Dedication to Thomas Mapfumo - E-flat Lead Sheet

It contains lead sheets for a hundred tunes, together with specially commissioned arrangements, including those for Grade 4 or 5 examinations for jazz. Being quick and efficient means that we can give you the best deal possible - great service and the lowest prices. There are no Hamcor shops. All our stock is stored flat in warehouse shelving, so you can be sure of getting a pristine item and not one that has been on display and thumbed through several times in a shop somewhere.

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Living Chicago Blues Volume I [Alligator, ] A problem with the three-artists-per-disc, four-cuts-per-artist format of this estimable series is that it splits one artist per disc between two sides, requiring him to meld with both of the others. Fortunately, the great dirty mean of Eddie Shaw seems made for such journeywork, linking the gutbucket soul of Jimmy Johnson, certainly the most exciting singer of the nine, and Left-Hand Frank's right-hand-in-the-Delta primitivism.

Which suggests that the distance between Johnson's pop ambitions Bette Midler beat him to one of these songs and Frank's rural idiosyncrasy isn't as great as might appear, because both are irreducibly sexual and Southern. An advantage of the format is that you can buy one disc at a time. A Collection of Tomorrow's Favorites by Today's Bands on Yesterday's Vinyl [Epic, ] "Television Generation" and "Just Another Teenage Anthem" never really got me as singles, and neither the Kursaal Flyers nor New Hearts proved deep enough to make good albums, but on this pop punk compilation they sound absolutely ace.

Since they also lead off the group's new collection on domestic Epic, the two nice cuts by the Only Ones are redundant. The teaser by the Spikes is good enough to make me hope they record an album. And the teaser by After the Fall is so good that I won't mind owning it twice when their album comes out. Quite snazzy, recommended to dabblers and discophiles alike. Living Chicago Blues Volume II [Alligator, ] Sad to say, the music that gets split up here is the sharp spillover guitar and tongue-twisted projection of double-threat Magic Slim. Carey Bell may be a fine harp player with harp players I find it difficult to care , but vocally he's even more undistinguished than his mentor, Little Walter.

And none of the rowdy hyperactivity of Big Moose Walker's piano carries over to his singing. But they might as well be. Only sometimes AM can be gross Cher and sometimes floor hits are bland or worse away from the floor not to mention on it Love and Kisses, Musique, the unspeakable Patrick Juvet. No Nukes [Asylum, ] I prefer the movement to the music, but both share a woozy notion of what constitutes genuine consensus and how much it's likely to achieve.

Carefully integrated both racially Raydio, Chaka Khan, Gil Scott-Heron, Sweet Honey in the Rock, not to mention the Doobies and various backup bands and culturally Springsteen and Petty for the low-rent "hard rock" crowd , it's nevertheless limited by the social connections of its stalwarts. And though this three-LP set features attractive music from all but the real dips, even the best of it is almost devoid of bite, rough edges, and main force. Graded leniently for a worthy cause.

Club Ska '67 [Mango, ] Intensified Vol. Like some would-be early reggae sampler, side two begins with four full-fledged songs in a row; the early reggae standard "Shanty Town" blocks side one's all-instrumental flow. But if you've developed a weakness for the style's random inspiration, you won't say no to one more hodgepodge of found masterstrokes and delightful accidents. Strange to think this was all happening simultaneously with Sgt.

Wanna Buy a Bridge? But it's also provided such classic punk protest as Spizz Energi's "Soldier Soldier" and Stiff Little Fingers' "Alternative Ulster," and none of the above-named diddlers would have been taken aboard without a surefire tune or two in their packet.

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Hence this superb fourteen-single compilation, Rough Trade's first U. Both albums have been hastily deleted, but a search might be worth it. Though the style tends toward tuneless football-cheer monotony and undiscriminating bully-boy dynamics, the best oi songs by the Cockney Rejects and the Angelic Upstarts especially recall the anthemic power of good Slade and early Clash.

And though the skinheads who are oi's core audience have always been associated with random racial brutality, the politics of these lyrics is strictly pro-working-class and anti-authoritarian. What's more, the misogyny of El Lay punk is all but absent, if only because these boys hardly sing about girls at all. This expedient collection is why Sugarhill changed over from fabrications like Sequence and the Sugarhill Gang itself to street-dance kids like the Funky Four Plus One, half of whose Enjoy debut, "Rappin and Rocking the House," brings up side one.

The slight shift of gears is almost startling--the real party people stay a split second ahead of the beat, while such creatures of the sixteen-track as Super Wolf and Lady B. Still, not a one of these six cuts is without charm--by mining the dozens and God knows what else for boasts, insults, and vernacular imagery, Sylvia Inc. Since I wasn't there, I can report without fear of nostalgia that Volume 1's material is no better or worse than this selection. By Lord Brynner and the Shieks, spelling in original, wonder if he shaved his head, how punk.

Those who don't own the Mekons' "Where Were You" an old fave and Flowers' "After Dark" a new one should also invest, because with one exception everything else is at least interesting: Declaration of Independents [Stiff, ] Released domestically in on Ambition, this vaguely heartening survey gathers 13 generally well-regarded indie singles, many of which I basically dismissed, into one comparatively listenable album.

Phases of the Moon: Traditional Chinese Music [Columbia, ] Blessed with neither roots nor technical insight, I come to this minute collection of 11 subtle, surprising instrumental pieces--most of folk origin, though three are postrevolutionary and one "a treasure of Chinese classical music"--as a sublime novelty record. That is, I get off on its strangeness, and why not? Though the mood is quiet the total effect is far from ambient, not just because things do get loud at times but because most of these melodies are instantly arresting.

