Les Ambassadeurs du Motel de Bamako
A
specially mastered double album compilation of the original 1975 - 1977
recordings by one West Africa's greatest bands, the one which first set
Salif Keita on his road to worldwide success. Including tracks never
released digitally or on CD before, also containing the first ever
release of two recordings from the vaults of Radio Mali. The whole album
reveals both the traditional and international side of this inspired
band. In 1969 an ambitious army lieutenant, a key member of the new
junta which had seized power only the previous year, decided that a band
was needed to entertain customers at the Motel De Bamako, then a
popular venue set in the shade of mango trees on the banks of the river
Niger. With his patronage, a group coalesced and in 1972 it attracted
guitarist Kanté Manfila, followed a year later by perhaps its most
famous member, Salif Keita...
Read more and listen: http://www.cdroots.com/st-3065.html
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The Afro-Semitic Experience offer "Further Definitions of the Days of Awe"
"Never before have I heard this lyrically powerful a fusion of Jewish and jazz souls on fire.” So says Nat Hentoff and I can’t agree more.
For most of the past decade the Afro-Semitic Experience has played the midnight Selichot service with Cantor Jack Mendelson at his synagogue in White Plains, NY. Theey have, in the process, created a new way to accompany cantorial music and they document it in this rousing recording of three concerts in August, 2010 just before the High Holy Days, one in New York City, one in New Haven, Connecticut, and one in Greenfield, Massachusetts. It features the band with special guests Cantor Jack Mendelson, Cantor Lisa Arbisser, Cantor Erik Contzius, cantorial soloist Danny Mendelson, and trumpeter Frank London.
Find the CD at
cdRoots
Travel back to the Golden Age of Senegalese music with N'Dour and 'The Starsof Dakar'
Etoile de Dakar featuring Youssou N'Dour
Once Upon A Time In Senegal: The Birth Of Mbalax 1979-1981 (
Stern's Music)
2 CDs
There are not many African artists whose names are as well-known as Youssou N’Dour’s. And it’s not just his ‘7 Seconds’ duet with Neneh Cherry, or his frequent collaborations with Peter Gabriel and others. No, you don’t reach his status just by who you hang out with, you get there by who you are and what you do. On one level these 2 CDs form a chapter in the story of who Youssou N’Dour is. But on another they show him simply as an equal member of a band … a band in the right place at the right time and doing the right things. That brief but vital moment in time is captured in these 23 tracks selected from the cassettes that Etoile de Dakar recorded between 1979 and 1981. Several have never been released outside of Senegal, and all have been sensitively re-mastered from the earliest available audio source. These are the best sounding recordings of this material available.
Listen to
some audio samples
Buy the CD at cdRootsLabels: youssou n'dour worldmusic senegal
Valravn Tests the Extremes of Nordic Roots Music
The Danish folktronica band
Valravn grew out of the acoustic medieval music ensemble Virelai, which had specialized in performing traditional music at medieval festivals. Valravn, updating old Faroese ballads sung in the original language, accompanied on hurdy-gurdy, flutes, hand drums, viola, mandola and electronic samples, have no equals on the Danish music scene. Ask Valravn percussionist, Juan Pino, and he will tell of an explosive development from the band's first album of mainly traditional material to their second,
Koder på snor, which relies more on their own compositions.
Morten Alfred Høirup investigates the new sound of Danish roots in his interview in
RootsWorld
The History of French Traditional Music (really!)
Une Anthologie des Musiques Traditionnelles (Frémeaux Associés)
This specially-priced set is a comprehensive anthology of the rich cultural heritage of French traditional music, featuring nearly 300 tracks, provides the listener a complete ethnomusicological panorama of the musical culture of France. The individual titles (recorded between 1900 and 2006) reveal the timeless and lasting nature of a collective memory reaching across whole generations, a memory which, in these times of globalization and uniformity, asserts the diversity of the heritage left to us by popular art-forms.
10 CDS - CD1 : Bretagne • CD2 : France de l’Ouest • CD3 : Auvergne et Limousin • CD4 : Centre France • CD5 : Sud-Ouest • CD6 : Méditerranée • CD7 : Alpes, Nord et Est • CD8 : Corse • CD9 : France d’Outre-Mer • CD10 : Français d’Amérique (more track info below)
Find out more
A Cuban pianist and a German Bigband hold a Ceremony
Think what you may of the Grammys, but the Academy got one thing (partially) right this past year:
Omar Sosa's 2009 recording
Across the Divide: A Tale of Rhythm & Ancestry was nominated for Best Contemporary World Music Album. While Béla Fleck took home the statue, the nomination introduced many people to the music of Omar Sosa. For these new listeners, this is good timing. The most recent release by Omar Sosa,
Ceremony, shows off his deep "world" credentials. Sosa, originally from Cuba, teamed up with Germany's
NDR Bigband and Brazilian arranger Jaques Morelenbaum, and the result is a powerful recording of celebration and joy.
Read More and Hear a SongBuy the CDSee more reviews of
World Music on
RootsWorld
