Album Info
| 1. Ajaja | Year of Recording: 1986 | |||
| 2. Kori | Record Label Smithsonian Folkways Recordings | |||
| 3. Sango | Producer: Mickey Hart, Babatunde Olatunji | |||
| 4. Oba Igbo | Engineer: Tom Flye, Phil Kaffel | |||
| 5. Orere | Series Ethnomusicology Consultant: Fredric Lieberman, Ph.D. | |||
| 6. Ogun la Ka Aiye | Photography: John Werner | |||
Description
Nigerian-born drummer Babatunde Olatunji (1937-2003) collaborated with Mickey Hart to create this album, issued in 1988 as part of “THE WORLD” series (now part of the Mickey Hart Collection made available by Smithsonian Folkways). Hart and Olatunji sought to retain the “live” sound heard in this digital recording by capturing both the individual instruments as well as the collective sound. Featuring 11 percussionists and seven vocalists, with contributions from Hart, Airto Moreira, and bassist Bobby Vega, the tracks feature unique spiritual invocations to Yoruba deities played on traditional instruments, such as the ngoma, ashiko, and djembe.
A review in Musician said of the album, “Its immense sound scalds you until you feel the humidity coming out of the ground….It resonates like a polyrhythmic high mass.”
Quotes
Where I come from we say that rhythm is the soul of life, because the whole universe revolves around rhythm, and when we get out of rhythm, that’s when we get into trouble.
— Babatunde Olatunji
©2011 360° Productions, Inc.
