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It's funny how good world music labels start out with the mission of showing how big the world is and sometimes end up doing quite the opposite. The languages, instruments and even scales are different here than on mainstream recordings, yet one anticipates the next passage quite naturally. Music, regardless of construction or place of origin, is best when rational and rational when best. Whether viewed by doctors of physics or psychology, music is always complicated, yet the best music is also, to open minds, always a common language that overrules and overrides cultural, linguistic and logistical boundaries.
When one chooses primitive music, one generally seeks and expects hypnotic elements, generally in the rhythms. Those elements are certainly present on the dozen cuts that comprise “African Roots.” In fact, it gives one the sort of alpha state high generally associated with canned ambient music. These insistent shakers, drums, reverb-dripping lead voices, high vocal harmonies and sporadic yet understated inclusions of electric instruments, run through headphones, would make a grueling, ten-hour workday seem like six hours and keep one imaginative and invigorated through every minute.
These high-tech comparisons beg the question, “What's really primitive about it?” Well, the voices are obviously untrained in Western music's restrictions, and the instruments all have a rich, natural undertone, and if the sounds, which, regardless of how they're created, are all the pushing of air, are each being pushed against wood at some point. “What's really primitive about it?” It will increase your cravings for pleasures you crave.
Not innovative, but happy throughout. Seasoned jazz musicians might find “better” trio versions of “One O'Clock Jump,” “Satin Doll,” “There Will Never Be Another You” and the rest of the familiar frames for small combo swing / bop here, but typical jazz listeners are likely to file these as favorites. There are just enough insertions of melody lines from older standards as solo phrases in the cuts to make fans nod knowingly at the familiar. Garland's inclusion of “wrong” notes in right-hand chords leans sharp, keeping things upbeat and countering the damp thud of Jimmy Rowser's bass, the only general flaw with the recording's sound.
There are few settings which this music cannot enhance, from yard work to garden parties, reading to rush hour. It will convert the unconverted and provide proselytes with ideal material with which to introduce jazz to friends.
It sounds like a collection of ideas Mr. Gogo needs to clear from his head before he can move forward with his art, and it's a collection of good ideas. Leaning heavily on the Al Kooper-esque organ work of Brendan Hedley, the record is blues-based, but extremely diverse, both from song to song and within each cut. Narrative song constructions all imply one form of subtle warning or other. In the originally kicky, Motown tune, “Signed, Sealed, Delivered,” Gogo seems to tell a story with the moral that the rose of Love always has thorns. Instrumental numbers, on the other hand, are unabashed exhibitions of musical dexterity that sound as if they must be accompanied by sparks showering from the guitar neck.
Production, arrangement and communication between players lead to some unique, sometimes grand blends of tricks, riffs and even synthesized instruments not usually found in blues recordings. Thanks to this feature, it's definitely a record one will push “Play” on again and again.