Artists

Hier findet ihr die Künstler/Bands.

BLAY AMBOLLEY

  • 01. Sankumagye-Love life
    02. Yekor ye a yeaba
    03. Enyidado
    04. Love Supreme
    05. Footprints
    06. Round Midnite
    07. Asamansudo Groove
    08. All Blues
    cover

    BLAY AMBOLLEY

    Gyedu-Blay Ambolley and Hi-Life Jazz

    [engl] Gyedu-Blay Ambolley and Hi-Life Jazz is the new album from revered Ghanaian highlife and Simigwa Do exponent Gyedu-Blay Ambolley, known for his deep, soulful, and funky highlife sound and sometimes referred to as the “James Brown of Ghana.” A 360-degree musical tour de force as evidenced by his impressive and eclectic back catalogue, Gyedu-Blay Ambolley and Hi-Life Jazz makes his 35th album release to date. His third release on the German Agogo label, the release sees him breathing new life into some jazz classics, revisiting works by John Coltrane (Love Supreme), Thelonius Monk (Round Midnite), Wayne Shorter (Footprints) and Miles Davis (All Blues) alongside some brand new compositions, powered by polyrhythms and his signature highlife style. The record coincides with multiple live dates through October visiting Paris, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Lisbon, Copenhagen, Brussels, Gothenburg, Malmo, Saubriges & Mugron. Since his breakthrough in the early 1970s with his own Simigwa style he has shared stages and studios with some of Ghana's greats like Ebo Taylor and Sammy Larteh with whom he played In the Uhuru Dance Band. Together they founded the Apagya Show Band in 1974. He has since continued to push back boundaries, embrace, explore, create and cultivate an impressive catalogue of work. In recent times, he has become a go-to example of Ghana's rich traditional music form, so much so that he has performed tirelessly through Europe and US and most notably at Utrecht's Le Guess Who Festival and the Montreux Jazz Festival. Gyedu-Blay Ambolley and Hi-Life Jazz jumps right out of the blocks with 3 straight-up, groove-laden highlife numbers in Sankumagye, Yekor Ye A Yea and Enyidado, a spontaneous mix of Afro-soul and groove with Ambolley's deep tonal and vocal interventions giving a sense that the influence of Afro-American soul music is never far away. Things continue to heat up as the maestro and bandleader approaches various songs from the songbook of classic modern jazz. The rhythmic pulse within each standard is pushed and pulled, ensuring the original is recognisable yet rooted in Ambolley's ancestral home. In John Coltrane’s Love Supreme he proclaims “John Coltrane said love is supreme & we heard him in Africa very loud and clear.” Taking a very different but direct approach filled with Ghanaian swing Ambolley matches the colours and energy with a rhythmic dexterity and an African spiritual sensitivity that immediately draws you in, allowing a space for the spiritual to rise. The Wayne Shorter classic Footprints receives a similar treatment - it's a toe-tapping workout that leaves you wanting more. Round Midnite, a Thelonious Monk staple, has been covered so many times as a ballad yet here Ambolley gives things an uptempo re-work, a wholly unique inception that makes total sense when you hear it. All Blues by Miles Davis is a well-loved staple of jazz players the world over and is known as a vehicle for endless improvisations and here, in the hands of this master craftsman, is a mesmerising and unapologetic dance floor journey. Polish, panache, melodic and harmonic invention run riot throughout Gyedu-Blay Ambolley and Hi-Life Jazz. It's so much more than an experiment in bringing a Ghanaian pen to jazz standards rather a wonderful collision of Ghanaian roots, highlife and Ambolley's Simigwa stylings with Afro-American jazz, soul and funk.
    Format
    DoLP
    Release-Datum
    07.10.2022
     
  • 01. Afrika Yie
    02. Ma Play
    03. Simigwa-Do
    04. Ketan
    05. Walk 4 Ground
    06. Teacher
    07. It's Alright
    08. I Don't Know Why
    09. I Get Myself To Blame
    cover

    BLAY AMBOLLEY

    Ketan

    [engl] The Legendary Gyedu Blay Ambolley from Ghana, West Africa and his Sekondi Band has 29 music albums to his credit. “Ketan” is his number 30. Ambolley was born in the city of Sekondi-Takoradi (an area called Ketan), in the Western Region of Ghana, in West Africa. The multi-talented, International, Ghanaian Musician celebrated his “Silver Jubilee” in music in 1998. Ambolley taught himself to play the flute as a first instrument in his early years of musical interest dating back to the age of eight, when he began playing with his father’s flute. The young music enthusiast continued to learn the rudiments of music from the late’ Sammy Lartey and Ebo Taylor. During the sixties, the young aspiring musician was impressed with the music he heard on the popular radio show, “Voice of America Jazz Hour.” That sixties show featured such jazz giants as Jimmy Smith, Max Roach, Wes Montgomery, Charlie Parker, Clifford Brown, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Eckstie… all of whom became part of Ambolley’s early musical experience. This versatile, irrepressible singer, songwriter, producer and “musical- life-force” exploded on the music scene in 1973 with a jazzy highlife sound called ‘SIMIGWA-DO’. He has toured throughout West Africa, Europe, Canada, and the United States and has performed on the same stage with some of the world’s most celebrated artistes such as; Miriam Makeba of South Afrika, the late Fela Anikulapo-Kuti of Nigeria, the late George Howard, Angela Bofill, Norman Connors, Manu Dibango, Lakeside, Chikuzan Takahashi of Japan, Ricardo Estrada of Cuba, Mayuto Correa of Brazil and toured Ghana with Oscar Brashear and Michael Session. The celebrated musician has received numerous prestigious awards, for example a lifetime achievement award and Inducted into the music hall of fame by Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in California and an award from the Board of Supervisors and the City Council of the State of California for bridging the gap between Africa and African American music. He also received a lifetime achievement award at the Ghana Music Awards in 2013. Gyedu-Blay Ambolley has crafted the ability to combine a unique sound and melody with funny lyrics and dancing to his music as is well documented that “the genre of his music is entertainingly elevating and spiritually inescapable”, such that its uniqueness transcends all musical categories.
    Format
    DoLP
    Release-Datum
    12.05.2017