They don't repeat as insistently as Western folk tunes do, either. Tully, and I find that the thing can grate if I start playing it two or three times a day. But why do I keep putting it on? Sound d'Afrique [Mango, ] This unannotated compilation of six hit I assume dance though "Jalo" gets pretty meditative tracks out of Francophone Africa is a sampler rather than a true album, jumping and skipping style-to-style. From Cameroun, Zaire, and Congo, the continent's dominant beat: Afrorumba over sweetly chattering rhythm guitar, hooked on the opening cut by a refrain so unforgettable Pete Seeger would shit cobalt in the Hudson for it.

Let Them Eat Jellybeans! Plus lyrics, addresses, band lists, and much, much more! And the way one band after another emits virtually indistinguishable bellows of jolly rage is mutually reinforcing--gives you the sense that all that enthusiasm adds up to a movement. But the songs really are pretty hard to tell apart. And the recitations and pub-sing laffs that tie it all together wear thin even faster than most concept moves.

A Christmas Record [ZE, ] Most of this oddly ambitious nine-song anthology seems a little off, but that suits its odd ambition, which is seeking the spirit in an audience turned off by seasonal shtick. Was Not Was and Alan Vega take on involuntary and semivoluntary poverty, the Waitresses aim for the singles bars, and Davitt Sigerson should by all rights be earning royalties up there with Irving Berlin--or at least Torme-Wells or Davis-Onorati-Simeone.

Greatest Rap Hits Vol. In its way, rap's up-and-at-'em sex-and-money optimism is as misleading as the willful down-and-outism of L. But the way these fast talkers put their stamp on a cultural heritage both folk and mass is the most masterful pop move to hit Communications Central since the Ramones. Hicks From the Sticks [Antilles, ] I don't think I'm familiar with any of the tunes on this cut compilation, originally released Brit in by Rockburgh Records. But I might as well be.

Here on one convenient A side is everything that has made the Anglophile dance-rock scene so deadly--the synth grooves, the minimelodies, the robot vocals, the confusion of late industrial anomie with the zeitgeist. In short, the new art-rock and the new disco in one conflation, with the boring rhythms of today replacing the boring solos of yesteryear.

I mean, when a pop admixture provides the rock and roll, I go home. So it's no surprise that the hooky and not so hooky samplings on this well-chosen twofer tend toward faddish one-liners. Martin, good bait for the Fall, the Buzzcocks, and get hooked Sector 27, and crowning it all Brian James's "Ain't That A Shame," which may not be heard again until the pop archaeologists get to work. The "King" Kong Compilation [Mango, ] Greil Marcus compares the late Leslie Kong to Sam Phillips, and as the man who turned ska into reggae he deserves the accolade, but it was already in the global village by then, so it's no surprise that there's a Jerry Wexler not Berry Gordy sophistication to his sound.

Propeller [Propeller, ] This cooperatively produced eighteen-song tape hang together for a simple reason--none of these ten Boston bands was born to rock. Not that they don't try; not that they don't often succeed. But they come to their often punk-funked popsongs self-consciously, with an awkwardness that is consistently charming.

For those who find that discos keep them up past their bedtime, here's an encouraging take on what's been happening--not world overthrow, that's for sure, but fun enough in the right doses. San Francisco Blues Festival Vol. But though his sweet, piercing, subtly lubricious voice comes through intact, his command of the stage doesn't translate to stereo another live album pitfall. And on the B is Lowell Fulson, always the creature of his context even back when he didn't make his living on the revival circuit. Farewells from Tin Huey and the Bizarros, remembrances from Chi and Pig, solid rock from Unit 5, blue-plate special from the Waitresses, imported no wave from Totsuzen Danball, and Hammer Damage's "Noise Pollution," which deserves to be covered back to back with "Sonic Reducer," although this version is sly and slick.

Executive producer Nick Nicholis has improved his quality control and dispensed with the silly synthesizers--if anything, this is too consistent. Those who'd prefer something weirder might try the wimpy punk of "Various Hoosiers" on Gulcher's Red Snerts. Although I'm still no fan of noise bands like Cabaret Voltaire, Furious Pig, and the Virgin Prunes, they do provide an appropriately urban-meditative environment when interspersed with more songful material from such unlikely sources as Scritti Politti slick, tough-minded schlock , Red Crayola Lora Logic sings , and Subway Sect hi.

Concerts for the People of Kampuchea [Atlantic, ] I'm a permanent skeptic about live albums, compilation albums, and charity albums, so don't call me sucker when I report the sound superb, the arrangements tight, the performances up, and the programming acute especially on the relentless Pretenders-Costello-Rockpile side. The Secret Policeman's Ball [Island, ] Who fans who covet the [ Concerts for the People of ] Kampuchea set should start instead with this concert for Amnesty International, which is to say for all of us.

The off part is the problem--there's something dilettantishly cerebral in this very Manhattan sensibility that not only makes for novelties, but for novelties you're liable to forget until somebody else puts them on. Louis, this fundamentalist compilation--roots reggae as a music of militant religious homily--has an irresistible integrity.

Its simple determination matches its singsong melodies and solid rhythms, and the singing is crucial: Soukous [Mango, ] "Soukous" is a word understood throughout French-speaking Africa the source of this album. But also as in the slang term for the Congolese style that dominates the continent's pop--which this features, thus avoiding the eclectic distractions of Mango's first Afropop collection. Salsafied stuff with vocals that sometimes float sweet and high and sometimes twist and shout, none of it by big-name stars. In short, an African disco compilation.

But it's not enough. Great pop is a tricky commodity, and this isn't quite tricky enough to make up for received melodies and competent-plus vocals--not even in the groove. Everything New Is Old. Not only is its view of romance willfully adolescent, its view of adolescence is willfully romantic, inspired in the face of irrefutable evidence by a few freak singles, most of them slow which is a snap to duplicate and preternaturally beautiful which isn't. Even its oft-heralded vocalism serves this vision--doowop tenors are supposed to be mild, as moony as "a teenager in love.

