A beautifully crafted album.
Lovely stuff from Moncur on the French BYG label. The Actuel series has many interesting titles to explore. This one delivers a mix of post-bop and avant-garde flavors. It has a great line-up with Moncur joined by Roscoe Mitchell on alto and piccolo sax, Archie Shepp on tenor sax (one tune only), Dave Burrell on piano, Alan Silva on double bass and Andrew Cyrille on drums. As a drummer myself I always focus plenty on the drums and I truly dig Cyrille. Wonderful player.
Highlight of the album has to be the title tune ”New Africa”, which stretches over 17 minutes. ”Exploration” is quite free and here Cyrille really shines with his delightful drum patterns. The snare, cymbal and hi-hat work is very tasteful, and together with the bass lays a delicate foundation for the soloists to explore over. It’s never abrasive sounding. The overall sound is very pleasant. Also dig ”When” a lot, which is the number on which Shepp plays. It’s flows along nicely with a regular beat and feels light and airy. A great contrast to the rest of the tunes.
This has become one of my favorite albums since beginning to explore the end of the 60’s and onwards. Highly recommended.
