Customer Reviews

Concrete Jungle: The Music of Bob Marley

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

 

 

Iam actually surprise at the lack of reviews on this another masterpiece from the one and only Monty Alexander.The music is conservative and stays true to the original spirit but with a new flavour and style.Great artist,great musicians,excellent song selections and we have another masterpiece...highly recommended.

I heard this compilation at a friend's house a few weeks before and decided that I had to have it. This is not my first Monty Alexander compilation, so again I'm not disappointed. A collector's item indeed!!!

I never knew a whole lot about Monty Alexander other than he's played with Sinatra and Dizzy and the bunch. But this album....well, after hearing it on HD TV, I was actually late for work because I had to go order it immediately. Great versions of Marley songs which are always simple and pleasant to the ears. Especially the version of "forever lovin' Jah." Highly recommended.

If anyone is entitled to reinterpret Bob Marley's music, it's fellow Kingstonian Monty Alexander. For this, his second outright tribute to the reggae king (the first being 1999's Stir It Up), Alexander went down to the studio where he himself first recorded at the age of fifteen, the same studio that Marley bought near the end of his own life and rechristened Tuff Gong, and with the help of a batch of locals and N'Orleans trombonist Delfeayo Marsalis, locked into a steady pulse on this set of Marley compositions. It's an attractive undertaking, smoothing out the rough edges of the composer's rebel spirit while deconstructing the simple but irresistible melodies. Marsalis marches "Simmer Down" through the French Quarter and the Rod Dennis Mento Band takes it loosely to the streetcorner on "Three Little Birds," but most of this CD is firmly rooted in mellow, groove-happy Trenchtown rock.

---Originally published in Port Folio Weekly - March 28, 2006
copyright © 2006 Port Folio Weekly. Used by Permission.

Monty Alexander has done it again,a must have album for every
fan.One of my favourite is track five "Babylon System"Monty shows why he is so pivotal to Jamaican music.
Keith. Florida

excellent CD; love it play it at least twice a week; its on my ipod! great beat and rhythm