In the great indie-label tradition, it concentrates on the catchy and programmable, including five ingenious covers, so that most of the slow songs sound beautiful, though rarely preternatural. The Nairobi Sound [Original Music, ] It's not "primitivism" or "simplicity" that makes African pop so exciting--it's the doubly complex interaction of two sophisticated demotic languages, polyrhythm and technomedia, each with its own style of self-consciousness.

Very local in origin and outreach and not really intended for dancing, these Kenyan tunes, especially those in the acoustic and rural "dry guitar" style, have enormous charm and not much impact, except for those always special moments of inspiration that propel folk music out into the great world--like the soprano duo "Chemirocha," which technomedia fans will be pleased to learn is a tribute to Jimmie Rodgers.

Peripheral Vision [Zoar, ] Ah, these boho compilations. Unless they've all improved as much as Mofungo has since , of course. I hope the album V-Effect deserves is better recorded than these two cuts, which are the best-sounding things here in more ways than one nevertheless. Which leaves the Scene Is Now, whose "Finding Someone" should be the single, and the Ordinaires, who combine the nicest parts of Glenn Branca and the Moody Blues and more power to them.

Ah, these boho documents. But since neither was by a scene-making band, I understand why compiler Tom Goodkind didn't. And since Goodkind led U. Ape, I understand why he chose that one, which in truth sounds better than the Mumps, Speedies, and Student Teachers songs that close the thing.

In between we get what sounds in retrospect like a lot of primitive art-rock Theoretical Girls the savviest and a lot of primitive pop Nervus Rex the most polished. Although scenes are often better seen than heard, down beneath the greats this one just about earns its document. But it doesn't make you bewail its wasted genius. And where's "No More Nukes"? Soweto [Rough Trade, ] It's fair to assume that these fourteen crude, tuneful little singles, released six or seven years ago out of a Johannesburg record shop and featuring a writer-producer named Wilbur Dlamini and a backing band of Jo'burg Zulus called the Bamalangabis, are typical of nothing.

They're apolitical except by their sheer existence, mostly small-group instrumental, with guitar, sax, and organ leads. Not too clearly recorded, either. It's possible Dlamini is a lost genius. It's also possible that when I've heard more music from South Africa's hellish black urban work zones I'll find him minor or derivative. But what's certain is that a lot of very talented people are getting lost in black South Africa. Genius of Rap [Island, ] Even granting Sugarhill's unavailability, this compilation of six minor hits plus bonus do-it-yourself inch could be badder.

Why so Brother D.? Why the hell no Treacherous Three? Indeed, I filed three of these selections away unremarked simply because they weren't worth four bucks. The Sugarhill best-ofs are still where to catch up. But once you're hooked you'll want this too. Mensah in the '50s.

Less brassily arranged than Congolese rumba, these four-minute classics from the style's masters skip all over the past decade-plus yet mesh as gentle pop epiphanies for untrained ears. Many feature sax solos almost as laggardly as the gritty, half-conversational singing exemplified by patriarch Dr. Both elements pulling against effervescent guitar hooks and the lift of multiple drums in indigenous patterns I couldn't begin to specify, with the pleasinigly received guitar solos occupying a middle ground where the music resolves. Though such generalizations don't hint at the reggae side trips and rock steals and best-selling vocals also present, they do sum up the music's sky-above-mud-below tension--an animistic charge that doesn't demand a literal belief in anybody's or anything's soul.

Reggae from Africa [Heartbeat, ] Because the great African groove is airborne where the Jamaican is of the earth, bass-and-drums on this seven-artist, eight-cut compilation do little more than follow standard patterns, and the chantlike tunes remind you how much Jamaican melodies owe to English hymns and nursery rhymes.

But that's in no way to suggest that this music isn't captivating on its own terms. The vocals bear the same yearning relationship to their more stylized Jamaican inspirations that Jamaican vocals do to the showier models of U. And the lyrics, all in English, explain some whys and wherefores. The Sound of Kinshasa: Guitar Classics From Zaire [Original Music, ] Much more than his Kenyan and Swahili anthologies, this John Storm Roberts collection makes immediate impact on American ears, first of all because its quarter century of Zairean singles carry a heavy Cuban influence.

I prefer the modestly melodic Lingala vocals to their romantic-virtuosic salsa counterparts, and am more than content to follow the music's rhythmic journey across the Atlantic and back again as re-Africanization takes hold in the '70s. But I suspect the main reason I keep listening is that every one of these thirteen cuts began life as a pop dance hit. This Are Two Tone [Chrysalis, ] I recommend this knowledgeably programmed six-artist sampler as a longtime ska skeptic--although I grew to like the best albums of every band here, all of them are a bit narrow, which is one reason the style converts so smoothly to compilation.

The other reason is that it was more than a style--it was a true movement, the most likable of all Britain's postpunk stabs in the dark. Only the Specials--six tracks, three from the debut--are overrepresented. And after all, it was their idea--and their label. Selected stanzas on the back refer painfully to curfews and pass laws as well as the money worries and familial perfidies of the companion compilation Viva Zimbabwe!

Attack of the Killer B's [Warner Bros. It's revealing that compiler Bob Merlis has stretched his concept around four ringers, including the German version of "Shock the Monkey," which opens side two for the excellent reason that unlike most of its fellow prisoners it's got a killer hook.

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Not that any rock-and-roller won't want to hear the Marshall Crenshaw and Gang of Four and T-Bone Burnett rarities included, and that collectors won't covet the rest. But I thought collectors already had them. Best of Studio One [Heartbeat, ] Never an aficionado of medium-tempo vocal groups, second-level soul men, or for that matter '60s reggae, I don't find this loving first-U. And so it goes. Knotty Vision [Nighthawk, ] Though at first I tagged this as one more choppy multiple-artist compilation, in fact it's as integral and inevitable as death and glory.

Beginning with a wailing Burning Spear chant and finishing with a burning Wailing Souls admonition, it's where fundamentalist reggae will convert you if you're destined to feel the spirit at all. Give the first side three or four tries with some time between and you should be able to get to the lyric intensity of six voices possessed by a single song.

