London Is The Place For Me 4 - African Dreams and the Piccadilly High Life

this is the fourth volume in a revelatory series celebrating the music of black london, staying for now with the first modern waves of immigration here from africa and the west indies. after devoting a third instalment to the accomplishments of the nigerian genius ambrose campbell, and in time for the carnival, honest jon's resumes an open-house policy, suited to musicians whose lives and artistic ambitions carried them all over the world: calypso and kwela are back, and highlife and bebop, with a little rock n roll, a 'mambo indio', a shango hymn, and a cha cha cha for belly dancing jazzbos. a lake in a johannesburg zoo pops up next to a chinese on the harrow road. astronauts and prostitutes mingle with landlords and test cricketers, sex with street fighting and doing a runner. the music is presented alongside very rare artist photographs by val wilmer, and detailed notes. this title introduces the likes of ginger johnson who by the 1960's was the premiere latin/african percussionist in the country and most notable was his support slot for his african drummers at the rolling stones 1969 free concert in hyde park. many artists featured on london 4 recorded at some point for the london melodisc label, including dorothy masuka (recording one solitary disc for the label in 1960), the nigerian guitarist and bassist victor coker, and enoch and christy mensah's track 'dakuku dum' is also taken from their sole recording session for melodisc. a welcome return from lord kitchener is marked by two songs on the compilation. his track 'rock 'n' roll calypso brilliantly amalgamates musical forms as the band rocks out behind his characteristic commentary.