Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino + Justin Adams & Mauro Durante - Jazz Cafe, Camden, London

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 179, July 2022.



Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino + Justin Adams & Mauro Durante
Jazz Cafe, Camden, London
17th May 2022

It’s a logical double bill: celebrated Italian pizzica group Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino, and CGS leader and violinist Mauro Durante’s duo with global blues guitar explorer Justin Adams – a newer but nevertheless heralded formation. Both outfits were on top form.

The duo were up first. The contrast between silky, elegant folk violin and gritty rock-inflected electric guitar (echoed in Mauro’s clear voice and Justin’s growl) creates the friction that allows the unlikely fusion to spark. The two meet in sparse, contemplative atmospheres with deep emotional resonances. Mauro’s turn on the tamburello (tambourine) called to mind the bendir of Justin’s work with Maghrebi music, and showed the profound musical intelligence and artistic respect at play.

CGS upped the ante by several levels. As the group opened with solo zampogna (bagpipes) and four booming tamburellos, the audience’s swaying quickly made way for large pockets of spontaneous Italic choreography. CGS do have beautiful and intense songs, sung with full-chested passion and bringing to mind medieval cities and pan-Mediterranean cultural connections… but the fireworks really come when all seven members of the group – tamburello, accordion, violin, voice, whistles, bouzouki and dance – thrash out frenetic, extended, heart-pounding pizzicas, whipping the crowd into a rhythm frenzy of sweat and limbs reminiscent of many a mystical ecstatic trance.

The joy and relief of the return of live music is still palpable and acts like a halo around artists and audience alike, filling souls and moving bodies. It was the warmest day of the year so far outside, and inside the Jazz Cafe, it was positively sweltering.


Photo: Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino, by Vincenzo de Pinto.

Vieux Farka Touré - Les Racines

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 179, July 2022.

Vieux Farka Touré
Les Racines
World Circuit Records (47 mins)

As the son of one of the world’s greatest ever musicians, it’s understandable that Vieux Farka Touré has spent his career making increasingly adventurous albums and collaborations to step out of his father Ali’s shadow. He accomplished that – now he returns to the source. The results are simply outstanding.

The direction of Les Racines (The Roots) is clear from its first few seconds. Twanging Saharan guitar, earthy ngoni, calabash and karinyan (iron scraper) keeping a grooving 6/8 time over one delicious chord – we’re back in deep Songhai territory, and this is Songhai blues at its finest. There are some big-name Malian guests – Amadou Bagayoko on guitar, Cheick Tidiane Seck on organ and Madou Sidiki Diabaté on kora – but there are no frills here. It’s all in service to the roots and it all gravitates around the heady riffs and solos of Vieux’s guitar, spiralling into the past while roaring resolutely in the present.

Vieux has embraced his role as Ali’s musical heir while retaining his own voice – in doing so he’s created a classic. This is an album that may well compel you to scrunch up your face and let forth a guttural blues howl in public – don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Noori and his Dorpa Band - Beja Power! Electric Soul and Brass from Sudan’s Red Sea Coast

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 179, July 2022.

Noori and his Dorpa Band
Beja Power! Electric Soul and Brass from Sudan’s Red Sea Coast
Ostinato Records (41 mins)

A unique instrument is always eye-catching, and Noori’s incredible self-made (literal) fusion of an electric guitar and a tambour lyre certainly grabs the attention. The music he makes with it is even more impressive.

Noori and his band (tenor sax, rhythm guitar, bass and percussion) are Beja, an oppressed minority group from the coastal region of eastern Sudan. Their self-appointed task is to keep the culture of the Beja alive, but their music is no museum-piece. The album’s six instrumental tracks bring to mind raw blues and smoky jazz in equal amounts. The choppy guitar and swirls of saxophone are filled with loping Saharan rhythms and a pentatonic feel that could only be from the Horn of Africa, marking it squarely in the same family as Ethiopian and Somali music. At points it really does sound like a laid-back meeting between Tinariwen and Mulatu Astatke. It all feels like an intimate jam – structured but loose, with space for each musician to stretch out and make the sound their own. The approach creates understated music, in a way that only emphasises its cool.

Beja Power! is a wonderful album by a unique group, showcasing the riches of an underrepresented culture with an effortlessly hip sound – powerful indeed.

África Negra - Antologia, Vol. 1

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 179, July 2022.

África Negra
Antologia, Vol. 1
Bongo Joe Records (76 mins)

When it comes to vintage dance music from the tiny Atlantic African islands of São Tomé and Príncipe, it would appear that Bongo Joe Records, with compiler DJ Tom B, have struck upon a rich seam. With this third such album in as many years, they turn their attention to the one of the country’s most successful dance bands, África Negra.

The group first got together in the early 70s (when their country was still part of Portugal’s colonial empire) and they’re still going, having survived schisms and splits along the way. Their style is known to fans as mama djumba: it has all the loveliest elements of Congolese rumba and soukous with the subtlest of Lusophone flavours and hints of highlife. It serves to highlight São Tomé’s position as a midpoint between Central and West Africa, embodied in the sparkling guitars and heavenly vocal harmonies.

This first volume of África Negra’s Antologia presents music from their 15 studio albums of the 80s and 90s, and a volume of unreleased material is expected soon, along with a European tour. If you’re looking for classy dance grooves with elegance and heat, this collection might well be your sound of the summer.