And eventually the tunes on the B surrender the conviction at their root. From salad days to dog days, this is bootstraps disco. There's an unplayable Euro side that gets even worse than the bland Quebecois ingenue France Joli, and in general the programming is frustrating--just like dancing in discos, if you're not an adept. But New York dance music has always been rawer than the movie version. These one-shots were made for each other.

Rainy Day [Llama, ] Four L. Not surprisingly, the Three O'Clock's insufferable Michael Quercio sings lead on both losers--alone among these otherwise well-meaning young people, he clearly thinks the music calls for condescension, with the coyly inept parody of a Keith Moon drum takeout presaging the meandering eleven-minute pseudo-Hendrix jam that closes things on a flubbed note. With that painfully mastered village instrument the melodic source, the guitar figures are the quickest in Africa--contrapuntal at their best, and always hooky. Vocals are likewise unassuming if not delicate, rhythms distinctly light.

Takes a while to hear, will never hit you over the head, and you can dance to it. Wild Style [Animal, ] Great rap records usually begin with killer riffs and add beats from live players, buttinski producer-engineers, scratchers, and rap attackers. On this soundtrack neither musical director Fab 5 Freddy nor big man Chris Stein do much to get things started, but the rhymes themselves, mostly folk-boast rather than commercial-protest and often captured live on the streets in a kind of simulated field recording, carry the music. That's the Way I Feel Now: And indeed, I still prefer Monk's Monk to anybody else's, so much so that the discography here has me expanding my collection.

But only Donald Fagen's synthesizers and John Zorn's weirdnesses approach the level of desecration jazzbos discern, and more often the extravagantly good-humored NRBQ or carnivalesque Dr. John or obvious Chris Spedding rock interpretations are instructive alongside the subtler, more reverential readings of Steve Lacy, Barry Harris, Sharon Freeman.

In short, when I feel like Monk, occasionally I may play this. But executive producer Arthur Baker with the help of executive producer Harry Belafonte, I'm sure has done his best to drown the dreck in electrohop, with Bambaataa and the System fashioning gratifyingly sharp tracks. Beat Street Volume 2 [Atlantic, ] The other half of what might be a great single disc. Jazzy Jay's scratching captures the movie's virtues a lot more eloquently than Melle Mel's words, Tina B divas all over Jenny Burton, and the two novelty raps tell you their producer knows something even if he is David Belafonte.

Breakin' [Polydor, ] Only students of secondhand black need sample this de facto El Lay hip hop sampler. And you'll never notice side two until "Ain't Nobody"--not when Chaka starts singing, but when the keyboard intro comes on. I mean, El Lay hip hop is nothing but keyboard intros.

Desperate Teenage Lovedolls [Gasatanka, ] Wish I could report that these thirteen posthardcore toons for amateur Super-8 rock and roll flick constitute a stronger soundtrack than anything the youth marketers over in the pricier part of Hollywood have commissioned. Unfortunately, it sounds like another Rodney Bingenheimer anthology. Every Man Has a Woman [Polydor, ] Like most multiple-artist compilations, this lacks the sense of identity that gives good albums their momentum, which means that while it does vindicate Yoko Ono's songwriting--there's not a clinker in the dozen--it's far from establishing her as the compelling popular artist she'd like to be.

The Gospel at Colonus [Warner Bros. Sounds like heaven on earth, doesn't it? Well, though I feel like a sorehead saying so, the formalization of ritual in both Greek drama and choral gospel can be a little distancing in its grandeur, or maybe grand in its distancing. That's probably just what Lee Breuer and Bob Telson want, but I'm greedy enough to prefer my pleasures and my truths a little more direct, as in the Thom Bell rip, or every time Clarence Fountain steps up front--especially on "Stop Do Not Go On," which has a hook.

Only Herbie Hancock suggests by choice of players or style that the concept of international might extend beyond Giorgio Moroder and Foreigner. And only Hancock-Laswell-Susu-Dieng's "Junku" suggests that games involve play as well as the striving egomania summed up so eloquently in this classic Moroder-Zito-Engemann couplet: Strictly for Lovers [Mango, ] Unlike the useful but scattered and redundant toasts on D. And Aswad and Struggle have the good sense to identify romantic spirituality with the "Roots Rockin'" and "Rocky Music" they're so militant about.

New York's rappers and the happy feet mob of Chocolate City. The cowbells and timbales share one rhythmic language, and by gleaning prime cuts from five bands who make a habit of spacing out their peaks, the collection achieves a concentration suitable for the medium--these aren't singles, they're album tracks.

Lost in the Stars: Milking abrasive pop for outreach and meaning, he had more in common with Dylan and Newman than with Porter and Berlin, and the rock artistes who take their turns on this sequel to Hal Willner's Monk tribute sound completely at home. Introduce yourself to one of the century's greatest songwriters and composers. Or augment your Weill collection and be glad you did. Phezulu Eqhudeni [Carthage, ] There's nothing folkloric about the firm yet intricately catchy bass-and-guitar rhythms of the Makgona Tshohle Band--like so many rock-and-rollers before them, these are country people permanently displaced to the city.

And if Boer culture has produced a singer with half the intrinsic humor and spirit of Mahlathini, I assume he or she is thinking seriously about exile. And found myself returning--to hear Giorno and his buddy Bill Burroughs. The bait is perfectly okay. But compilations are usually less than the sum of their parts anyway, and I don't get the feeling Giorno's rock allies save their best songs for him.

Giorno himself, on the other hand, is making a pop move. And Burroughs knows he's the star of both shows. Television's Greatest Hits [TVT, ] Ignorant of not altogether uninterested in television and resistant to not dead set against camp, I didn't think this collection of sixty-five TV-show themes would get to me, and I'm happy to report I was wrong. I mean, total immunity to such a document would be counterproductive, like total immunity to Ronald Reagan; you fight the power better if you feel it sometimes.

