Orchestra Baobab - Roots And Fruit

Orchestra Baobab - Roots and Fruit - released 1999 (popular african music) - 12 tracks.

This collection features 12 recordings from the early 1970s through 1986, focusing on the vocals of Gomis and Sidibé and the guitar work of Togolese virtuoso Barthelemy Atisso. The strength of the collection is the wonderful orchestrations in the early Baobab songs (tracks 1-7), with many of the musicians that Baobab fans love to hear (like Medoune Diallo, N'Diouga Dieng, Mountaga Kouyaté, Charly N'Diaye and Issa Cissokho). The swing is relaxed, the feeling one of early evening in a bar, a single couple sweetly tracing the floor. The melodies are lovely; the compositions stir moments of joy, melancholy, reverance and romance. The arrangements highlight Atisso's exquisite touch and timing and the slurry soulfulness of Cissokho's sax. Above all, the voices of Gomis and Sidibé (primarily the former) are subtle, passionate and blend beautifully. I like especially the praise song "Sutukum," in which Gomis calls out the musicians' names; the latin "Cabral," hommage to the revolutionary leader of Guinea Bissau; and the slow, funky "Sona."
Tracks 8-12 come from "Tooñ Baaxul", a mid-1980s session recorded by Gomis, Sidibé and Atisso with an adequate pick-up band that includes sabar drums. They do a so-so remake of the Baobab classic "Tante Marie," available in the (presumably) original version on the album _On Verra Ça!_. For home listening, this is the inferior part of the album: the arrangements are thinner, the recordings sound as if they were pasted together in post-production, and the melodies suffer a bit from a drum machine and a general automated sound. Gomis and Atisso still sound great, and some of the songs could light up a dance floor.
All in all, Baobab fans may like this album less at first than _Pirate's Choice_ or _On Verra Ça!_. The songs are rougher around the edges, but equal in atmosphere and beauty. Those who have thus far enjoyed only _Bamba_ or the reunion _Specialist in All Styles_ may be disappointed altogether, for the production is nowhere nearly as slick as on "Autorail," for instance, though at times Atisso's axe foreshadows such efforts as "Sibou Odia." Like _Baobab N'Wolof_, it took me several listenings to begin to like it. Now, I love it, and I regard it as a crucial part of my collection.