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Essential Recordings
Manu Dibango
első megjelenés éve: 2006
146 perc
(2008)

2 x CD
4.110 Ft 

 

IMPORT!
Kosaramba teszem
1. CD tartalma:
1.  Soul Makossa
2.  Ngolowake
3.  Soul Machine
4.  Ekedi
5.  A Freak Sans Fric
6.  Afridelic
7.  Oh Koh
8.  Waka Juju
9.  Douala Serenade
10.  Mouvement Ewondo
11.  Poinciana
12.  Electric Africa
13.  Big Blow
 
2. CD tartalma:
1.  Africa Boogie
2.  Manga Bolo
3.  Motapo
4.  Abele Dance
5.  Baobab Sunset
6.  Bona Sango
7.  Doctor Bird
8.  Diboki
9.  Kumbele Style
10.  Night Jet
11.  Goro City
12.  Iron Wood
13.  Reggae Makossa
Jazz / World Fusion, Worldbeat, Afro-Pop, Makossa, African Jazz, West African, African Traditions, Cameroonian

The "Lion Of Cameroun" with some of his best known and well-loved recordings.


Manu Dibango is a true one-off who can cover a vast musical spectrum in one mighty bound. This Lion of Cameroun distinctively blends Afro rhythms and funked-up sax; an explosive mix that has made him popular with fans of soul, funk, jazz, Afro and world music alike. In addition to recording pioneering dance-floor tracks like Soul Makossa, Abele Dance and Africa Boogie he has collaborated on stage and disc with a wide and varied range of musos including Sly and Robbie, Herbie Hancock, Bill Laswell, Fania All Stars, Don Cherry, Tony Allen, Joseph Kabasele and Francis Bebey among others. Alumni of his band include current African stars such as Lokua Kanza and Richard Bona.

Manu gave soul music its Afro-transfusion back at the start of the 1970s with his massive international hit Soul Makossa. The original 1972 release remains the most influential African record to date, both for its effect on the burgeoning soul/jazz/disco/funk scene in America and for opening the window on a whole world of African music, which had hitherto been a bit of a closed scene to non-African listeners. Here you have Manu's self-owned and very faithful version.

The monster hit brought the music of the mother continent into the consciousness of African-Americans at a time of political awakening and enshrined Manu as one of the godfathers of the emerging funk generation. In one memorable week there were versions of this anthemic tune by no fewer than five artistes making appearances in the American Billboard magazine charts (including album, single, jukebox and radio play charts).

Soul Makossa was originally recorded as the B-side of a football anthem released in celebration of his country, Cameroon, hosting the 8th Pan African football cup. It was a powerful and dynamic expression of a school kids' dance rhythm but its global popularity risked stereotyping Manu's musical identity which was already much more rounded. As with any runaway success he hit the right spot at the right time with that one, but he has always refused to be typecast as a soul artiste.

That one number established an international reputation which has carried Manu majestically through the rest of his life - still playing just as keenly, although now into his 70s. As this collection was put together he was enjoying a week-long residency at London's Ronnie Scotts Club, which has become an almost annual event for him since the turn of the new millenium. On the way he has been honoured by several African nations together with his adopted country, France, and has for long been an ambassador for UNESCO.

Musically, Manu is compulsive - he cannot stop. He is constantly composing, arranging, auditioning new musicians, rehearsing, touring and recording. Regularly switching formats between small groups, big bands, stadium gigs and intimate clubs, Manu is never predictable and, by frequently changing his personnel, he has provided a master class for countless Camerounians, other Africans and French-based musicians.

The distinctive tone of his saxophone, of his arrangements (he is equally adept on piano, organ and marimba) and of his voice - always imbued with a sensuous African ambience - have become instantly recognizable. He can honk, he can smooch, blow cool breezes or hot streaks of fire, and he does it with a strength of feeling that can raise a smile as well as touch the soul, while always keeping the feet in motion.

*********

Emmanuel Dibango was born in 1933 in Douala, Cameroon, where he started singing as a member of his mother's church choir. At the end of Word War 2 his parents sent him to France where they expected him to study for a profession. As an incentive they also paid for him to have music lessons, first on violin, then on piano. In the 1950s he hooked up with his fellow countryman, the musician, novelist and musicologist Francis Bebey, to play classical and jazz pieces and they formed a blues band to play at student dances.

Then, one day on vacation a friend lent Manu his saxophone to play and he immediately took to the instrument, which was to become his principal weapon. At the end of the 1950s he moved to Belgium where his soulful style attracted the interest of the owner of the Bantou club. Within months Dibango had been signed up by Joseph Kabasele, the founding father of modern Congolese music, whose band African Jazz spearheaded an African renaissance. He invited Dibango to Leopoldville (now Kinshasa) to play in the band. Manu stayed a lot longer in Congo than originally planned, becoming a star in his own right and running a band called African Soul in which he played organ and/or sax on a string of records which melded African and American styles of dance music on tracks such as the notable period piece Ekedi.

Whether in Africa or France he continued recording singles for the African market such as Ngolowake. Another sound which helps to define that era was the honking sax sound of Soul Machine. More surprisingly perhaps, he also released albums in France and with tracks such as Africadelic he continued to show his ability to hit the mood of the times.

