MASEKELA,HUGH - PRESENTS THE CHISA YEARS 1965-1975 (RARE & UNRELEASED) (Vinyl LP)

Vinyl LP pressing. The Chisa Years: 1965-1975 (Rare and Unreleased) is a 14-track, 2LP compilation album by South African jazz trumpeter Hugh Masekela which consists of rare or forgotten tracks recorded by Stewart Levine and Masekela when they ran their own Chisa Records label. Dan Nishimoto of Prefix Magazine states, "The compilation focuses on Masekela's original idea of "African American Music." From the early experiments of the Zulus (a group featuring M'Bulu) in mixing doo-wop, rhythm & blues and South African gospel and the mbaqanga/"Grazing in the Grass"-style work of the Johannesburg Street Band to the clearly Fela-influenced Ojah (Masekela's band in the mid-'70s, consisting of players from Ghana and Nigeria) and the ready-for-primetime belting of M'Bulu, each track reveals a multi-pronged effort to find and challenge the notion(s) of how African and American cultural forms could interact."