Not that anything so grave is involved here--just corn and cuteness so concentrated they make your teeth hurt. You get plot summaries and program music, jingle singers and cartoon characters, pseudocountry and pseudoclassical. Also great tunes dja know Gounod wrote the Hitchcock theme? Love it or leave it. Tribute to Steve Goodman [Red Pajamas, ] Although his friends and coreligionists associate Goodman with all the songs on this live double wake, we don't, which is why it isn't much like the posthumous two-LP summation I still expect from him.

But as an unsanctimonious evocation of why Goodman was such a catalyst in folkiedom, it's got more than its share of songs and picking and jokes and bathos and missed opportunities. Rap 1 [Profile, ] With the serfs fleeing Sugarhill, the honest disco independents at Profile head rap central, but despite four or five good tracks and a consistent electrohop sound, their compilation isn't as convenient as it might seem.

Hyde are as crassly conceited as racists and old fools think all rappers are, and Fresh 3 M. Which leaves Rammelzee vs. K-Rob's laid-out, wacked-back "Beat Bop," so one-of-a-kind it's a single by definition, and Pumpkin's electrohop lesson "King of the Beat," the only track that turns this house into a home.

It's also less catchy, with what I assume to be the traditional chant of the midtempo title tune the prize melody. But I suspect the major reason it doesn't connect as powerfully is that it compiles "classic female jive. As a result, the men sound more assertive. Which suits our fantasy. The Indestructible Beat of Soweto [Shanachie, ] At once more hectically urban-upbeat and more respectfully tribal-melodic than its jazzy and folky predecessors, marabi and kwela, the mbaqanga this compilation celebrates is an awesome cultural achievement.

It confronts rural-urban contradictions far more painful and politically fraught than any Memphis or Chicago migration, and thwarts apartheid's determination to deny blacks not just a reasonable living but a meaningful identity. Like all South African music it emphasizes voices, notably that of the seminal "goat-voiced" "groaner" Mahlathini, who in took his deep, penetrating sung roar, which seems to filter sound that begins in his diaphragm through a special resonator in his larynx, back to the studio with the original Mahotella Queens and the reconstituted Makgona Tsohle Band. The defiantly resilient and unsentimental exuberance of these musicians has to be fully absorbed before it can be believed, much less understood.

They couldn't be more into it if they were inventing rock and roll. And as a final benison, there's a hymn from Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Dance Traxx [Atlantic, ] Disco not only lives but goes pop, just like all those bizzers who blew their collateral on it years ago dreamed it would. But here on these two discs, cunningly remixed and segued as is only mete, you get the only Phil Collins Isleys rip you need own, the only Laura Branigan Donna Summer rip you need own, and the only Yes Art of Noise rip you need own.

Plus the compleat Shannon in two parts. And now that I've clued you in just promise me this--if you like the Steve Arrington you'll take a flier on the album. Good to Go [Island, ] Live albums are one way to finesse go go's refusal to organize itself into discrete, hooky, recordable compositions. Anthologies are the other, and despite soundtrack illustrations of the synthy adaptability of the D.

For James Brown completists and other rhythm connoisseurs. Zulu Worker Choirs in South Africa [Heritage, ] Put off by its ethnographic audio, I shelved this as a field reference until my boundless thirst for knowledge induced me to take it out and turn it up. Although everything I read says all contemporary South African choruses derive from the "soft" style Joseph Shabalala developed in the '60s, this stuff doesn't come off as cathama "to walk softly" --sounds like ibombing "bombing".

It's aggressive where Ladysmith is spiritual, which seems fitting, since its commercial purpose is triumph in all-night hostel competitions. Also worth noting are lyrics that both zero in on broken families, the most galling symptom and symbol of apartheid to black South Africans, and defy the tribalism that's one of its nastiest strategies.

Magic's Rap Attack, Vol. Playing the dozens live leaves you some slack, but enter the age of mechanical reproduction and they can check you out against history every time. Inevitably, shock deliquesces into outrage. Nor do junk-culture excavations by the Kartoon Krew, the Showboys, Word of Mouth, and other off-target one-shots yield actual novelty hooks.

Rap's Greatest Hits [Priority, ] It sure ain't "the biggest sellers of all time!

But if you appreciate rap as among other things a novelty music, you'll love these titles: So buy "King of Rock" twice. This is that greatest of rap rarities, a bargain. The Russian gutturals are suitably aggressive, and here and there--the first two Aquarium tracks, the guitar synth? But the most convincing set overall come from the ska guys, and I know why--the polka connection. Bullets Won't Stop Us Now [Mordam, ] Outsiders seeking politically specific antiapartheid music won't get much satisfaction out of repressed South Africa itself: But this earlier collection from the Afrikaners' Netherlands fatherland speaks the language of international postfolk protest with a Eurorad accent, war before peace.

Pop Afrobeat and avant Afrobeat and reggae and dub poetry and hardcore and plastic-people art-rock, by exiles black and white from South Africa and elsewhere, it puts secondhand talent to firsthand use. Tango Argentino [Atlantic, ] Nurtured by pimps in the teeming suburbs of immigrant Buenos Aires, the tango symbolized salaciousness early in the century--just like the waltz early in the last, I know, but listen to the painstakingly authentic which sure doesn't mean untheatrical recreations on this original-cast album and you begin to understand how melodrama can go to the gonads.

You can almost see the ebony-haired temptress snake her tongue down her partner's throat as he grinds his thigh into her pubis, both of them hating each other's guts all the while. Classic Ethnic Recordings from the 's [Morning Star, ] I slapped this world music on the turntable like it was Give 'Em Enough Rope in , and the Ukrainian side-openers kept me coming back to the Welsh hymn and the Jewish cantor and the Turkish itinerant's song and the "masterful Spanish piping.

