Name: London is the Place For Me - Calypso and Kwela, Highlife and Jazz From Young Black London
Brand: Various

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

HJRLP016

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Colour

black

Colour details

Discogs ID

Discs

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

Format Music GB

Limited edition

Release date

2022-04-15

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier GB

Honest Jons

Tax rate GB

UPC / Barcode

2 / Extended format: No / LP / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No / black

Artist

Various

Genre GB

Rest of World

Label GB

Vibrant and beautiful almost beyond words, the fifty year old recordings being collected on Honest Jons’ London Is The Place For Me series are giant and precious treasures of early black British music. Exquisite artistic achievements in their own right, they also throw light on the early development of post bop jazz in the UK.

Volume one in the series, released in ‘02 and subtitled <i>Trinidadian Calypso In London, 1950-1956</i>, features all-but-forgotten masterpieces of reportage, social commentary and louche wit from Lord Kitchener, Lord Beginner, the Lion, and other recently arrived young calypsonians. This second volume, subtitled Calypso And Kwela, Highlife And Jazz From Young Black London, concentrates on the same period but widens the geo-stylistic net.

Featured musicians, caught early in their careers and still working within the rich contexts of their native folk musics, include trumpeter Shake Keane from St. Vincent, later a collaborator in Joe Harriott’s free jazz explorations, but in ‘55 on Baionga in exuberant jazz-highlife mode; clarinetist Willie Roachford and trumpeter Harry Beckett, from Barbados, soloists in Ambrose Campbell’s jazz-infused West African Rhythm Brothers highlife band; and from South Africa, alto saxophonists Gwigwi Mrwebi and Dudu Pukwana, together with two of Pukwana’s Blue Note colleagues, pianist Chris McGregor and trumpeter Mongezi Feza.

London is the Place For Me - Calypso and Kwela, Highlife and Jazz From Young Black London

Music GB