Putumayo Presents: Jazz Around the World (Putumayo PUT 296-2, 2009) I can’t define jazz any more than I can define world music, so the many…
Jazz Planet
Author: Tom Orr
Tom Orr is a California-based writer whose talent and mental stability are of an equally questionable nature. His hobbies include ignoring trends, striking dramatic poses in front of his ever-tolerant wife and watching helplessly as his kids surpass him in all desirable traits.
In the Biguine-ing
Tumbélé: Biguine, Afro and Latin Sounds from the French Caribbean, 1963-1974 (Soundway SNDWCD017P, 2009) While the slickly produced sounds of zouk became wildly popular in…
We Three Strings
Les Triaboliques – rivermudtwilight (World Village 468088, 2009) Justin Adams, Lu Edmonds and Ben Mandelson could have all been content in their careers as successful…
Clubbing In Dakar
Daby Balde Le Marigot Club Dakar (World Music Network/Riverboat Records TUGCD1052, 2009) Daby Balde’s debut CD from a few years ago remains one of the…
Don’t Need No Cure For The African Blues
Samba Toure Songhai Blues: Homage to Ali Farka Toure (World Music Network/Riverboat Records TUGCD1054, 2009) The words were right there, in smallish print on the…
Tavares Feels It
Sara Tavares Xinti (World Connection FQT-CD-1818, 2009) After summarizing her career up to that point on last year’s Alive in Lisboa CD/DVD set, Portugal’s Sara…
Hasn’t Skipped a Beat
The Rough Guide to Afrobeat Revolution (World Music Network RGNET 1222CD, 2009) Tony Allen – Secret Agent (World Circuit WCD082, 2009) I’m not a trend…
Cuba in a Funk and Funky
Si Para Usted: The Funky Beats of Revolutionary Cuba, Vol. 2 (Waxing Deep Records WAX003, 2009) When Castro’s Cuban regime was at its most repressive,…
A Passage From India
Kailash Kher and Kailasa Yatra (Nomadic Souls) (Cumbancha CMB-CD-14, 2009) My office mate, who was born and raised in India and revisits there yearly, smiled…
Still the Sweetest
Sugar Minott New Day (Stop, Look and Listen Records SLLROO2, 2008) Singer, songwriter, producer and promoter of young talent, Jamaica’s Lincoln “Sugar” Minott has been…