VA - London Is The Place For Me 5 & 6: Afro-Cubism, Calypso, Highlife, Mento, Jazz

Honest Jon's' longest-standing compilation series delves deeper still into the sounds of London's Afro-Caribbean diaspora during the '50s and '60s.

"At last, a fresh delivery of open-hearted, bitter-sweet, mash-up postcards to the here and now, from young black London. As then, calypso carries the swing. There are four more Lord Kitchener songs—in consideration of his wife leaving him for a GI, cricket umpires, a fling onboard an ocean-liner and West Indian poultry—besides a hot mambo cash-in, cross-bred under his supervision, and an uproarious, teasing Ghanaian tribute to him in Fanti by London visitors The Quavers. Other calypsos range compellingly from the devaluation of the pound through jiujitsu, big rubbery instruments, football fans, heavyweight champ Joe Louis and the sexual allure of English women police.

Expert jazz idioms course sophisticatedly through all the selections, which include a straight-up, South London version of Duke Jordan's 'Jordhu,' something from Dizzy Reece's soundtrack—brokered by Kenneth Tynan—to the British crime film Nowhere To Go, and a trio of magnificently hybrid, hard-swinging instrumentals led in turn by master-guitarist Fitzroy Coleman, Kitch's innovative arranger Rupert Nurse, and trumpeter Shake Keane—named after Shakespeare because of his love of poetry." - Honest Jon's