V.A.: Blue Flamingo: Congo Jazz
Excelsior Rec. V.A. : Blue Flamingo: Congo Jazz (CO,20s-50s,re.2010)**°°
OK, I will give a short review to this one too. This is a compilation of 3 genres of 78” records, which are carefully restored in sound quality.
The first selection is called “Jungle Crawl” and has the finest collection of humoristic black band American-based 20s/30s styled honky-tonk jazz. The story in the booklet is interesting too, explaining how a band like The Zulus came to existence as a reaction to some circumstances, bridging a gap between black New Orleans Jazz and a fantasy of what was supposed to be African, but which was performed a bit as a joke.
The second part, called "Congo Jazz", features some records of the Ngoma label from Congo and shows jazz with rumba/chachacha mindedness, in a light and happy way, while most rumba-related tracks are a bit too light and predictable to be distinctively different from this today commonly heard dance music style.
The third part, with old gospel and gospel blues, has an interesting story how the gospel was singing to heaven and the blues was from the devil, while some people still tried to bridge the gap between the two worlds. Most of the tracks are light too, and are not too creative or too exceptional either.
Like I have read in another review elsewhere, I agree with it that the first collection is the most unique one, with a very good choice of songs and arrangements.
The record collector for this compilation is Ziya Ertekin alias Blue Flamingo.
