COMPOSERS: Olu Dara
LABELS: Atlantic
PERFORMER: Olu Dara (v, c, g, wooden hn), Kwatei Jones-quartey (g), John Abrams (ts), etc
CATALOGUE NO: 7567-83391-2
Olu Dara is a one of the maverick individualists who turn up in jazz or rock now and then. He’s a cornet player, a singer and multi-instrumentalist who has dropped in and out of various musical genres during his life.
As a cornettist, he has been compared to Louis Armstrong, and has worked with leading jazz avant-gardists including Sam Rivers, David Murray and Henry Threadgill. But on this album there’s very little of his cornet, because he seems to have returned to his early role as a singer and entertainer.
The music is genial and funky, his band is excellent and he is an engaging singer, but without a strong cornet presence this sounds like easy listening music.