Jamm

Description

He was discovered sixteen years ago, thanks to a debut album (Ne La Thiass) produced by Youssou N'Dour. After five years of silence in terms of recordings (but not inactivity, if we believe the cassettes that flooded local markets), the man from Burkina Faso, who has long been a resident of Senegal, returns to us with an album of happiness, synthesis, and diversity. In Jamm, Cheikh Lô indeed plays with his friends, including the pioneering drummer and companion of Fela Anikulapo Kuti, Tony Allen, as well as the former key player of James Brown, Alfred Pee Wee Ellis, whose saxophone illuminates with its smoothness and sensuality a "Bourama" that reminds us that afro-beat offers the most languorous of trances. Lô also plays with repertoires, offering his own compositions, stretching across funk, reggae (even if his dreadlocks do not make him a rasta), mbalax, or acoustic ballads ("Sankara," a delicate tribute to Thomas Sankara, the charismatic president of Burkina Faso, assassinated in 1987), as well as thoughtfully inhabited covers. Jamm was prepared in the intimacy of singing, guitars, and Lô's lead or choral vocals, before the aforementioned musicians completed the light swing dressing of these songs during London sessions. All gathered around all the music of all the worlds. An album that brilliantly confirms Cheikh Nidgel Lô's essential status as a cultural bridge of Senegalese musical traditions, benefiting Western audiences, who will inevitably be charmed by the grace of his art.