Even if music is the goddamn universal language, it'll take more than the "commanding dynamics and engaging warmth" adduced in the vague and skimpy notes to put its dialects in meaningful contact. As it happens, the relaxed Puerto Rican Jardineras do jibe with those fiery Ukrainians, and if you believe in expressiveness for its own artistic sake you may enjoy every cut. But universalist humanism to the contrary, what differentiates the secular from the sacred and the Asian from the European is more important and more fun than what unites them.

Reggae Dance Hall Classics [Sleeping Bag, ] Near as I can tell, dance hall represents a hedonistic rebellion against Rasta religiosity not unlike disco's rejection of rock pomposity, and a lot of it is as forgettable outside its context as disco was. What's crucial about these eight tracks is that they all made themselves in Manhattan discos--downtown, natch, but that's the point. Even up against one another they sound pretty weird. The Tanzania Sound [Original Music, ] These fourteen tracks were cut mostly in neighboring Kenya circa , back when the British colony of Tanganyika was turning into Julius Nyerere's socialist proving ground.

Congo rumbas that sing their East African provenance in lithe Arab-tinged melodies and Kinshasa rhythms, they have the same urban-folk directness you hear on John Storm Roberts's Africa Dances anthology. These days Dar Es Salaam's renowned live music scene is documented only in state radio's tape library; Tanzanians have made virtually no records since the early '70s, which wasn't how Nyerere planned it when he closed off the Kenyan border. The socialist in me hopes Tanzania's pressing plant starts up soon--and also hopes the music remains as distinctive and unforced as it used to be.

Herbie Hancock's "Wipe Out"? Dave Edmunds's "Wooly Bully"? Pee-wee Herman's "Surfin' Bird"? This soundtrack opens up undreamed vistas of recontextualization, then shuts them down. The only winning cuts--and by me this includes even Pee-wee's--come from dodos too simple to aim for anything harder than fun fun fun: Christmas Rap [Profile, ] First side's rap in the spirit of the season, full of good cheer and unabashedly materialistic from Mrs.

Joe, not to mention the gold and the diamonds and the pearls, not to mention the butler and the limo and the chauffeur. Second side's hip hop copping to the season, with the Disco 4's bass-and-jingle balls and the Showboys' cutups fronting for tales and boasts that aren't sucker, just snooze. Pop fans will settle for the Run-D.

Rap fans will prefer it to the Surf M. Modesty wouldn't get them anywhere either. In other words, Taking Liberties Vol. But the compelling contemporaneity of our genius's current one-offs not to mention his current taste in companions is best conveyed by my own personal favorite: Homeland [Rounder, ] Nine of these twelve tracks, all produced by Rounder's man in Azania Clive Risko, clock in within two seconds of 3: They all seem to use the same efficiently uninspired rhythm section.

So the initial effect is wearing, especially on the hour-long CD version. And in the end the vocal variety up top shines through like a new day coming. Zulu Men's Singing Competition [Rounder, ] In which the judge at a Durban singing meet whittles 19 choirs and six hours down to nine choirs and 48 minutes.

It's the kind of record that appeals to the converted; I wouldn't have paid so much attention to a similar document from Bahia or the Caucasus or a Pentecostal church in North Carolina. But I swear the notes and song summaries are lively enough to hook the curious, and anybody whose knowledge of Zulu chorale stops at Ladysmith should check out these hymnful shouts, stomps, whistles, yodels, and ululations.

The deep, muscular harmonies of the Easy Walkers get my blue ribbon, but every rock and roller ought to hear the Greytown Evening Birds, who sing about their hunger like the Beach Boys. That's because the foremost U. Oldtimer Horace Andy's venture into computerese is also worth committing to memory. The rest will OK up dancee.

Sounds of Soweto [Capitol, ] If mbaqanga admirers find this contemporary compilation techno, that's their prejudice. At any acceptable level of economic development, electronic instruments are people-friendly, and music that mediates between South African blacks and the cities apartheid bars them from has its progressive function. Of course, quality can still vary. Some lyrics avoid the censors while sticking to the grit--corn, coal, crime in the streets.

Others lie--if Petersen feels so damn "free to sing a song," that's another reason to suspect it doesn't mean shit. First side never lets that upwardly suave beat quit, and none of the others gets so smarmy you'll push reject. South African Trade Union Worker Choirs [Rounder, ] These groups have an aura of officialdom, as if organized at the workplace by wily fomenters of solidarity. Women make themselves heard in a traditionally male domain; the style is relatively declamatory, confident of its platform and its captive audience; American jubilee and mass-choir voicings abound; the acronym for "Federation of South African Trade Unions" bedecks six of the twenty-five titles.

But for agitprop, it's long on high-jinks, with stomps and whistles erupting frequently around the exhortations. If South African pop makes the struggle of the South African people doubly immediate, this does the same for South African politicos--while apprising skeptics of how close to the people they are. Take Cover [Shanachie, ] The buzzy sound that has me skipping the first side is no mbira, so I assume it's a tragedy of underdevelopment--a recording lapse serious enough to annoy even a lo-fi schmo like me.

Though perhaps I'd reconsider if its two best-sounding tracks weren't a folk song and a call to Christian vigilance. Side two is Zimbabwe like it oughta be, soft-sung popchants hooked on clear, dancing treble guitar figures, with a second guitar echoing on the beat or embellishing lightly around it. You think maybe Stevie Wonder could donate a predigital console to a bright young engineer in Harare? No, what makes this the best Xmas album since Phil Spector got bored with Hanukkah is conceptual audacity: And all for an utterly safe, indubitably worthy cause.

This December I'm bringing it out to Queens for dinner. The Wailing Ultimate [Homestead, ] As long as you don't take the hooks too literally--believe me, there aren't many more where they come from--this is a pretty fair introduction to garage postnihilism, a surprisingly palatable mix of musical and sociological interest. In fact, only their fans and their mothers could tell most of these fourteen bands apart without a scorecard, and I'm not so sure about their mothers. A girl sings it. That's just, what do you call it, poetic license, right? Unlike such urban roots musics as Chicago blues or Memphis soul, it doesn't mess much with laid-back--as deep into street action as punk, its forward motion is almost frantic with joy, which may mean it's less joyful than we assume and it pretends.

