Ladysmith Black MambazoIlembe: Honoring Shaka Zula | Heads Up January 14,
2008 2:50:27 PM
|
It’s been two decades since Paul Simon ushered this South African a cappella group onto the world stage. But they’ve long since proved they can succeed on their own, filling concert halls around the world with their signature sound: rhythmic purring, cooing, bubbling, hissing, and occasionally stomping, all rendered with silky smooth, perfectly blended male voices. After a remix album, an orchestral collaboration, and a celebrity-guest project featuring Melissa Etheridge and Emmylou Harris, Ladysmith return to form here with a set of 12 all-vocal tracks in honor of the 19th-century warlord Shaka Zulu. Christianity and African tradition cohabit harmoniously in Ladysmith’s world. One of the two songs sung in English here, “Prince of Peace,” is an entreaty to prayer, and a hymn to patience and balance; the other, “This Is the Way We Do,” is a playful love song. Elsewhere, we have advice to youth, praise of elders, and rejections of jealousy and witchcraft. The eight surviving members still deliver a mighty, if understated, swing filled with echoes of jazz, jubilee choirs of old, and august Zulu tradition.
Ladysmith Black Mambazo | Sanders Theatre, 45 Quincy St, Cambridge | January 18 | 617.876.4275
|
|
|
- Never mind its tough-girl alt-porn feminism: SuicideGirls has already moved on to a new generation
- Some Things at Trinity
- Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz explains the punishing cost of staying any longer
- A last-minute Emperor at the BSO, Gatti and Ohlsson, BLO’s Elisir, and Brahms meets Weill with the Cantata Singers
- Janet’s Discipline and Badu’s New AmErykah
- If you want to lose the ‘fright wig,’ try ditching your shampoo
- Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz explains the punishing cost of staying any longer
- Now more than ever, this is Marty Baron’s newspaper
- Julian Kuerti leads the BSO and Leon Fleisher, Stockhausen’s Mantra at Harvard, Emmanuel’s St. John Passion
- Free speech trumps Boston cops
- Al Basile is still groovin’ onThe Tinge
- The Left Bank meets the West Side
|
-
Dununya | Jumbie
-
Lagos by Bus | Cyberset
-
Youssou N’Dour bridges the gap
-
Afriki | Cumbancha
-
Live at Couleur Café | Crammed Discs
-
Andy Palacio rescues the sound of the Garifuna
-
Francophone acts bring it home on Bastille Day
-
Nu Mondo | Times Square
-
Bokoor Beats: Vintage Afro-Beat, Afro-Rock & Electric Highlife from Ghana | Otrabanda
|
- Cornerstone revives Neil Simon’s Biloxi Blues
- The proto-man comes home on Plague of the Planet
- Crossing Lines | Mu
- Bully
- Girls Sing | Geometriya
- Golden Delicious | ATO
- Super Roots 9 | Thrill Jockey
- Women as Lovers | Kill Rock Stars
- The Pubcrawlers give you a reason to celebrate, March 17
- Get Awkward | Ecstatic Peace/Universal
|
|