Kenny Graham's Afro Cubists

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

... prompted by the AfroCubism thread and with the hope of luring Trevor C to join here ...

Dill Jones, a jazz pianist, was a drinking chum of my dad, and in consequence we had this in the family radiogram back in the fifties,, it features Jones in Kenny Graham's Afro Cubists:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOE9WVzE4xI

this song made its way back from London to the Caribbean:

http//www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Nt8-2Y8nWM

Kenny Graham later wrote for Ted Heath and Humphrey Lyttleton before ending his days as a caretaker, details here:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-kenny-graham-1280853.html

Dill Jones emigrated to the USA in 1961, and had a successful career in the traditional and mainstream jazz worlds. He died of cancer in NYC in 1984 aged 60.

[Sonny's Back]

This track appears on the rather good box set 'Too Hot! The best of British mainstream' and there are several other tracks on it by Kenny Graham's AfroCubists. I seem to be accumulating rather a lot of these box sets (there was another British jazz one of this ilk but I can't remember the name of it) and that was before Sony started releasing their too-tempting 5
CD boxes in the Orginal Classic Albums series. But that's another thread shurely? Don't call me shurely!

http://tinyurl.com/34y8wy2

[Lateralthinking1]

Interesting to note that the concept isn't entirely new. There was also CubAfrica - Ochoa and Manu Dibango.

[Ian Thumwood]

Lateral

You should check out Angelique Kidjo's album "Oyaya!" which endeavours to reconcile African music with Cuban music. She later did a follow up album called "Black Ivory Soul" which did the same with Brazilian music. Both albums are very good although I think the "Oyaya!" disc has the edge. Some of the tracks pack a substantial clout with the singer being backed by a sizeable sized horn section. Difficult not to enjoy either of these records.

Oddly enough, the subject of the Kenny Graham Afro Cubans was discussed at length on the old messageboard prompted by a request on JRR. What was intriguing was that the percussion did not, to my ears, to be functioning properly insofar the rules for Latin percussion is generally fraught with many technicalities - almost the same kind of complexity as a Bach fugue but with percussion. No one was really able to confirm or dispute my observations.