AFRICAN SENAFONE 78 BOBBY BENSON - CALYPSO
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Description
A REALLY EXCELLENT COPY OF THIS ULTRA RARE AFRICAN CALYPSO 78 FROM BOBBY BENSON AND HIS JAM SESSION ORCHESTRA ON THE MEGA RARE SENAFONE LABEL!!
Bobby Benson of Africa
(By Benson Idonije)
THREE heavy weight musicians from Africa have their names bodily written in the jazz history of Europe and America. They have made unique and outstanding contributions to the development and growth of jazz.
One of them is Dollar Brand of South Africa, whose real name is Abdullah Ibrahim, a keyboardist who is not only a virtuoso soloist, but also a composer of great repute, especially of emotional and thought-provoking melodies.
The second is Guy Warren, now Kofi Ghanaba, whose name is synonymous with explosive, heart-throbbing African drumming, the type that paints dramatic pictures of the various cultural dimensions of Africa.
The third and perhaps the heaviest is Nigeria's Bobby Benson, a great band leader whose compositions are being performed in various styles and settings because these songs posses the ingredients that a creative musician cannot ignore.
The late Bobby Benson played swing, jive and jazz with the jam session that he led in the fifties. I remember that the band's signature tune was Soft Winds, a typical swing number that was popular in that era.
Bobby Benson sang a lot of blues that could be classified along with some of the best traditional blues; he played the blues guitar in the idiom and style of B.B. King; he was a multi-instrumentalist who was quite proficient in all the instruments of the reed family, baritone, tenor, soprano and alto saxophones; he was a great band leader from whose pioneering assembly, the likes of Zeal Onyia, Victor Olaiya, Eddy Okonta, Chief Bill Friday, Baby Face Paul, Roy Chicago and all the big names on the Nigerian music scene graduated.
Bobby Benson's popularity in Europe and America is not for singing, instrumentalising or band leading, but for composing, an artistic feat which tends to place him on the same pedestal with Hogy Carmihael, Duke Ellington and the like, whose compositions are enjoying the status of classics and standards.
Bobby Benson's music attracted the attention of Afro American musicians. They flew into Lagos regularly to listen to his music, guest with him, and generally broaden their musical outlook in the area of African rhythms. Prominent among these visitors was pianist Randy Weston, a prolific composer, arranger, whose most popular work is Highfly. He took Taxi Driver and Niger Mambo to America in the early sixties.
Apart from his own version which became very popular, Taxi Driver has passed through various other musicians each giving the song his own melodic feeling, and structuring it in his own individual rhythmic pattern.
One of the early performances of Niger Mambo for instance was that of Stanley Turrentine in 1964, a decade which marked the popularity of Bobby Benson's music in America. Niger Mambo, a Bobby Benson original, is the third track on the first side of the Blue Note recording, LT 1037, the LP In memory of, featuring trumpet player Blue Mitchell; trombonist Curtis Fuller; pianist Herbie Hancock; bassist Bob Cranshaw; drummer Otis Candy Finch.
The piano-bass-drums combination establishes a solid rhythmic structure for this highly melodic Latin beat, providing a fine, solid opportunity for Stanley Turrentive who is featured as major soloist.
And because the song is tuneful, Turrentine's tenor sails smoothly along, improvising from chorus to chorus, and employing phrases that are sweet, pleasant to listen to, and evocative.
I had a chat with Randy Weston on one of his visits in the sixties when he was toying with the idea of revitalising Mafe, another of Bobby Benson's compositions. I interacted with John Gilmore of Sun Ra, Pharaoh Sanders and Bob Fowler. They all expressed the same views about Bobby Benson's highlife which they claim "has a strong identification with African music, establishing the call and-response phenomenon in places, and placing accent heavily on rhythm." The music goes ahead to add a new dimension, that of exhibiting melodic inventiveness. His Latin American performance is given a heavy dose of Afro-Cuban interpretations. On the Latin-oriented composition like Niger Mambo, his treatment is a far cry from 'Santana' and 'Mungo Santamaria', as his rhythms are totally steeped in African culture.
Booby Benson died in 1983, a popular musician, a bandleader, a major influence, and one of Africa's greatest musicians. Ironically, his music has received more acclaim and recognition abroad that at home in Nigeria, and Africa.
The Senafone label produced Ghanaian and Nigerian music for the chain of shops called C.F.A.O. (Compagnie Francaise del Afrique Occidentale). These records were manufactured in England
DISC DETAILS
AFRICAN SENAFONE FAO 1143 (made in England)
A Side: UNCLE JOE CALYPSO
B Side: CALYPSO MINOR ONE
TWO VERY EARLY SIDES BY BOBBY BENSON !!
COMES IN IT'S ORIGINAL COVER
(I believe this copy was originally purchased from a CFAO shop in Liberia)
CONDITION IS RATED AS EXCELLENT!
THIS IS AN ULTRA RARE 78 ON AN ULTRA RARE LABEL IN EXCELLENT CONDITION
DON'T MISS OUT - BID NOW!!
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