Customer Reviews

African Beat, The

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Hats off to Blakey for assembling this intense drum ensemble. This is perhaps the first jazz record that I know of that successfully combined authentic african rhythms in a jazz setting. The album opens with a traditinal Nigerian prayer spoken in native tongue by Solomon G. Ilori. This prayer sets the stage for what follows; a diverse, engaging, authentic musical experience that travels from Nigeria to Senegal to Jamaica and back to America employing a vast array of percussion instruments and the immense talents of Yusef Lateef. Highly recommended.

In the mid-60's, my college roomate and I would let his reel-to-reel tape deck run overnite, recording the late night jazz station out of New York. One morning as we reviewed the recordings we heard a fantastic song only identified by the D.J. as "The Prayer" by Art Blakey. Many years later, when CDs began to appear, I starting looking for such a recording to no avail. Then as search engines became available, I continued to search.
For some reason, I was never able to find what I was looking for.
I told my office mate about this and when I came in to work this morning, he said he thought he had located what I was looking for. I brought it up and listened to a sample. BRAVO!!!!
What I actually had recorded was Prayer followed by Ife L'Ayo.
The one minute sample was as fantastic as I had remembered. Needless to say the album is now on the way to my home....

i first listened to a tune on [..] from this cd and enjoyed the nice fusion between jazz and African rhythms, so I decided to give it a try. It appears it is one of the first attempts at this , and I was not disseminated by the cd. Overall, I enjoy the drumming of Blakey and the nice intermingling with the African musicians.