Bhasobha (Be Careful)

Last Tuesday I was worried, angry, fed up and just really weary, for all the obvious reasons*.  I got in late, had a good rant to my family, had another good rant on the phone to my parents and then noticed a flat package in the front room; I couldn’t even be bothered to open it.  A couple of hours later, with something medicinal in a heavy-bottomed glass, I deigned to open it and was surprised to find an LP I had pre-ordered many months before.

An hour later, having refilled said glass twice, I found myself doing that slow, eyes-closed head-shakey thing I do when I am really enjoying myself listening to something special.  Hey I was/am still worried, angry, fed up and weary, but less so and I will take that at the moment.

Tony Allen & Hugh Masekela Rejoice (2020) World Circuit Records.

From the fabulous Blue Note-esque LP cover on in, Rejoice is a really excellent album. Living legend Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen got together with (sadly not now living) legend of South African jazz Hugh Masekela in 2010 and recorded some sessions of original material.  Touring schedules meant that nothing got finished and it sat in the vaults until Masekela’s death in 2018.  Rejoice was then completed by producer Nick Gold and Tony Allen with the supremely sympathetic assistance of some additional musicians.

The end product is far more promising than it’s Frankenstein origins would seem to predicate.  It occupies a niche entirely of its own as a cool jazz, Afrobeat, B-boys shuffle, swing thing.  All of which is a decidedly poor attempt at describing a work that flirts with several genres but just skims on regardless, obeying nothing except its own beautiful internal logic.

One thing I really appreciate about Rejoice is that Masekela’s flugelhorn is very much the dominant voice throughout, which given the way this was put together is a nice touch.  I saw Hugh Masekela live when I was 14 at a WOMAD festival and he was just incredible.  All I truly cared about musically was Queen and I had absolutely no idea who he was, except that my dad told me he was great.  Masekela’s performance was incredible, the man was so charismatic, I especially remember a number about a coal train in South Africa, it actually made me think that maybe this jazz and African music stuff might be my thing as well as just something my parents liked.

Rejoice opens with ‘Robbers, Thugs And Muggers (O’Galajani)’, which is infinitely happier and sunnier than any song with that title could feasibly be.  Allen and Masekela’s chanted vocals are great and then, to the coolest of all cool jazz beats, Masekela slices through with his pure silvered tones, the notes seemingly just hanging there, visible in front of you.  The refrain ‘Bhasobha’ – translated as ‘be careful’, being great advice for all of us.

Second track ‘Agbada Bougou’ is every instrumental interlude every B-Boy hip hopper wanted on their albums in ’93, but so-so much more besides.  Again Allen’s drumming, always so wonderfully self-deprecating, underlines everything else and you find yourself listening to the flugelhorn painting a melody; it is only when you actually make yourself actively listen to his drumming you realise how complex it really is – as always, real genius makes things seem simple**.  The thrusting bop of ‘Coconut Jam’ ditto.

Another late great, Fela Kuti, is the subject of ‘Never (Lagos Never Gonna Be the Same)’, which may simply be the coolest thing I’ve heard in years, full on Afrobeat, ‘Never! without Fela’.  It’s a superbly loose-limbed jazz take on an era and a legend.

You don’t need me to dance all over every track for you, but I will especially commend ‘Jubalani (Rejoice, Here Comes Tony) to you.  There’s something special about the slow stuttering beat, some nice vibes playing and Masekela’s notes streak forth clear, true and precise, as ever, a swallow skimming the meadow.  Plus who can resist the lyrics? (in translation, in full here):

Be happy, here is Tony
Playing the drums
He is hitting them hard
He is blasting them

Rejoice is just the record I need right now, a real slice of sunshine and optimism, a gentle work too. It is an LP made ineffably greater by the fact that both the main protagonists wear their virtuosity so lightly and unassumingly, so rare that an album sounds so loose and so well wrought.

I can only hope that 2020 will get better for us all, but I cannot see music getting an awful lot better for me in 2020 than Rejoice.

990 Down.

PS:  Just because:

*and others that I’ll keep my own counsel on.

**several drummers of my acquaintance have almost put themselves into arm wards in hospital trying to copy the man.