7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
High quality field recordings, March 8, 2004
This review is from: Explorer: Ghana - Ancient Ceremonies (Audio CD)
Field recordings made in the 1970s of traditional music from various locations in Ghana. The musicians are accomplished non-professionals. The repertoire is traditional. In these senses is the music is much closer to what one would hear at traditional gatherings (such as the installation of a new chief) than say that produced by professional folk musicians such as Mustapha Tettey Addy or Foday Musa Suso. The audio quality of these recordings is quite high, though on a number of tracks considerable incidental crowd noise is also audible - in some sense adding to documentation of the social context of these performances. The Smithsonian CD "Rhythms of life, Songs of Wisdom" is similar but more stylistically diverse, including local brass bands, for example. Instruments played in these recordings include the axatse (a gourd rattle), dzil and chohun (similar to a xylophone or marimba), donno (talking drum), gonje (single stringed bowed lute), gyamadudu (bass drum), mpintintoa (single headed gourd drum), namuma (animal horn trumpet), wiik (flute). Number of tracks also feature vocals in local languages.
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