Customer Reviews

Mambo Inn Compilation

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

 

 

I was given this disc two years ago as a birthday present, and have yet to tire of it. Big Noise is a compilation that came out of London's "Mambo Inn" - a dance/performance space that was one of the first to foray into the now familiar territory of artists such as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Baaba Maal. Remixes of African, Brazilian, and Middle eastern music with a dance flair are executed brilliantly across all the selections on this disc. This is one that you will get inevitable "Where did you FIND this MUSIC?" questions - everyone I have played this for falls instantly in love with it.

I suppose it's not really fair. It's a compilation of various artists and all the songs are, at the very least, good. But....Jorge Dalto's piano on Track 10 (Samba de Flora) is way beyond good. It's great, it's beautiful to listen to. What a gift to be able to improvise like that. Would've been a treat to hear him live, in Rio. Oh well, next life.

from the deejays of a now defunkt south london club. man, i wish i had made it to that club. disk arranged geographically: start out in south asia (bally sagoo's mix of "kinna sohna" by ustad nusrat fateh ali khan, then to the north africa (funk club mix of "didi' by rai singer khaled, on to sub-saharan africa and the power-pop sweetness of "angelina" by the ghanaian highlife band sweet talks, across the ocean to latin america and brazilian percussionist airto's "samba de flora" and end up in the states with luther barnes and the red budd gospel choir doing "my god can do anything." and this disk nearly does everything.

I'd bought this cd, only because i wanted to get the classy remix of "Kinna Sohna"....fortunately the album turned out to be pretty good!

The Kinna Sohna remix is really cool...great bass lines and an acid jazz feel. However i prefer the original version of 'Didi' rather than this one....the original seems to have more life in it. 'Mango, mango...' has wonderful horn arrangements and a great melody. 'Samba de flora' has some exceptional piano runs, done by the great Jorge Dalto...one of my favs on the compilation.The ramsey lewis piece has a groove/soul feel to it...while 'you're the one' has some great guitar work.

tracks 5,6,8 and 9 were quite ordinary - nothing exceptional,....they are the kind one associates with 'happy' south american music with good beats. this is the only thing that kept me from giving this compilation 5 stars.

All the other tracks are pretty good....

I'd say a good buy!

I found this record a number of years ago and listened to it constantly for about a year. This music still sounds fresh after about a thousand "listens". A few nights ago I put it on during a party and a number of friends asked what it was and where they could get it... Just buy it!

I bought because of Khaled's "didi" remix, but thw whole CD is precious! Excellent. Every DJ should have!

This cd has been one of my favorites for the past two years. The remixes make some very obscure world music more accesible and universal. I have played this disc for people that have never listened to anything but top-40 before and watched their interest in world-music take off. It is a great party cd which will not disappoint.

I bought "Big Noise" on the strength of the 1st two songs. Both are HOT - excellent dance re-mixes that make international music not only accessible but addictive.

There's a foray into some adequate, more traditional Latin music, but it doesn't quite fit in with this CD. If you're actually looking for real mambo, Latin swing etc... there are much better compilations.

The Gospel song at the end is good, but it's somewhat inconsistent with the style of the rest of the music. Maybe that's the point. If you want something with a lot of different styles, this may suit you. However, I found myself skipping past many of the songs to get to the 3 or so I found worthwhile. In the end, it's just too much of a mish mash of unrelated styles to cohere very well. There's not enough to connect the songs stylistically.

The first 3 songs on this CD deserve a 4 or 5 star rating by themselves. However, as a whole the CD is weakened by a lot of chaff.