This joyful nostalgia ride kicks off with 1979 Wolof griot pop from Etoile de Dakar, featuring the young Youssou N'Dour. Was the style even called mbalax when this wildly inventive recording first aired? As the track heats up to a fiery, polyrhythmic crescendo, it's not hard see how this would soon become the defining musical pop genre in Senegal, whatever anyone called it. Next we hear from another Dakar vocal icon, Thione Seck, although now in a more straight ahead rhythmic mode, with his 1984 crossover hit, "Diongoma."

The Latin tinge is expressed variously and exuberantly in these tracks, always with African originality. Senegal's Orchestra Baobab are heard in their prime with the animated "Ndiawolou," a shuffling, 12/8 take on the Manding classic "Alla L'aa ke," with sweet guitar and vocals, and a fast Afro-Cuban clave subtly woven into the beat. Guinean guitarist Ousmane Kouyaté's 1982 hit "Beni Haminanko," deliver sensuous, gentle Manding swing with balafon in the mix, and features the soaring griot voice of Mamady Diabate, who briefly took Salif Keita's place in Les Ambassadeurs after the star vocalist went to Paris. There's also a rare track 1975 track, "Juruken," from the Rail Band of Mali, with Mory Kante on vocals. It's interesting to hear this griot vocal icon singing in the hunter's style more associated with Wassoulou music today, a great example of the pan-ethnic approach of bands particularly in Guinea and Mali at this time.

I had the opportunity to play this compilation for Rail Band veterans Djelimady Tounkara and Bamba Dembele as we drove the highways of America this fall, and their track of choice was "Atoni Yarabi Lema" by the 22 Band of Kankan, a city of griots and marabouts in northern Guinea. The stinging guitar interplay and sizzling rhythm here are superb, to be sure. But my own fetish track would have to be "Bambo," the 1980 hit from Guinea's Balla et ses Balladins. The heavy bass of Cuban mambo combined with the shuffle and filigree of Manding music, and offset by a fabulously cool brass chart pretty much says it all about the "golden age" discourse. It's also nice to hear from Keletigui et ses Tambourinis, often overlooked in the fuss over Guinea's better known national band, Bembeya Jazz, not heard from here.

The aching Youssou N'Dour ballad "Pitche Mi," and "Bass," a full-crank number from Super Diamono in its prime, give a sense of where Senegalese music was headed as it shook off more and more of the Latin influence. If the originality in these choices falls short anywhere, it would be on Aminata Falls' "Yayeboye," a bit of a rocked-out clunker, and a 1992 comeback track from the one-time "Mahalia Jackson of Senegal." Otherwise, nothing to fault here. This set makes as good a case for this fantastically creative era in West African music as any twelve songs could.

Contributed by: Banning Eyre for www.afropop.org