Customer Reviews

African High Life

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I haven't recieved my copy of this yet so I cannot speak to the music. But I thought I would provide others with a little more info than Amazon has. This is a Connoisseur reissue of a unusual and legendary Blue Note session. Nigerian percussionist Ilori's original release featured his great highlife band of six drummers, bass, guitar, alto sax and flute. Ilori played the talking drum and did vocals.
But what is exciting about this reissue (for me at least) is that it includes three longish (12-14 minutes each) cuts from a later session that was never released. A session with the likes of Donald Byrd, Hubert Laws, Elvin Jones and Chief Bey. Yikes. You really have to wonder about Blue Note sometimes. How much more unreleased music is in their vaults? Unreleased because it simply didn't meet their idea of what was commercial at the time.
In any case, I am sure that the usual Blue Note reviewers will be all over this release soon enough and will let us know just how great it all is. In the meantime, I thought I would whet your appetites a bit and encourage to check out the sound samples.

Solomon Ilori recorded this record in 1964-65 an odd selection for Bluenote at the time,who were still pushing hard bop jazz. The disc has traditional high life styled songs with Ilori performing alongside his ensemble on various drums and handling the vocal duties. The music is typical Nigerian high life music from that era reminiscent of percussionist/vocalist the late Babba Olutunji,however the final three tracks heat up with the addition of Hubert Laws on flute and performing on tenor sax(yes Hubert ..not Ronnie on Tenor sax and,and brother he burns!!) also Donald Byrd is feature on trumpet and fluglehorn while Elvin Jones jams alongside on drums for a free jazz/african high life party...impressive gem from the BlueNote vaults.