David Dalle
Thursday April 30th, 2015 with David Dalle
Three new albums, two rich in improvised and multicultural encounters and one stretching back over four decades of a legendary career from Southern Africa.

Today's show is centered around three new albums, two rich in improvised and multicultural encounters and one stretching back over four decades of a legendary career from Southern Africa. "Lion Songs", a retrospective of Thomas Mapfumo. His voice was one of the first popular voices to sing in Shona of the great injustice of racist Southern Rhodesia in the 1970's; it lent strength and pride to the black rebellions which led to majority rule and the birth of Zimbabwe in 1980. He became the voice of the people as the hopes of independent Zimbabwe sunk under the corruption and incompetence of the strongman rule of Robert Mugabe; and he has become the voice of opposition and exile after he was forced to leave his beloved Zimbabwe in the 1990's to the US where he has lived since. Richly textured music fusing traditional Shona music and particularly the sound of the Mbira with guitars with Mapfumo's extraordinarly compelling voice singing of injustice, loss, remembrance. One of the greatest African artists. The Egyptian Oud virtuoso and composer Mohamed Abozekry with his 2nd album "Ring Road" features himself and a quartet of French jazz musicians, Benoit Baud on saxophone, Anne-Laurie Bourget on percussion, Hugo Reydet on doublebass, Ludovic Yapaudjian on piano. "Ring Road" is an irresistable album full of big, meaty pieces, exuberant rhythms and tremendous instrumentation. "Libres" is an improvised meeting between pianist Karol Beffa and saxophonist Raphael Imbert. Simply beautiful with the spectre of Bach on the keyboard contrasted with the piercing melodies on the saxophone.