In 2006 invaluable reissue label RetroAfric dropped Endurance, a collection of killer 70s grooves from Les Mangalepa, a band of Congolese expats making music in Kenya. Their irresistible blend of Congolese rumba and Kenyan benga combined bubbly, crystalline guitars with stuttering yet fluid rhythms that inflected their almost martial intensity with clave patterns adapted from Cuban music. A fleet horn section occasionally delivered extended solos, particularly on trombone—courtesy of Evany Kabila Kabanze, who was also one of the group’s soulful singers. Looking back at the liner notes of that 2006 album, I was reminded that its title referred to the band’s unbroken run—though they’d had a lot of personnel changes and it was sometimes unclear whether they’d manage to keep going, they’d stuck together continuously since 1976. That was when a group of musicians who’d moved to Nairobi a few years earlier as members of Baba Gaston’s L’Orchestre Baba Nationale decided to strike out on their own.
Dre Hocevar, Surface of Inscription (Clean Feed) Judith Wegmann, Le Souffle du Temps (Hat Art) Randy Newman, Dark Matter (Nonesuch) ACME, Thrive on Routine (Sono Luminus) Dave Douglas, Little Giant Still Life (Greenleaf)
