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HISTORICAL RECORDINGS BY HUGH TRACEY: KANYOK AND LUBA, 1952 & 1957

(ILAM)

The fifth of what will eventually be a 20-CD series of music drawn from Hugh Tracey's enormous library of vintage traditional African music recordings, this 22-track collection is field recording at its very best. And it swings with a vengeance. Tracey's work has long been renowned for its astounding quality and depth, but little of it is as downright entertaining as these village party songs from the mining regions of the southern Belgian Congo. On some cuts you can make out the blueprint for Congo's modern pop sound, mutwashi, which has been popularized by singer Tshala Muana. These lively tracks are defined by the interplay between call-and-response voices and pan pipes, talking drums with their melodic resonance, and tinkling hand pianos, plus shaker rhythms and off-the-beat guitar playing. They all embody that groove that Tracey once described as a "compelling lilt" when he was trying to sum up the sound of the masamba dance song. In retrospect you can hear in the hand-drum parts the pumping feel of today's soukous bass players. In the decades after Tracey made these recordings, Congo (Zaire) would come to dominate African pop music. Much of the raw material that would fuel that musical explosion can be heard here.

-- Banning Eyre