Fresh new sounds

Justin Adams and Mauro Durante's second album Sweet Release (Ponderosa Records) tops the Transglobal World Music Chart for December. This fusion album carries on the collaboration from the success of their debut Still Moving, in 2021.

The recording seems to be the result of taking the first album on the road for three years, during which time the musicians refined and developed what was a world fusion project into a tight, edgy sound, based on Adams' raw guitar riffs and Durante's Italian folk taranta frame drum rhythms. Standouts on the album include the title track, the uptempo Ghost Train and a terrific cover of Lebanese superstar Fairuz's Wa Habibi.

Some notable recent entries into the World Chart include Seun Kuti & Egypt 80's Heavier Yet (Lays The Crownless Head); Sami singer Mari Boine's Alva; Analog Africa's compilation of Mexican dance and disco, Super Disco Pirata De Tepito Para El Mundo 1965-1980; Sekou Keita's Homeland (Chapter 1), which showcases the guitarist people called "Diamond Fingers" in West Africa during the 1970s and Qawwali maestro, Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, which I reviewed recently.

You can find most of these albums on the usual online sources, especially Bandcamp.

The Indian tabla master Zakir Hussain died at the age of 73, as announced on Dec 15. He was one of India's top classical musicians and is credited with introducing the tabla, a set of clay pot hand drums used in Indian classical and popular music, to global audiences. He collaborated with George Harrison, Van Morrison, Earth, Wind and Fire, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and formed the Indian fusion group Shakti with jazz guitarist John McLaughlin. He was widely recognised as one of the foremost Indian classical musicians of his generation.

A multi-Grammy award winner, this year Hussain became the first Indian musician to win three Grammys in the same year. He won the award for Best Global Music Album for his album Shakti, Best Global Music performance for a collaboration with bluegrass banjo player Bela Fleck and flautist Rakesh Chaurasia, as well as Best Contemporary Instrumental album.

Nayan Ghosh said that he had known Hussain for 60 years. "He was a pathbreaker, a game-changer, an icon who put tabla and Indian music on the world map by transcending the boundaries of genre and inspiring generations of artistes."

Papa Noel, the master Congolese guitarist and founder of Orchestre Bantour, or Les Bantous de la Capitale, in Brazzaville (across the Congo River from Kinshasa) has died at the age of 83. He established his reputation as the third school of Congolese guitar wizardry, after Franco and Dr Nico.

A self-taught and precocious young guitarist, Noel was born in Kinshasa in 1940 and recorded his first song at just 17. He was reportedly given the name Noel as he was born on Christmas Day.

He played with the influential and legendary bandleader Joseph Kabasele but left to form several bands, working with top session musicians like Bopol Mansiamina and Wuta Mayi (who would later set up Les Quatres Etoiles) and later played with Franco's band OK Jazz until the latter died in 1989.

His solo work resulted in hits like Bel Ami in 2000. And it was around that time that he founded an acoustic-driven super group, Kekele, which released Rumba Congo in 2001 and drew comparisons to the famed veteran Cuban group Buena Vista Social Club. Look out for any of the band's three albums, all of which well worth checking out.

John Clewley can be contacted at clewley.john@gmail.com.