African

George Russell - The African Game (1983) {Blue Note CDP 7463352 rel 1997}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks) +CUE+LOG -> 274 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 109 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 9 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1983, 1997 Blue Note | CDP 7 46335 2
Jazz / Contemporary Jazz / Experimental Big Band / Progressive Jazz

George Russell's The African Game is a major statement, a highly eclectic, nine-part, 45-minute suite for augmented big band that attempts to depict no less than the evolution of the species from the beginning of time to the present from an African perspective. Well, yes, this theme has been taken on by many an ambitious artist in every field, but Russell's work is remarkably successful because it tries to embrace a massive world of sound in open, colorful, young-thinking terms, with degrees of timbral unity and emotion to keep the idioms from flying out of control.

Blue Mitchell - African Violet / Summer Soft (1977-1978) {2CD Impulse! 2-on-1 Series Remaster rel 2011}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 559 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 201 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 19 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1977, 1978, 2011 Impulse! / Verve / Universal Music | 06025 2780952
Jazz / Soul Jazz / Jazz Funk / Trumpet

This two-fer combines a pair of trumpeter Blue Mitchell's late-career albums for the Impulse! label: 1977's African Violet and Summer Soft. A consummate hard bopper, Mitchell experimented with soul- and funk-jazz as the '70s wore on and these albums are no exception. Funky but lyrical, muscular yet still swinging with a modern jazz intensity, these albums feature Mitchell playing against small as well as large ensembles, including orchestral strings on African Violet. Reflecting the somewhat commercial approach to many jazz productions of the time with electric guitars and synthesizers in the mix, they are nonetheless worthy, hard to find recordings and it's great to have them together on one disc.

The 1980s were an epoch of upheaval and rapid change in South Africa. The decade began with the country’s apartheid government fighting to maintain its institutionalized racial segregation in the face of global protests and demands for the release of human rights activist Nelson Mandela, who had been jailed since the early 1960s. By 1990, Mandela was free, and apartheid was on the way to being dismantled. On the music front, things were changing too; At the beginning of the decade, the main music style of black South Africans was the jazzy indigenous jive of mbaqanga, a provincial style that had held its place as the sound of South Africa since Mandela was first imprisoned. By the end of the decade, South African music stars were making international waves with bubblegum, a flashy variety of Afro-techno-pop.

The Royal Scottish National Orchestra teams up with its Assistant Conductor Kellen Gray to record works by three of the twentieth century’s greatest African American voices, which is released to coincide with Black History Month.

… it is still a reasonably enjoyable effort.

George Russell's The African Game is a major statement, a highly eclectic, nine-part, 45-minute suite for augmented big band that attempts to depict no less than the evolution of the species from the beginning of time to the present from an African perspective. Well, yes, this theme has been taken on by many an ambitious artist in every field, but Russell's work is remarkably successful because it tries to embrace a massive world of sound in open, colorful, young-thinking terms, with degrees of timbral unity and emotion to keep the idioms from flying out of control. ~ AllMusic