Ou-eee-ou-ah-ah, bing-bang,
walla-walla, bing-bang. African Witch Doctor Chants.
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STAG PARTY RECORD #6 “Spice After Hours” Featuring Wild Party Songs. FAX Records
Party Time Nos. 1 & 2. German Telefunken. Fifteen minutes and a few bottles of wine later, Fritz brought out the rhythm instruments to try and get something going. I gotta get Party Time No. 3! (Or I may just have to make it myself)
“Goddamn Great Drum Music” Another “High In-Fidelity” album cover-as-greeting card from the early 60’s. Look her for the complete set over time.
Chaino and his African Percussion Safari “Jungle Echoes” on Omega. (See Chaino Africana post for more)
“CHAINO AFRICANA” on Dot Records. “Spellbinding primitive rhythms by Chaino, percussion genious of Africa”. The music here and from other Chaino records is on a CD reissue called “Chaino Africana and Beyond”.
Chaino is one of the elusive figures of space age pop. After growing up in Chicago, Leon Johnson left home and lived a fairly wild life, eventually taking up the bongos and making a name for himself as “Chaino” (taken perhaps from the great Cuban conga player, Chano Pozo?) on the “chitlins” circuit of black nightclubs. In the late 1950s, he went to Hollywood and met producer Kirby Allan, who had recently been inspired by African tribal music during a trip to Kenya. Allan and Johnson went into the famed Gold Star studio in early 1958 to try to create an American-ized version. They eventually succeeded in getting jazz impresario Norman Granz to release some of these cuts on the luridly-titled, Jungle Mating Rhythms. At the same time, they were able to sell tracks to three different small West Coast jazz labels, Score, Tampa, and Omega, and all four albums were released virtually simultaneously. A few months later, Allan signed with the Silent Majority label, Dot (home to Lawrence Welk for a fifth album, Africana. A sixth album, Temptation, was recorded for Omega but was barely out the door before the label went bankrupt. — Space Age Pop
Guy Warren of Ghana on British EMI Columbia Records. African-inspired jazz from the cream of 1960s Brit jazz musicians . Guy Warren is joined by Don Rendell , Ian Carr, Trevor Tomkins, Dave Green, Amancio d’Silva and Michael Garrick to produce a memorable and rare meeting of two worlds. Beautiful moments from Rendell on tenor and soprano.