For people who know their Senegalese music, Orchestra Baobab's Pirates Choice is the Holy Grail. By the time this music was recorded to four-track in 1982, the immensely popular band had been playing nightly for years at a Dakar club called Baobab. But legendary status in Senegal didn't help the musicians get wider attention--the album wasn't released in Europe until 1987, and it only now comes to the U.S. for the first time. Latin music was popular in Dakar, a port city, and the band mixed various strains of Latin music with different African music styles to create uniformly stunning results not all that different from Afro-Cuban music. The French vocals are lovely, and the powerful mix of African and Latin percussion is undeniable--but keep a particular ear out for guitarist Barthelemy Attisso, whose tasteful leads float over the top. The original six-track album is hard to pass up, but this reissue contains a second disk with six unreleased songs from the same session, making this a must-have. --Tad Hendrickson
Track | Duration |
---|---|
Utrus Horas | |
Coumba | 7:42 |
Ledi Ndieme M'bodj | 8:54 |
Werente Serigne | 6:44 |
Ray M'Bele | |
Soldadi | 8:03 |
Ngalam | 9:31 |
Toumaranke | 6:58 |
Foire Internationale | 7:41 |
La Rebellion | 7:54 |
Ndiaga Niaw | 7:42 |
Balla Daffe | 7:18 |
Utru Horas | 8:39 |