«It’s the unlikeliest place to imagine a festival, in the Sahara, not far from the Malian town of Timbuktu. But that’s the home of the Festival in the Desert, which celebrated its third anniversary in 2003. While it attracts international talent, the real focus is on artists who make their homes in the area, often of the nomadic Tuareg people. But there are others who live locally, like the

«Foday Musa Suso is an internationally recognised Kora playing Mandingo griot who was born in 1950 in the Gambian village of Sarre Hamadi, a village in the Wuli District, in the Upper River Region. He is a virtuoso master kora performer and composer from a hereditary lineage of other Jalis. […] In 1977, Suso flew to Chicago in the US where he began his recording career as well as forming a group

«Ancient Future was formed in 1978 by guitarist Matthew Montfort, who was interested in combining ancient musical traditions with modern technology. The band's inviting melodies, exotic instruments, and ethnic textures helped popularize of world-music fusion. In Asian Fusion, Jim Hurley and Matthew Montfort's shared violin-and-guitar-line leads catch hold of a strong melody and bite down hard.

«Massive Boogaloo album, with loads of catchy grooves all the way through! Pete & his band were one of the best of the Latin soul era, & this album's certainly one of their strongest. Includes 'Guagaloo', 'Pete's Boogaloo', & 'Do the Boogaloo'. Hard funky & very upbeat all the way through. If someone asked you what the definition of Latin Soul was, this would be the album to play for them! A

A great cross section of ultra-legendary Gospel performers, somewhat to my surprise ignored by the Internet world. The track listing speaks for itself: 27 timeless songs from some of the best Gospel singers (and bands) of all times: Disc One 1. "Oh Happy Day" -The Edwin Hawkins Singers2. "He's Got The Whole World In His Hands" -Marion Williams3. "How Many Times" -Alex Bradford4. "Nobody

«Solid is the word that springs to mind for this au courant collection from the Long Ryders' mid-'80s heyday. It's a loaded word, often used to camouflage reservations, but here it's a positive testament to consistent craftsmanship and professionalism, of substance over surface flash. Best Of shows how the Long Ryders roped together a diverse array of influences, varied songwriter combinations

«This 1962 set by Cal Tjader, recorded at the beginning of the bossa nova craze in the United States (released in the same year and on the same label as the smash Jazz Samba by Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd), has one of the most boring titles imaginable — which doesn't begin to describe the laid-back yet magical innovations in the grooves. Produced by Creed Taylor, the date was arranged and

«Cassandra Wilson has garnered a deserving reputation for her soulful, visionary reads of songs by legendary composers old and new, from Robert Johnson to Van Morrison. On Glamoured, Wilson composed half the album, and her songs are as provocative and deserve the same weight of grace critically afforded her covers. She uses her trademark fluid, smoky delivery to redefine songs such as the old

«The North Indian drums know as the tabla were said to have been invented in the 13th century by Amir Khusrau, a disciple of the Sufi saint Hazrat Nizemuddin Aluya. At the time, Khusrau sawed a pakhawaj (a single two-headed wooden drum) in two. Though no one may never know exactly why Khusrau felt it necessary it to saw a pakhawaj in half, his act gave birth to the tabla. Since that time, the

«When Foday Musa Suso teamed with drummer Hamid Drake in the ‘80s to form the Mandingo Griot Society, the usage of kora and the American drum kit was a novelty, and successfully but precariously placed the traditions of African village music and jazz oriented polyrhythms in a new place. Suso and the veteran drummer Jack DeJohnette team up in duets that do not juxtapose, but complement the

A great soundtrack to a great movie! Check’em out! «Dave Grusin adopts a superb white funk sound, incredibly crisp and clean. The orchestra on this album are unbelievably tight, and very funky. It's a mix of short funk themes and longer strings-laden tracks. The theme is superb, and much covered, and check out "Flight Of The Condor".» (Blaxploitation) «In the 1970s, when prominent movie

«This is the perfect chill disc to throw in your musical rotation. A mix and match grab bag of musical styles with one common thread; it's in a Latin groove. The artists span the globe which is what one comes to expect from Putumayo. The styles of music run the gamut of Latin exotica but with an edge of electronica that results in world beats with a modern attitude. It is very exciting to hear

«Pat Metheny by himself with an acoustic guitar – for longtime fans it might not get any better. Always interested in blending jazz with folk and pop, the guitarist does just that, focusing heavily on the folk end of things on One Quiet Night. Featuring a nice afterglow interpretation of Norah Jones' hit "Don't Know Why" and an unexpected reinterpretation of "Ferry Cross the Mersey" which turns

«The Klezmatics take one of the wildest approaches to klezmer, the traditional dance music of the Eastern European Jews. Although their music is heavily influenced by the recordings of Abe Ellstein and Dave Tarras in the 1940s and 1950s, their lyrics comment on a wide variety of political and social issues and have led the group to be labeled "the planet's radical Jewish roots band." Much of

Though they were initially discovered while playing at a small club in Puerto Vallarta, the acoustic duo of Willie Royal and Wolfgang "Lobo" Fink had been influenced by the music of the entire world — Royal, though born in Texas, traveled with his Air Force father to Turkey, Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands and France, while Fink, born in Germany, also lived in Spain, Jamaica and Mexico. As such,

«One of multi-instrumentalist and composer Yusef Lateef's most enduring recordings, Eastern Sounds was one of the last recordings made by the band that Lateef shared with pianist Barry Harris after the band moved to New York from Detroit, where the jazz scene was already dying. Lateef had long been interested in Eastern music, long before John Coltrane had ever shown any public interest anyway,

«It's hard to imagine a more disjointed upbringing than Kevin Johansen's: the songwriter grew up in Alaska and Argentina (to an American father and Argentinean mother). As an adult he spent a decade in New York City honing his chops and writing. Since moving to Buenos Aires in 2000, he's become one of Argentina's biggest pop stars thanks to a mildly psychedelic American-style folk song sung in

«Easily one of the best and most distinctive combos of the neo-psychedelic crop, combining a subtly baroque musical sensibility with an ability to pull off ambitiously original arrangements and production ideas. The Steppes capture the essence of vintage psychedelia without sounding pretentious or unduly derivative. The band's albums have steadily grown more accomplished and impressive, Enquire

«Even when you consider the cultural cross-pollination that goes on in large metropolitan areas, L.A.'s Dengue Fever had perhaps the strangest genesis of any band in recent memory. It's left-field enough for a group of white musicians to cover psychedelic rock oldies from Cambodia, but finding a bona fide Cambodian pop star to front the band – and sing in Khmer, no less – is the kind of

«Pink Martini was the brainchild of classically trained pianist Thomas M. Lauderdale and vocalist China Forbes; fusing a vast array of influences spanning Cuban jazz to music hall to film scores, the group honed an exotic sound which led to their 1997 debut LP, Sympathique. The group's sophomore effort, Hang on Little Tomato, emerged seven years later, followed by Hey Eugene! in 2007. Pink