It's no shock that the level of inspiration doesn't match Volume One's--how many miracles do we get in a lifetime? Only Jozi's "Phumani Endlini" has much pastorale in it, and only the three instrumentals cut life much slack. My favorite comes from Malombo, a "black consciousness" band who've always seemed pretentious to read about, but whose haunting understatement bears the same relationship to this nonstop anthology as Ladysmith's pop spirituality did to its vigorously secular predecessor. Contrasting vocal hooks, quicksilver guitar figures, and negotiable rhythm changes are orchestrated with a skill that evokes a great dancefloor DJ working the crowd for an hour-long peak.

For sure it's more than a quality disco compilation: The secret, though, is in the selection and the flow--bet the compiler did literally do time on the Paris club scene, testing every track in the crucible of Saturday night. West Africa [Celluloid, ] Since Senegambia and its Islamic environs nurture solo expressive practices more individualistic more "Western"? Quite educational, moderately entertaining. And wherever they come from they put out. Dylan hasn't sung this fresh or Taj this tough in years, Arlo picks a lethal obscurity from his father's vast book, Mellencamp's folky pretensions seem natural, Springsteen escapes momentarily from his slough of significance, and Sweet Honey earn their leadoff spot.

Every example I've cited threatens to surpass its model. Elsewhere, the material holds up. The sectional structures--from femme chorus to synth cheese to unison horns, say--recall late disco as well.

There are also distinctions, natch, especially in the beats, which interlock with an intricacy undreamed of in Giorgio Moroder's philosophy, and the sweet guitar figures that underlie every weave. The one on "Zouke-Zouke" is some kind of spiritual experience. Porn--are jokey, sly, lascivious. There's something comic and triumphant about the eclecticism of old Kassav hand G.

Guamaguy, who favors horn and fiddle frills, and new champion Servais Liso, who goes for glitzier electronic effects. Name me another 20th-century pop that's thrived so exuberantly under the depredations of Gallic wit. Except for "It Takes Two," every aforementioned title is on an album worthy of the name, but those who are still resisting the only collectively vital American subgenre will find this compilation educational.

Even the filler's high grade. Rai Rebels [Virgin, ] Lewd bellydancer music rocked by angry young men semi-improvising to a click track for producers who add the accompaniment afterwards--how could it not be great? Lots of ways, especially if you don't feel Algerian culture or speak Arabic though any rock and roller will dig those gutturals. With its mad intensity and funkadelic guitar, "N'Sel Fik" may stand forever as rai's and multi-instrumentalist Rachid's one transcendent moment.

Take the rest as a visit to exotic modern-day Oran, poised between old and new. The Heartbeat of Soweto [Shanachie, ] Earthworks having cast in with Virgin, Shanachie goes to the well and tests Zulu hegemony with its own mbaqanga compilation. There are big advantages to the wider range of tribal melodies and beats--in Western pop terms, sharper hooks and a less monolithic groove. Seven artists divide up the 12 tracks, and while the hottest stuff is still Zulu--Usuthu's eternally recurrent tunelet, Amaswazi Emvelo's supertipico forward grind--this album has its urban heart in the bush.

Shiranda's closer, unprofessionalism in no way diminishes the music's skill or complexity. Folkies may well prefer it to Indestructible. Rock and rollers with ears won't settle for one or the other. Fervent call for unity in a non-Zimbabwean tongue, husky cry of independence from a natural feminist. Mbaqanga rumba with West Nkosi in the control booth. Tart pop sweetmeats from Devera Ngwena, who outsell the Bhundus in Harare. A generic or two. Except maybe for Mapfumo's Ndangariro , which gets over on groove rather than songs, mbira guitar's most convincing showcase.

Kenya Dry [Original Music, ] "Dry" is what Africans call acoustic guitar, and for the first side, which samples tribal languages before homing in on Swahili, this collection of '50s rarities sounds like a sweetly typical folk-song collection--just happens to be out of Africa is all. But as the B progressed through catchy little guitar tunes and relaxed harmony groups I got a more specific vibe, and when the notes adduced African heroes Jimmie Rodgers and Jim Reeves I decided I was right.

Fans of string bands, bluegrass, and other old-time country music: Best of House Music [Profile, ] Rough and unmediated house may be more fun than Euro-abstraction for sure, but it's for-dancers-only with a vengeance--formally, it's almost as exclusionary as hardcore. Thoughtfully sorted onto diva, sleaze, jack-your-body, and jack-of-all-nations sides, these cuts earn a permanent spot in my reference collection rather than my heart or my somatic memory.

Even Marshall Jefferson's "Rock Your Body" and Moonfou's "Shut Up" disintegrate into breaks designed exclusively for the communal intoxication of the steamy floor. I don't get out enough, but I know what jacks my body when I do. Spirit does, a spirit the harmonica-synth version of E. So does a groove that translates with ingratiating naturalness to the sonic limitations of live recording. The Go Go Posse [I Hear Ya, ] Three-four years after not becoming the next big thing, the groove is as indomitable as ever--a groove more steeped in black history, in swing and jump blues and Afro-Cuban, than any dance rhythm of the past three decades.

But the optimism has lost a lot of its spritz--what passes for crazee on this multi-artist compilation is an anticrack rap with D. Scorpio as Captain Kirk and a reminder that D. Not becoming the next big thing can take its toll. So can black history. Then Willner acting alone would have perpetrated the feckless equation of fantasy and whimsy that wrecks this pastiche.

The arty, the miniature, and the atmospheric give way to "straight" interpretations that provide relief only until you realize how slight the song is. Each takes pleasure in Disney's reality without hypostasizing it. Isn't that the idea? The Sound of the Mines [Rounder, ] Those who get a kick from accordion-heavy gumboots mbaqanga might be lured to this Sotho compilation--with one producer overseeing and one bassist underpinning, unity wouldn't seem a big problem.

