Letta Mbulu: An Evening Of African Music (1980)

Rare Canada-only live album from the wonderful South African diva.

Mbulu is as soulful and powerful as ever here, her voice soaring, shouting and whispering through a repertoire of tracks written by her husband Caiphus Semenya.

Highlights: the funky "Manu A Pula" and "Baile Baneso", a gorgeous "There's Music In The Air", an uplifting, percussion-driven "Sacred Drum", a joyous "Rainy Day Music", the quasi a capella "Ogxam". The captivating interaction between the singer and her backing singers is especially noteworthy troughout the programme. It's a bit of a pitty, though, that most renditions stick relatively close to the studio recordings, with only very little room for the tight and well-oiled backing band to improvise.

Side four contains music from Sayyd Abdul Al-Khabyyr and group. They play a kind of "ethno jazz", which i find rather amateurishly and overall pretty boring.

This was the first Letta Mbulu live album, except for a few songs that appeared on a Harry Belafonte 1972 live album (which, together with several Mbulu albums, was posted on one of the elder incarnations of this place).

The double album was issued exclusively on the "Radio Canada International" label, RCI, the label of CBC's international French division Radio Canada broadcasting service. It is pretty rare and fetching high prices when on sale. Lucky me, i discovered an excellent copy at my local everyting-for-3-euro shop. Sometimes i wonder what the story behind such albums is, how such a rare Canadian album finds it's way into a shabby junk shop in Northern Germany.

Letta Mbulu: An Evening Of African Music
Also Featuring Sayyd Abdul Al-Khabyyr

RCI 529, Canada 1983

1. Common Ground (P. Winter/J. Guth/M. Holmes) - 5:04
2. Midnight (Minuit) (Trad./K. Fodeba/Eng. J. Guth/S. Osborn) - 2:55
3. Maru A Pula (Caiphus Semenya) - 3:08
4. Sacred Drum (Caiphus Semenya) - 3:33
5. There's Music In The Air (Caiphus Semenya/Will Jennings) - 5:38
6. Lerato (Caiphus Semenya) - 4:00
7. Many Rains Ago (Caiphus Semenya/Quincy Jones) - 4:18
8. Rainy Day Music (Caiphus Semenya) - 2:14
9. Ogxam (Caiphus Semenya) - 3:32
10. Baile Baneso (Caiphus Semenya) - 3:36
11. Carry On/Heaven Knows (Gil Turner) - 6:41
12. Hareje (Caiphus Semenya) - 4:19
13. Qonqoza (Letta Mbulu) - 8:39

14. Me-Fa-Me-Fa-Sol-Tay (Sayyd Abdul Al-Khabyyr) - 4:16
15. A Night In Tunisia (D. Gillespie/F. Paparelli) - 8:43
16. Alllahu-Akbar (Sayyd Abdul Al-Khabyyr) - 4:23

Live at the Expo Theatre, Montreal, Quebec, September 28, 1980

Personell for tracks 1-13:
Letta Mbulu (vcl) with Richard Cummings (key); J. McGeehan, José Neto (g); John Cartwright (b); Spider Rice (d); Steve Thornton (perc); Gloria Turner, Arthur Williams, Barbara Young (background vcl)

Personell for tracks 14-16:
Sayyd Abdul Al-Khabyyr (sax, perc) with Muhammad Abdul Al-Khabyyr (tb); Anthony Romandini (g); Noble Samuels (b); Nasyr Abdul Al-Khabyrr (d); David Thiaw (cga).

Producer: Mark D. Goldman, Radio Canada International
Engineer: Guy Charbonneau & Le Mobile, Filterson Ltee, Denis Leclect, CBC Radio, Montreal