City A.M. – 22 August 2022
English | 20 pages | True PDF | 8.8 MB
English | 20 pages | True PDF | 8.8 MB
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Born in Brooklyn, raised in Switzerland, resident of Toronto, and recording in Memphis, singer Shakura S'Aida turns in her second solo album, Brown Sugar, for the German Ruf Records label. On her first CD, UMI's Blueprint, she sang blues cover songs from the 1940s and ‘50s, but here she and her guitarist, Donna Grantis, have penned nine of the 11 songs themselves. They have done so in some familiar blues styles, starting with the opening trio of 12-bar blues tunes, "Mr. Right," "Walk Out That Door," and "Gonna Tell My Baby," then going on to less hardcore variations such as the blues-rock found on "(Did It)" Break Your Heart" and the bluesy piano ballad "Angel on High."
With a few changes in personnel, the Zawinul Syndicate continues to be Joe Zawinul's personal vehicle for pan-global fusions of jazz, Afro-Latin rhythms, rock and whatever world music he can lay his hands on. Again Zawinul keeps a configuration of vocalists on board, including his own gritty electronically processed voice, and he even dusts off his childhood accordion for a bit of Austrian local color on "Medicine Man." The leadoff track, a group remake of "Carnivalito" recorded live in Copenhagen, is, oddly enough, inferior to Zawinul's solo version – too cluttered. But with the South African freedom-fighting, percolating "Black Water," the Syndicate is back on track, empowered as always by Zawinul's unquenchable urge to swing right in the pocket.