The New Year Case of the Night at Club Safari

This week we are back to the Motherland with another mix of West African popular music from the Golden Era (60s and 70s). It's a new case for a new year:  a night at my mythical African hot spot, Club Safari.

I have some new (to me) music to share this week from Burkina Faso:  a handful of rare singles from Orchestre Volta Jazz. We will hear a few more rarities this week from Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast, spanning the gap between the Latin and Rumba styles popularized in The Congo, and the traditional Manding folk and desert blues from the southern fringes of the Sahara.

I am also mixing in some less obscure work from the ends of that spectrum:  some magical Congolese guitar from Dr. Nico (with African Fiesta), along with some hard hitting funk from Mali's incomparable Rail Band.

The show ends today with a killer rarity from Mali that has recently been reissued by Portland's own Mississippi Records: "Ampsa" LP from "Idrissa Soumaoro et L'Eclipse de L'I.J.A." This is the most well known work released by the elusive Idrissa Soumaoro, recorded here with chorus and musicians from a Malian school for the blind, where he had been teaching music.