In 1972 Manu's great friend, the Congolese guitarist Jerry Malekani left his band RyCo Jazz and linked up with Manu in Nigeria for what has become a lifetime's work, with Jerry remaining the one constant member of Manu's personnel. However, with the success of Soul Makossa, Manu was in demand in America and they moved to New York, with another guitarist Slim Pezin in the band, playing at the Apollo music hall. Manu was also invited to tour and record with the newly-founded Fania All Stars (a seminal world/salsa/funk band which was way ahead of its time).

His career had always been international and, in the late 1970s, Manu was asked by the president of Cote d'Ivoire to return to Africa and direct that country's National Orchestra. From his base in the capital Abidjan, Manu began to revisit Africa, recording in Nigeria the album Home Made which launched three of the songs included here - Sun Explosion, A Freak Sans Fric and Oh Koh.

The stimulation offered by the Africa experience recharged his power cells and the energy of urban Africa is palpable on these numbers. Sun Explosion first released in 1978 was a welcome antidote to the commercial disco/funk mainstays of that period. The French patois lyric of A Freak Sans Fric was a new departure, with its ironic message about economic migration targeted not just at Africans at home but also those arrivals in Europe. Along with the rousing Afro favourite Oh Koh these songs have regularly featured in Manu's stage shows in the years since their release. Waka Juju is another number with a strong West African feeling. He never ignored his Camerounian followers either as tunes like Douala Serenade and Mouvement Ewondo testify.

For a glimpse of another side to this most comprehensive of musical artistes check out Poinciana. The slinky yet soulful treatment of this instrumental standard was recorded in 1983 during a more contemplative phase.

In his prolific career Manu has alternated between the hippest contemporary grooves and the more reflective sounds of solo piano, jazz, rumba, cabaret chansons, gospel and indigenous African music, but he always reveals the essential funk at the core of his work. Very often the finale of one of Manu's live shows is the irresistible rhythm and blues gutbuster Big Blow another trade mark number from his repertoire which shows that, as always, the man shows he has a sax full of sound.

The lyric of Africa Boogie pretty well sums up Manu's personal philosophy: 'Give me Afrobeat; boogie me to Africa'. As well as his effervescent personal preferences Manu has always remained in working contact with the folklore music of Cameroon's various people whose most outgoing rhythms include mangambe, bikoutsi and assiko as well as makossa. On Manga Bolo, a version of the mangambe from West Cameroun, he shows a straightforward, clean-cut way of telling ancient truths with modern means.

Still on the dancefloor, Motapo takes us in a different direction into the realms of Afro-Disco, complete with period strings. On the 1984 production Abele Dance with the Soul Makossa Gang he blows in an ice-cold style which predated future-funk by a good few years. He returned to New York and to a more jazzy type of funk for Electric Africa where he was joined by Herbie Hancock and Bill Laswell.

Back in the mellow fruitfulness of Baobab Sunset, also from the mid-1980s, this artist who often describes music in visual terms, paints a sound picture, full of shapes, patterns and textures which illustrates the African atmosphere better than a postcard.

Always seeking new ways to express his intense creativity, Manu works with all sizes of band - quartet, octet, 14-piece, 28 piece or more. Diboki is one of his arrangements for big band - a format which he likes to work in frequently.

Kumbele Style is a cool example of funky makossa swing with dash of gumbo flavour and some scorching sax - as usual. The 1972 track Iron Wood from an album called African Voodoo is another unmistakable Manu composition featuring marimba, one of his favourite instruments which he keeps revisiting.

In his travels Manu has also embraced the Caribbean, recording two albums in Jamaica, and creating some fine numbers which are scattered across this collection. From the album Gone Clear, comes Doctor Bird with its enigmatic hook. That was released as a 45rpm single with Goro City. Other reggae numbers with a similar lightness of touch that matches the toe stepping rhythm include Bona Sango and Night Jet, on which Manu blows and tinkles his way through another example of his reggae repertoire. Which brings us back full circle to Reggae Makossa a totally rearranged version of the theme song which has kept this master's momentum going through one of the most fulfilling careers in modern music.

---Graeme Ewens

Graeme is a writer, author and African music enthusiast who owes Manu Dibango a great debt for providing many insights into the culture of that continent.



Manu Dibango

Active Decades: '60s, '70s, '80s and '90s
Born: Feb 10, 1934 in Cameroon
Genre: Jazz
Styles: African Jazz, African Traditions, Afro-Pop, Makossa, World Fusion, Worldbeat

Dibango is Cameroon's, and perhaps Africa's, best-known jazz saxophonist. Starting in the 1950s, he became a globe-trotting musician, living and performing in France, Belgium, Jamaica, Zaire, and Cote d'Ivoire, as well as in Cameroon. In 1960, Dibango was one of the founding members of the Zairean band African Jazz, with whom he spent five years. World attention came to Dibango with the release in 1972 of Soul Makossa, a work that actually had precious little of the makossa sound in it, and scored later hits with Seventies and Ibida. Dibango's output has been prodigious and multi-faceted. He has worked with musicians as diverse as Fela Kuti, Sly Dunbar, Robbie Shakespeare, Don Cherry, and the Fania All-Stars. In addition to being one of the leading jazz saxophonists of his generation, Dibango has also run nightclubs, directed orchestras, and started one of the first African musical journals. A later release, Polysonik -- featuring English rapper MC Mello, Cameroonian singer Charlotte M'Bango leading a choral section, and sampled pygmy flutes -- shows that Dibango is continuing to flourish and expand in challenging new directions.
--- Leon Jackson, All Music Guide
Weboldal:Union Square Music

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