CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE
Because taste leads to knowledge, I enjoy fair familiarity with the West African music that’s second cousin to rock ’n’ roll and none with its distant relatives in North Africa and the Middle East. But where knowledge ends, taste rules. Ahmed is a singer of indubitable authority, and maybe an album of the “many standards” he’s contributed to “modern Ethiopian music” would expand my horizons.
CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE
ROBERT CHRISTGAU
MAHMOUD AHMED "Era Mala Mala”
(Crammed Disc import)
Because taste leads to knowledge, I enjoy fair familiarity with the West African music that’s second cousin to rock ’n’ roll and none with its distant relatives in North Africa and the Middle East. But where knowledge ends, taste rules. Ahmed is a singer of indubitable authority, and maybe an album of the “many standards” he’s contributed to “modern Ethiopian music” would expand my horizons. Or maybe this is that album—I don’t know. I do know that soon I lose the charge I get from the lead cuts, generated less by the “strange, almost Indonesian-sounding scales” of the vocals than by the two-sax horn section, which (maybe because it utilizes those scales) could be Afro-Brilliant Corners or illtempered synthesizer or avant-garde blues. For tastes that run to the Master Musicians of Joujouka and Om Kalsoum. B +
ANITA BAKER “Rapture”
(Elektra)