Ebo Taylor & Afrobeat Academy

Základní

Sun, 25. 11. 2012 - 19:30

Ghana

Palác Akropolis

Meaestro of afrobeat and highlife

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Born in 1936, guitarist, composer, arranger, bandleader, and producer Ebo Taylor has been a central figure of the Ghanaian music scene for over six decades. In the late 1950es he was active in the influential Highlife bands the Stargazers and the Broadway Dance Band, and in 1962 he took his own group, the Black Star Highlife Band, to London, which led to collaborations with Fela Kuti and other African musicians in Britain at the time.

Returning to Ghana, he worked as a producer, crafting recordings for Pat Thomas, C.K. Mann, and others, as well as exploring his own projects, combining traditional Ghanaian material with Afrobeat, Jazz, and Funk rhythms to create his own recognizable sound in the 70es.

Taylor's work became popular internationally with Hiphop producers in the 21st century, which led to the release of Love and Death on Strut Records in 2010, his first internationally distributed album. Its success prompted Strut to issue the stellar retrospective Life Stories: Highlife & Afrobeat Classics 1973-1980, in the spring of 2011.

In may 2012, a third Strut album, the deeply personal Appia Kwa Bridge, appeared. It proofs that at 76, Taylor is still intensely creative and focused, mixing traditional Fante songs and chants with children's rhymes and personal matters into his own sharp vision of Highlife.

EBO TAYLOR - APPIA KWA BRIDGE / STRUT

“I wanted to go back to a highlife feeling with this album,” explains Ebo Taylor. “The songs are very personal and it is an important part of my music to keep alive many traditional Fante songs, war chants and children’s rhymes.”

Appia Kwa Bridge, released this April, is a strident return from the Ghanaian highlife guitar legend. Featuring six new compositions, his sound is more dense and tightly locked than ever with Berlin-based musicians AFROBEAT ACADEMY, a rock solid unit since regular touring worldwide following his ‘Love And Death’ album in 2010, including a string of dates for WOMAD. Jochen Stroeh works his analogue magic once more from his base at Berlin’s
Lovelite Studios.

The album covers a variety of themes dear to Ebo Taylor. The title track references a small bridge in his hometown of Saltpond on the Cape Coast: “It is a tiny bridge but a place known in the town where people meet, where lovers get together.” The firing, rousing ‘Ayesama’,
first demo-ed during the ‘Love And Death’ sessions, is a Fante war cry, a taunt - “what’s your mother’s name?”; ‘Nsu Na Kwan’, based on a Fante proverb, asks “Which is older - the river or the old road” with the subtext to respect your elders and the brilliant ‘Abonsam’ carries the message that Abonsam (The Devil) is responsible for evil in the world and that we should follow the Christian message.

Elsewhere, the album features a new version of highlife anthem, ‘Yaa Amponsah’, first recorded during the 20ies by Jacob Sam’s Trio before becoming a popular standard in Ghana, and a cover of an original track from Taylor’s time with Apagya Show Band during the ’70s, ‘Serwa Brakatu’, re-titled here as ‘Kruman Dey’.

The closer, the acoustic ‘Barrima’, is a poignant tribute to Taylor’s first wife and one true love who sadly passed away during Summer 2011. “Ebo wrote the song following her passing and recorded this in one take during our last day in the studio,” reflects bandleader Ben Abarbanel-Wolff. “He was very emotional.”

The album features a number of special guests within the credits including incomparable drummer Tony Allen, original Africa 70 guitarist Oghene Kologbo and conga maestro Addo Nettey a.k.a. Pax Nicholas. Representing the younger players, keyboard genius Kwame Yeboah, son of Ghanaian legend S.K. Yeboah, makes full use of Lovelite’s famed collection of Farfisa and Wurlitzer organs.