Search - Various Artists :: Explorer: Ghana - High-Life & Other Music

An unusual and alluring African album

Joe Sixpack -- Slipcue.com | ...in Middle America | 11/25/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"One of the most fascinating and unique sounding of the recently-rereleased early Nonesuch Explorer albums. Ghanian highlife pioneer Saka Acquaye hosted this loose-edged, jazz-tinged jam session, which blends standard old-school highlife music (and its calypsonian roots) with playful, exploratory free jazz. American saxophonist Charles Earland is a key participant in these freewheeling. improvisational sessions, adding an authoritative jazz feel to the delicate clamour of a keening vocal chorus and erratic, seemingly chaotic percussive patterns. This is a very different sound for this musical style, although one suspects it's also truer to highlife's early, informal roots. Similar at times to Alice Coltrane's early '70s afrocentric jazz ramblings, but more focused and more fun. A cool record... definitely worth checking out!"