Lionel Loueke, Virgin Forest: The Complete Sessions

Vocalist, guitarist, composer, leader Lionel Loueke came upon the scene with a flourish with his Virgin Forest album, released in the U.S. five years ago.

The album is out as Virgin Forest: The Complete Sessions (Obliqsound) to celebrate Obliqsound's 10th anniversary and it's an auspicious occasion. Auspicious because the entire session is a wonderful mix of traditional African elements, Afro-Jazz and much else besides. Herbie Hancock and Cyro Baptista make their appearances in good form and there are six additional acoustic performances.

Loueke plays a nylon stringed guitar in a jazz-meets-Afro-meets-Brazilian samba style and it's a wonder to hear him. There are tribal, dance and modern African forms mixed into Lionel's unique guitar-centered style and it works very well. The songs are very memorable, his voice is masterful and damn, this is some wonderful music.

Terakaft's "Aratan N Azawad": Electric Music from the Sahara

This group is something. Electric guitars and bass combine with traditional North African drumming, clapping, and vocal lines that have a Touareg tradition-meets-today sound, which is to say that they sound bluesy--in part because they always have been bluesy. The vocal parts are memorable; the guitars translate desert playing on nonelectric string instruments into a contemporary interwoven tapestry of desert blues. They remind a little of the sort of one-chord Delta-to-Chicago things that John Lee Hooker did so well. Yet they are unmistakably North African. You hear this brilliantly on Terakaft's third, Aratan N Azawad (World Village WVF 014).

Now does that mean that we have discovered the missing link from Africa to US blues? In general, sure, this is the African background to the blues, transposed to reflect blues-rock that has been in the air and has filtered its way back to the continent. I would not want to say, though, that Terakaft stems from a direct lineage of those specific Africans that ended up in the US. Too many tribes had musics that have something to do with the blues scale and feel to pin it down to one group. Like Fela Kuti's music both reflects James Brown and shows how there are African roots in Brown's music that can in turn energize new African music, so with Terakaft and the bluesmen-rockmen of the States.

All that does not matter ultimately in terms of the music here. I mean, to the listening. It is very vital music. Excellent. And it should appeal to a wide range of listeners who might not otherwise be exposed to African music. Highly recommended.

Muntu Valdo, African Singer-Guitarist, and His Debut, "The One and the Many"

Born and raised in Cameroon, West Africa and residing in London since 2008, singer, guitarist, multi-instrumentalist (bass guitar, percussion, harmonica), Muntu Valdo seems poised for the sort of wider international recognition denied to all but the select few African artists who can appeal to the World Music mainstream. He does for highlife-afrobeat or even traditional singer-instrumentalist music of rural Africa what bossa nova did for samba, what Kebmo did for the blues. He lightens it up, makes it contemporary and a little, dare I say, smoother than the roots music. That is not to say that Valdo is diluting African music or is giving us a smooth jazz version, because that is not what he is doing. All the percussive aspects of the best African music are there, but they come out with a more gentle lilt--again like bossa was for samba. Similarly there are melodic and harmonic sophistications in his vocals and guitar playing that recall how bossa went about things. And too Muntu is more in the realm of contemporary song-folk acoustic style than he is into a heavily electric dance bag. In other words, this is not Afro-funk in some very heavy sense, for the most part.

This is all in reference to his music on the new CD The One and the Many (Warner Jazz 2564674513). It's a many faceted Muntu Valdo we hear on this disk, Muntu the acoustic guitarist and song stylist, Muntu the contemporary builder of harder-edged call and response riff Africanism, even an African equivalent of music with the old R&B shuffle beat.

It's solid instrumentally with some nice guitar work (mostly in the acoustic-electric nylon-stringed realm); it's vocally well developed and hip; and it shows the songwriting/groove producing side well too. Muntu does all parts via overdubbing for a result that is rather impressive. And also rather expressive.

It's the sort of music those who dig African music will dig, but it also has the potential to attract those for whom the world music genre appeals but don't have alot of exposure to musical things African. Muntu Valdo is an artiste. That is something virtually anybody can appreciate. He makes music well worth hearing.