Various Artists - Roots of OK Jazz: Congo Classics 1955-1956
SKU
17-876623006138
Terrific release in a great package of 1950s African music that definitely points the way towards the music of the 60s/70s. Highly recommended!
"Originally released on Crammed in 1993, this beautiful 20-song collection - re-released as part of the "Congo Classics" series on Crammed that began with "Roots of Rumba Rock" in 2006 - documents the fine early work of the "Tout-Pouissant Orchestre Kinois de Jazz" or Almighty Kinshasa Jazz Orchestra, as led by the imposing "Grand Maitre" Lokanga La Ndju Pene Luambo Makiadi aka Franco. This reissue coincides with the 50th anniversary of DR Congo's independence from Belgian colonial rule."
"These delicious mid-'50s recordings would be entirely irresistible even if they weren't also history in the making, being that their common factor is the presence of the great Franco -- along, on many of them, with other founding members of the great OK Jazz orchestra."~ John Storm Roberts, Original Music