252. Hugh Masekela - Home Is Where The Music Is (1972)

Track Listing

1. Part Of A Whole
2. Minawa
3. The Big Apple
4. Unhome
5. Maseru
6. Inner Crisis
7. Blues For Huey
8. Nomali
9. Maesha
10. Ingoo Pow-Pow (Children's Song)

Review

I have finally been able to listen to this album. This was the last one of my back catalogue of albums to listen to after the end of the 1001 list. So now it is finally over!

Jazz is usually seen as a typically American music form, and so is Funk for example. But Africa was dealing cards in both these genres by the early 70s, developing Afro-beat from a fusion of the two adding to them local flavour. Masekela's album is much more Jazz than Afro-Beat, but the influences are clearly patent throughout.

Masekela is part of South African music royalty, being the ex-husband of Miriam Makeba, and here he adds to South African Jazz afro beat elements which help his Jazz be more funky than usual. It does feel, however, like a bit of a throwback at times, after Davis' and Coltrane's innovations in the genre, which are kind of forgotten here. This does help the album be more listenable, but it is hardly ever challenging, music does not however need to be challenging to be great. The very successful mix of Afro-Beat and Jazz helps it edge into my ipod.

Track Highlights

1. Part of The Whole
2. Ingoo Pow-Pow
3. The Big Apple
4. Unhome

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

He has played primarily in jazz ensembles, with guest appearances on albums by The Byrds ("So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star") and Paul Simon. In 1987, he had a hit single with "Bring Him Back Home" which became an anthem for the movement to free Nelson Mandela. A renewed interest in his African roots led him to collaborate with West and Central African musicians, and finally to reconnect with South African players when he set up a mobile studio in Botswana, just over the South African border, in the 1980s. Here he re-absorbed and re-used mbaqanga strains, a style he has continued to use since his return to South Africa in the early 1990s. In the 1980s, he toured with Paul Simon in support of Simon's album Graceland, which featured other South African artists such as Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Miriam Makeba, Ray Phiri, and other elements of the band Kalahari, which Masekela recorded with in the 1980s. He also collaborated in the musical development for the Broadway play, Sarafina! He previously recorded with the band Kalahari.

A pre-concert talk by Masekela: