African Tuesday: E.T. Mensah, Highlife Pioneer
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Artist:E. T. Mensah & the Tempos
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Album:All For You
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Track:All For You
Dunno about you, but I would love to feel the sun on my head, listen to sun-kissed music and lift a beer bottle to my lips right this minute. The next best thing may well be this charming selection from E.T. Mensah, saxophonist extraordinaire and progenitor of highlife, the African (specifically Ghanaian) music that so expertly wed Caribbean music and African rhythms in an utterly chill way. This cut is from the early 50s, but it's timeless....
Comments (18)
"Dunno about you, but I would love to feel the sun on my head, listen to sun-kissed music and lift a beer bottle to my lips right this minute"
>>>Who here is gonna disagree? But this guy here...is
fuckin' up again
OOps....sonn as I hit "publish"....Mr Red Button decided to cooperate.
>>>>>Oh man! The computer's playin' tricks on me.
deadman, it looks like Red is enjoying your faux confusion, as I am also. You're definitely earning your keep.
ivylander, this Mensah track is superb! Simple, effortless, easy on the ears, lovely, and everything you said it was. New to me.
Sweet cut. E.T. is the man who started it all. Talk about "fusion," he was way ahead of the game, taking some of this and some of that and making it MOVE.
Nice tune. Here is the same melody, but peformed on the other side of the Atlantic by Count Lasher's Calypso Quintet, released as a 78 on the Chin's label round about 1956-57. the "Slide Mongoose"/"Sly Mongoose" tune borrowed here was a staple of Charlie Parker's early sets as well.
As for the first two lines of your post-well you wish you were me because thats what i am doing-laptop on knees watching the ocean and yes it is timeless beautiful
ah, yes. E.T. Mensah as my first MOG play of the day is very much worth it. that first line was my morning, out in my balcony, sans beer. too early.
@deadmandeadman - hilarious
@ivylander - this reminds me of Calypso music. The poet Maya Angelou did an entire album back in the 1950s on Calypso music. I feel this vibe throughout t his song with the vibe of the hand shakers, saxaphone and island feel. I wish i were at the beach too. It's COLD in New York : / Ugh. Need the beach!!
DM, so it's finally workin' for ya? Great. So, now, is it workin' for ya?
Spike, yes, he is a mellow cat in the best possible way....
Mully, you said it way better than I did.
Baudolino, excellent stuff.
Mitchy, y'know, I had always considered us friends....
poe, I would love to wake up to this music. In fact, I think I will now....
Jennifer, in fact E.T. was very much aware of calpyso, and on this CD there are a number of songs that are called calpysos, many of them topical as calypsos generally are. (I would have played the one called "Inflation Calypso," but our real problem right now is deflation, so it wasn't so topical.) Yeah, looking outside the window right now at the sheet of ice gleaming on the black pavement and wondering why on earth our kids' school district isn't opening late. It's no damn fair....
There's a Fela track where, over the intro, he lists the great African musicians of the past. It was the first time I heard the name E.T. Mensah, but as can happen, I was smitten by the sound of that name. Later on in Japan I found an album of his hits. I was not disappointed. This sounds even earlier than that album. Such an effortless groove; it must have been amazing to be a thinking Western person in this era and encountered such lazy, wonderful music on one's travels. It is snowing and freezing today - your thoughts on warmth and sun are well founded.
Sweet! I got this album http://mog.com/fistula_spume/blog/186113 last June and it's still getting heavy play on my iPod. They guy is a smoothie. I need more E.T.! The guy not the alien.
Jonh, I think this was among the first things he recorded, back in the early Fifties. The liner notes compare his effect on African music at the time to the Beatles' effect on their pop scene later on. He later went into semi-retirement, but was lured out later when his star once again ascended (quite possibly with Fela's push - it wouldn't be the first time). Ivyland weather: zero Celsius and intermittent heavy rain. I was blasting the heater and Cuban music from the Sixties, and the damp was still getting into the car....
Fisty, "smoothie" is the perfect word! Your direct, succinct way with language - not to mention your ear - is enviable.
It's got the clave thing happening..big time trading between the Caribbean and Ghanian music styles. I'm not in mensa but I've got some Mensah, did you give it to me?
I'm going to wager you got an album from me somewhere. :)
Wasn't from me, so it must've been from Fisty....
Well thanks then, Super Sub Saharan Sam.
As a great purveyor of aural deligts, you should not be permitted to stay away too long, Monsieur Henri Beyle. I thank you for your sonic return and great tune.
Thank you, Mr. Bartleby. As the song says, it was all for you....and you...and you......