Bembeya Jazz National - The Syliphone Years: Hits and Rare Recordings
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Bembeya Jazz NationalEdition: Music CD
Format: Extra tracks
CD Release Date: 2007-08-07
Music Label: Stern's Africa
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
- République Guinée
- Sabor de Guajira
- Armée Guinéenne
- Guantanamera-seyni
- Dembaty Galant
- Air Guinée
- Guinée Hety Horémoun
- Montuno de la Sierra
- Waraba
- Dagna
- Doni Don
- Camara Mousso
- Super Tentemba
- Mami Wati
- Alalake
- Beyla
- Fatoumata
- Moussogbe
- Sou
- N'Gamokorô
- Ballake
- Mussofing
- Dya Dya
- Sina Mousso
- N'Temenna
- Telephone
- Petit Sékou
Free Music Notes for The Syliphone Years: Hits and Rare Recordings
Free Music Review: Syliphone Years, Bembeya Jazz Natl
Hit: 4 Stars
This is the perfect record to get your collection of Bembeya Jazz, and by extension, modern Mande swing music, started. These players listened to contemporary Cuban rumbas as well as Motown and funk, and drew from both, adding the rumba rhythms and funky orchestrations to a stew of subregional traditional music that featured long vocal lines, call-and-response techniques, and eloquent lyrics that drew from a long tradition of using music for moral instruction. But to describe Bembeya Jazz National in those dry terms hardly gets to the meat of the situation. This music swings like Count Basie in his prime, and takes all the tricks out of James Brown's bag and applies them to the rumba. It's a beautiful sound.
When you put the needle down on "N'gamokorô," for instance, you hear a beautiful horn-section introduction, then an eerie and intoxicating cowbell/bass drum rhythm takes over, underneath a spoken-word chant in Mandeng, then a leaping, bounding, rumba, where the main theme is stated. Demba Camara, the amazing vocalist, starts singing the verses, with the horns answering each line, and the guitarist dropping in obligatos everywhere. You can just imagine a crowd of sweaty, dapper Guineans bopping away at one of those open-air nightclubs in Conakry, the Paris of West Africa. As the guitar sets the rhythm with a hypnotic lick repeating over and over again, the trumpet, then tenor sax take tasty solos. That bleeds into the whole horn section playing in unison, then Demba Camara starts singing again in this amazing, hortatory call-and-response with the backup singers and the horn section, like Fela Anikulapo-Kuti in Mandeng language. It keeps brewing, until a sudden disco-type break, then the djembe drum leaps in for a mind-blowing solo, with the vocalist shouting alongside and the trap drums keeping time with the brushes. At the climactic moment, the horns hop back in and restate the theme, with the guitar lick in the background. Of course, that's not enough! Demba Camara comes back in and starts singing again, while the guitar and drums settle down into a kind of sedate rumba. He takes a break while the guitar unleashes a soulful, keening single-note solo, while the rhythm guitar comps behind. It ends on a sudden shout, then silence, as the dancers wipe their brows and go get a lemonade.
A lot of the best tracks on this record, such as "Armee Guineenne," "N'Borin," and "Moussogbe" are also featured on Bembeya Jazz's "Hommage A Demba Camara" and the compilation "Syliphone 40eme Anniversaire," so if you have either one of those amazing records, you may have some duplication. This one is worth the additional purchase, however, because it comes with a discography and nice explanation of where the group came from and where it fit into the overall politico-cultural situation at the time.
For those of you just starting your collections, however, this 2-cd set includes enough booty-moving, earth-rattling music to get you hooked.
The Syliphone Years: Hits and Rare Recordings Poster
When the West African nation of Guinea achieved independence in 1958, the new government hastened to encourage local art forms. Within a few years, each region had its own orchestra and Bembeya Jazz (named for a river flowing through their South-Western home province) was considered the best of all. Fronted by Aboubacar Demba Camara¹s visceral yet sensitively phrased vocals, the sinuous, glistening guitar of Sékou "Diamond Fingers" Diabaté and a full-blooded brass section, the band became a national institution and the first Guinean ensemble to perform outside Africa. These 26 tracks were originally released as 45 RPM singles and on LPs from the Syliphon label and if the sound quality varies, the music has held up remarkably well. Bembeya's nonpareil synthesis of slow-simmering Latin rhythms with otherworldly Islamic traditions constitutes a priceless legacy that simply must be heard. Fans of 1960s Congolese music and Senegal's Orchestre Baobab will adore them. --Christina Roden"Guinean music was the avant-garde of African music...it was the lighthouse to music in Africa."
The story of Guinean popular music is so closely tied with the story of Bembeya Jazz National that the two are inseparable. These 2 CDs contain songs from the 60s and 70s, and were recorded when the group was at the height of its creative powers. All 27 tracks were originally on the legendary Syliphone label and include their hits plus rare recordings never before released on CD.
This edition (replacing STCD3021-22) has been remastered and redesigned and now includes over two and a half hours of music in a deluxe slipcase that includes a 44 page illustrated booklet packed with details about the band and the wonderful music they made.
Guinea's pre-eminent band at its creative peak in the 1960s and 70s. This edition (replacing STCD3021-22) has been remastered and redesigned and includes an extra track.
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