Hugh Nini

Since his return to South Africa in 1990, Hugh Masekela has become a national musical icon. And his music has taken on more of the flavor of his homeland, too, all of which is quite in evidence on Time. Of course, this being Masekela, he's not going to be penned into one style, as he shows on "Conchita," his bubbling celebration of Latin music, which name-checks every icon of the genre. But it's township jazz that's always been at the backbone of his sound, and it's there in his revisiting of "Part of a Whole," which he first recorded over 30 years ago. Even if it's township lite these days, more accessible than the real hardcore stuff, there's no doubt his heart is very much in the right place. He's not afraid to be political, either, touching on civil rights, dictators, and reminding people that an older generation hasn't necessarily lost touch with enjoying the pleasures of the world…

Music has been present in Hugh Laurie’s career in some form or another since the days of Fry & Laurie, even working its way into House, the American television series that turned him into an international star in the 2000s. Without House, Laurie would never have been granted the opportunity to record an album like 2011’s Let Them Talk, a full-blooded immersion into American blues via New Orleans, shepherded by acclaimed roots producer Joe Henry and featuring such Big Easy heavy-hitters as Allen Toussaint, Dr. John, and Irma Thomas. To his enormous credit, Laurie never sounds like a dilettante among this group; he holds his own, working his way into the marrow of the songs, playing credible piano throughout the record.

Herb Alpert / Hugh Masekela is collaborative studio album by Herb Alpert and Hugh Masekela. It was recorded in Hollywood, California, and released in 1978 via A&M Records and Horizon Records labels.

It should surprise no one who has ever followed the music of Nigerian drummer Tony Allen and/or South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela that this session exists. Though the great trumpeter passed away in 2018, his seven-decade-long career was filled with musical adventure across genres. For Allen, a co-creator of Afrobeat and a true progenitor of 21st century Afro-funk, innovation, experimentation, change, and disruption have been part of the game since he began playing. They were introduced to one another by Fela Kuti in the '70s and remained friends. The pair had talked for decades about making an album, and in 2010 they found time in between touring schedules to begin this project. Producer Nick Gold, acclaimed for numerous world music productions including The Buena Vista Social Club, recorded the meeting.

This disc strikes me as an ideal introduction to the music of Turkey’s greatest composer. Ahmed Adnan Saygun’s style might be described as “Szymanowski with a primal rhythmic feel.” If you love the composer’s First Violin Concerto then you will find here a very similar exoticism, nocturnal atmosphere, and love of voluptuous textures. The harmonic style is intensely chromatic, but also highly melodic. Like Bartók in his last period, Saygun’s handling of tonality mellowed toward the end of his life, which makes the Cello Concerto more consonant than the Viola Concerto, but both works are absolutely gorgeous and masterpieces of their kind. It’s positively criminal that no one plays these pieces regularly in concert. The performances here are excellent. Tim Hugh is a well-known cellist, and he pours on the tone with all of the rhapsodic abandon that Saygun requires. Mirjam Tschopp also is a superb violist, with a big, beefy tone that never gets swamped by the intricate orchestration. It’s also very rewarding to hear a Turkish orchestra in this music–and to find that it plays beautifully under Howard Griffiths.

Now happily resettled in South Africa, Masekela assembled a seven-piece group there and recorded an informal guided tour of his life and repertoire live in Washington D.C.'s Blues Alley. The songs stretch over a period of nearly five decades and several countries and composers - from an incantatory Alexandria township tune, "Languta," which he learned in 1947, to a fairly ordinary piece written by keyboardist Themba Mkhize in 1993, "Until When." "Abangoma" starts the CD out on the right track, hearkening back to the early fusion of African music and jazz that Masekela was playing back in 1966. "Mandela (Bring Him Back Home)" may have lost some of its political raison d'etre by 1993, but it remains a good tune, and the band plays it with enthusiasm…

This disc is a winner, the first of a series of all 12 Boccherini cello concertos, beautifully performed on modern instruments but with concern for period practice and superbly recorded. Each concerto has its individual delights, but the formula in all four works is similar, with strong, foursquare first movements, slow movements that sound rather Handelian, and galloping finales in triple time. Many collectors will be concerned about the Boccherini Cello Concerto beloved of generations in Grützmacher's corrupt edition.

Bassist Hugh Hopper, of Soft Machine fame creates a diversity of rhythm loops over which he layers bass, guitar and the occasional synthesizer, providing a backdrop for a variety of guest artists to contribute, including ex-Soft Machine band mate Robert Wyatt on cornet and vocal loops, and ex-Gong woodwind multi-instrumentalist Didier Malherbe. Ranging from the direct funk of "Some Complications at Work" to the more hypnotically propulsive and aboriginally-textured "Craig's Distended Train Ride," Hopper builds twelve pieces that coexist with Howarth's art, telling the story of technology worker Craig's encounters and frustrations with the change in DST before heading to the Outback to escape the confines of time…

Boccherini's stature as a great composer stands chiefly on his works for cello - these concertos, the cello sonatas, and above all the quintets for two violins, viola, and two cellos. The two performances by Tim Hugh and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, produced by Naxos, may not set the bar for interpretive brilliance, but Mr. Hugh plays beautifully, with excellent tone in his highest passages, and the price is right. If you haven't given Boccherini a listener's chance, these two CDs, sold separately, might open your ears.