Unfortunately, what unifies it is how tuneless and static all four groups are--despite Sebata Sebata's rudimentary hooks and the whistles and rude percussion deployed by the others, these songs about snakes and kings and magic bones are more folkloric than most non-South African fans need. Also than some South African fans need. Tau Ea Lesotho's Nyatsi Tloha Pela'ka Kaya , which drives stronger shouting with a livelier rhythm section is that a syndrum? GlobeStyle is that a woman? Harder to find, but believe me, both will satisfy your minimum daily grit requirement.

Hard as Hell [Profile, ] Though "rap's next generation" is really only nine U. Strange to hear black Brits talking South Bronx the way white Brits aped Memphis drawls 25 years ago. Accentwise they've got an edge, too. But musically, not to mention conceptually, they don't. Svengali Simon Harris has a knack rather than a gift for the dissociated steals and electrobeats of contemporary hip hop, and when Einstein observes that British DJs "ain't got enough talent to rock no jam," he ain't just pumping his man C.

Nevertheless, the energy is what they call fresh--the sense of unbounded possibility that makes the early phase of any pop movement such an up hasn't dissipated into calculation. The African Typic Collection [Earthworks, ] Annotator-cocompiler Jumbo Vanrenen's latest Afrodisco sampler showcases the Caribbean-Camerounian rhythm--designated "makassi," and don't ask me to tell you more or recognize it on the dance floor--that was the making of Sam Fan Thomas, who has his name on three of the six cuts and his fingers in two others.

As the owner of one Thomas LP, I hereby certify that this one is more catchy, infectious, and all the other meaningful things Afrodisco samplers should be. It closes corny with a "Peter Gabriel inspired" oh dear Mandela tribute, opens fresh with an acoustic-guitar-based mesh of African dances. In between, relentless genericism does its number.

It's funkier and more tropical than the club norm--salsa, dancehall, rap--without eschewing surefire house machinations. And the way each side breaks into cool, lush escape music is pure coconut milk. Beleza Tropical [Sire, ] I have to tip my hat to any record that can induce me to dig rockpoets Caetano Veloso four tracks and Milton Nascimento two , both of whom I've resisted uneasily, but with increasing vehemence for a decade.

But in fact my pleasure is more like grudging respect or bemused enjoyment--I admire Arto Lindsay's translations, hum along in unguarded moments. Fact is, every certified auteur on this unexceptionable compilation could support a fetching best-of. Byrne has sold me on. Created for commercial gain in a Ugandan market that pre-Amin enjoyed the ultimate gift, existence, the music floats in on an innocence of intent that escapes today's self-consciously folkloric African culture preservers. Imminent brutalization lends its lyricism a poignancy I hope no one involved had any inkling of at the time--unless, of course, foresight helped save their lives.

This is not what I call homogenization. Dancing in the Face of Adversity [ZE, ] Resuscitating the four standout tracks from the nouveau-disco anthology Seize the Beat and 12 others besides, this is the soundtrack to a lost era--art-scene disco according to Michael Zilkha on one side, art-scene DOR ditto on the other. It's very Manhattan, even more dilettantishly cerebral after all these years, and I prefer the disco even though the beat does get repetitive those handclaps: But good work by uneven or ultimately tedious artists abounds.

And it's funny as hell.

ABRSM Jazz The AB Real Book B Flat Edition

A Tribute to Neil Young [Caroline, ] The boho life certainly is rife with irony--having started out as punks, various avant-garagists find themselves paying respects to Johnny Rotten's favorite hippie. Less ironic is that Young and Rotten got rich and they didn't, which is partly the times, but also partly that they have less to say. They parody, they imitate, they cover, sometimes two or three at once, not because they're complex but because they've never figured out what they're doing.

In contrast, Victoria Williams and Henry Kaiser, who started out as music nuts, seize their good songs. And Sonic Youth, who may get rich yet, seize a catchy piece of junk. Fresh Reggae Hits [Pow Wow, ] Here's where the quality begins to thin out--where a novelty-hungry dance audience demands variations on moves so subtle that novelty-hungry outsiders can't even hear them. Though somatic judgments are more subjective than most, Half Pint's "Level the Vibes" leads off, suggesting that a lot of bodies feel it the way mine does--as a dance track from God, not quite "Word Up" or "You Dropped a Bomb on Me," but close.

Next two cuts are winningly songful. But it's only on side two, with Sophia George's "Tenement Yard," that I find anything else for my tape. Fresh Reggae Hits -- Vol. Lodge's elsewhere-available "Telephone Love" and Shelly Thunder's elsewhere-available "Kuff"--that might have made volume one almost as useful as Profile's prestige job. No doubt Profile figured prestige was the road to modest profit, while Pow Wow, which also has a King Jammy compilation on the market, went for quantity.

Haven't we been here before? Hip House [DJ International, ] "A rap on a House record does not make Hip House"; an unassuming rap punctuated by simple sung hooks over house piano, pumped bass, and the occasional Brown-whoop does. As per house rules, the breaks are too abstract to justify their length. But party music that would be escapist at this hip-hop moment is a hard move where these kids are coming from, so they sound proud of themselves, and they should.

Put your hands in the air, and wave 'em like you just don't care. Pump Up the World Volume One [Vendetta, ] Take it from your Uncle Bob--even at the time, no one thought hallucinogens enhanced gross motor function. Self-expression, utopian possibility, all that good stuff with insufficient material base--maybe.

But as the hippie girls not to mention boys freaking through Woodstock and Monterey Pop remind us, acid didn't go with dance crazes. And with their hooks vanishing into the mix, the trickily rhythmic, subtly incremental, frustratingly one-dimensional synth doodles that dominate this two-disc acid house compilation are about as engrossing as a Greg Elmore drum solo.