CD Reviews

Various Artists | Marvellous Boy: Calypso From West Africa

Honest Jon's (2009)

By GUSTAVO TURNER | March 17, 2009

4.0 Stars

Long regarded as the uncoolest of the Caribbean dance rhythms (standard associations: Beetlejuice's perversion of Harry Belafonte's "Day-O," fat tourists bending under a broomstick during sea-cruise ice breakers), calypso is undergoing a wave of reappraisal following the release of the London Is the Place for Me compilations, Those wonderful volumes revealed a trove of 1950s recordings made by West African musicians in the English metropolis that circulated among the vibrant immigrant scene at the time.

Marvellous Boy follows the same island rhythms back to the ancestral motherland, where African musicians were providing a dancing soundtrack to the waning days of the British Empire. This is part of the pre-history of highlife music and Afrobeat, with many of the later famous names (Stephen Osita Osadebe, Victor Olaiya) cutting their teeth on the endlessly satisfying calypso beat.

Highlights include the mysterious Rolling Stone and His Traditional Aces doing "Igha Suo Gamwen" (a version of the familiar tune popularized by Chubby Checker as "Limbo Rock"), the laid-back female vocalist for E. T. Mensah and His Tempos Band weaving a jungle fable about "The Tree and the Monkey," and Steven Amechi and His Empire Rhythm Skies schooling his male listeners about the sexiest of the brave new fabrics: "If you want to make your lady happy/Nylon is good for her."

Review: I Can't Think Straight
You'd think being a gay Muslim in London would involve a lot of stress, but in Shamim Sarif's blithe, pastel-colored romance, everyone is beautiful and rich, so it's just another diversion.
The Place
Sometimes a burger or a heap of nachos is just what the appetite (and budget) ordered. Sometimes nothing less than white linen elegance will do. A Newport place ambitiously named the Place bills itself as "the wine bar and grille at Yesterdays." The latter restaurant describes itself as "an alehouse;" it has 36 microbrews on tap and a menu that skews playful and Caribbean. Oy — a pint, mon.
Photos: Fanfarlo and Freelance Whales at T.T. the Bear's
Photos of Fanfarlo with Freelance Whales
Blackshaw's good vibrations
Blackshaw's low-key career has evolved as organically as one of his songs: at 28, the Londoner has amassed a body of instrumental guitar music that defies tidy categorization. What he does isn't really folk, jazz, or new age — and it's far too accessible to be mistaken for avant-garde.
Missed connections
Private Fears in Public Places — Alan Ayckbourn's London-set tragicomedy from 2004 — is all about how difficult it is to know another person.
Cube root
"I've been told it's the largest single piece of glass in the world," Helen Molesworth, the Institute of Contemporary Art's new chief curator, said at a press preview last week.
Photos: The xx at the Paradise
Photos from the xx's Boston stop on their 2010 world tour.
Photos: Mumford and Sons at the Ames Hotel
WFNX presents Mumford and Sons, live session at the Ames Hotel
Understated indulgence
In economic times like these, the decision to invest in a nice dinner out is not to be taken lightly.
Tana French gets her characters where they live
Frank Mackey's life changed when he was 19. The year was 1985, and he and his girlfriend Rosie Daly were about to run away together.
White Lies | Ritual
If the bombast of Ritual is any indicator, nights out with White Lies must be dramatic, humorless affairs. Life-altering monologues will be recited, voices will be raised, glasses will be smashed, blood will be spilt.
Less

Topics: CD Reviews , Entertainment, Music, London, More

| More

ARTICLES BY GUSTAVO TURNER

IAN KING | PANIC GRASS AND FEVER FEW | March 16, 2010
Just a few weeks after we reviewed the belated release of African Head Charge's latest, another, more recent gem from the always rewarding sonic laboratory of Adrian Sherwood arrives.

JOE CUBA | EL ALCALDE DEL BARRIO | March 09, 2010
Fania kicks off 2010 with what is sure to end up being one of the year's most important archival releases of Latin music.

ALEJANDRO FRANOV | DIGITARIA | March 03, 2010
Alejandro Franov is an Argentine multi-instrumentalist who's been involved in the more serious, and often experimental, side of the Buenos Aires music scene since he was a teen in the late 1980s.

THE SOULJAZZ ORCHESTRA | RISING SUN | February 23, 2010
We're living in the middle of a veritable renaissance of "Spiritual Jazz."

AFRICAN HEAD CHARGE | VISION OF PSYCHEDELIC AFRICA | February 09, 2010
UK dub guru Adrian Sherwood and adventurous percussionist Bonjo I have been releasing their sonic experiments as African Head Charge since the early 1980s.