led by Braddock's snaking acoustic guitar (to hear a brilliant 1928 recording of the song, check out Heritage's Kumasi Trio compilation). Another instrumental, "Masanga", is an album highlight, featuring a gorgeous duet between sax player Greg Ward and guest violinist Andrew Bird over cyclical acoustic guitar figures and just enough percussion to outline the beat.

Ward's sax is something to behold-- in tandem with Cromwell, he plays the kind of stabbing accents that give this music its extra push, but he also weaves in some outstanding counterpoint to Braddock, taking the role that would normally be occupied by a second guitar on the title track, which translates to "Come Back, Love". "Circle Circle Circle", a song about chaotic traffic in Accra, Ghana's capitol city, features a gutteral guest vocal from hiplife MC Yao Osufui that provides a stark, machine-gun contrast to Ward's fluid solo over the song's first half. For Westerners looking for an easy foot in the door, a good one might be the band's outstanding cover of New Order's "Bizarre Love Triangle", a song whose simple chord structure makes an easy transition to highlife arrangements, with the horns cleverly taking on the original synth parts.

On Odo Sanbra, Occidental Brothers Dance Band International earn a place alongside their highlife forebears by doing their own thing with the music and emerging with a sound that pays tribute to the past while moving the form forward. Having two genuine highlife stars in the band certainly helps, but everybody pulls his weight-- Braddock has a true grasp of West African guitar styles, bassist Joshua Ramos gets the bounce and swing of the music, and Ward has a brilliant sense of phrasing and flow. If highlife is going to get the revival it deserves, it could scarcely ask for better ambassadors.