Wadada Leo Smith
Thomas Mapfumo
N'Da Kulture
The Blacks Unlimited
Dreams and Secrets
Anonym Records, 2000
First, it must be said that this is not a Thomas Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited record, although Mapfumo's entire chimurenga touring band did participate in some portions of the session, along with free jazz trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and his group N'Da Kulture. The idea of combining Miles-like rocking jazz with Mapfumo's eclectic roots chimurenga sound is just mad enough to work, and at times it does. There are three long suites of pieces that involve musicians from both groups. The music shifts between slow backbeat funk with unruly, expressive guitar work from Woody Lee Aplanalp and Henry Kaiser and soaring, bleating trumpet from Wadada, and then 12/8 mbira grooves with the Blacks Unlimited, featuring Mapfumo's venerable, earthy vocals and the bright refrains of his female backing singers. The moment when this shift first occurs is powerful. Aplanalp begins the chimurenga section, as if inviting in the Zimbabweans, who gradually percolate in and overtake the sound. When everyone plays together near the end of "Regai Tione/Jealousy," it's magic, Wadada's free horn playing around the Blacks Unlimited's neatly arranged horn lines, and mbiras and guitars mixing it up vigorously.
Elsewhere, the two genres remain more separate, Wadada's sound by far dominating. But there are intriguing convergences. On "Masimba/Strength to Overcome," finds Mapfumo and his backing singers fitting into one of Wadada's grooves. On "The Zambezi River," Blacks Unlimited guitarist Joshua Dube engages in a brief but interesting free musical conversation with Aplanalp. And on the satisfying dynamic final piece, "Epic Memory," the Blacks Unlimited mbiras provide the underpinning for a rising and falling rock jazz excursion.
There is one Blacks Unlimited song, "Big in America," and although it features zany guitar from Aplanalp and Kaiser, this song seems aimed at the Zimbabwean audience, who hearing it on Mapfumo's current domestic release, Manhungetunge). The lyrics--"People are big in America, business is big in America, music is big in America…Everyone wants to be in America"--have led to all kinds of jokes in Harare where Mapfumo's decision to move his family to Oregon has not gone down well with fans. Still, on a recent visit, I heard so many casual references to this song that there was no doubting Mapfumo's impact despite his absense.
As for Dreams and Secrets, how much you like it will depend on how much you like the two disparate styles of music it merges. But even if you like both--as I do--you're apt to feel that it's a bold idea well begun, but not fully realized.
Contributed by: Banning Eyre for www.afropop.org
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