Ella & Louis, the magic, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, two angels who, apart from Porgy and Bess (Gershwin's opera), only recorded two more albums. The sweetest music ever recorded, it is not possible to listen to Ella & Louis without smiling. It's like an unavoidable partnership that makes you wonder what titanic forces of nature kept Ella and Satchmo apart until they made this record together in 1957, backed by the trio of Oscar Peterson and Buddy Rich on drums.

She and Louis have been the most amazing jazz couple ever. Each one in their plot gave lectures and defined styles, becoming absolute references. Duke Ellington, Cole Porter, Bing Crosby or Frank Sinatra, for example, refined their styles from Ella and Louis.

Ella Fitzgerald, a New Yorker who disappeared in 1996, is considered among the most important jazz singers in history. In addition, she shone in all the styles that she had to interpret (be-bop, blues, soul, swing...). And her résumé includes performances with Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Oscar Peterson, Dizzy Gillespie, Joe Pass, and (of course) Louis Armstrong.

For her part, Louis Armstrong, from New Orleans, who died in 1971, "Satchmo", was the most popular jazz musician, trumpeter and singer in US history. Protagonist of an incredible personal story, in his childhood he was abandoned, he grew up in a reform school, he played a “cornet” for pennies… And he demonstrated his political and civil rights commitment with actions, financially supporting Martin Luther King, confronting Eisenhower, and fighting for the rights of African American citizenship in the South. Louis Armstrong is one of the most charismatic and innovative figures in the history of jazz. Thanks to his musical skills and his brilliant personality, he transformed jazz from its initial status as dance music with folk roots into a popular art form. Although at the beginning of his career he cemented his fame above all as a trumpeter, later on it would be his condition as a vocalist that would consecrate him as an internationally recognized figure with enormous influence on jazz singing.

So Ella and Louis getting together is magical. One of the best with one of the best. The songs they perform together are standards, extraordinary standards, of course, like "Moonlight in Vermont," "A Foggy Day," and "Stars Fell on Alabama." But nirvana is "Cheek to Cheek", "The nearness of you" and "April in Paris". You touch the sky with your fingers.

Tracks list:

01. Can´t we be friends

02. Isn´t this a lovely day

03. Moonlight In Vermont

04. They can´t take that away from me

05. Under a blanket of blue

06. Tenderly

07. A foggy day

08. Stars fell on Alabama

09. Cheek to Cheek

10. The nearness of you

11. April in Paris

"I finally ran into Bombino last fall, walking into the sprawling barn studio in upstate New York where we'd like to record Bombino's third studio album, Azel. There she was, relaxing on the couch, chatting in Tamasheq with his bandmates behind a barely perceptible smile.wearing a blue bubu, the traditional Tuareg formal dress, and nodding along as he played from the studio's stately Genelecs.Although he speaks Tamasheq, Arabic, and French, he rarely Instead he speaks at all. Instead, he plays the guitar."

In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Bombino comments on what it's like working with Longstreth compared to his experience working with the Black Keys' Dan Auerbach (who produced Nomad):

I would say it was more relaxed than working with Dan. Dan had a clear idea of ​​what he wanted right away and would lead us this way and that way until he had registered what he already had in his head. With Dave who was very happy to be patient, and listen to what we were playing, not push one way or the other, and then slowly, over days, he would start to shape things the way he wanted. I was very happy with the way Dave worked, because working with Tuareg music and musicians can be very complicated. We are not like American musicians in many ways. Our skills and knowledge are very different from western musicians. And of course our language and culture is also very different. So this can be quite a challenge, but Dave handled it very gracefully. He would hang out with us, have dinner with us and joke around. We've had a lot of fun together. Actually, it was a beautiful time.

The word "Azel" has three meanings in the native Bombino Tamasheq language-first, it is the name of a small desert town a few kilometers from where he grew up, in Agadez, Niger. His wife's family is from Azel, and it is the site of the first and only Tuareg school in the country. Bombino has long held aspirations to develop a Tuareg arts school and community center in Agadez, and the city of Asel holds a special place in his heart. Second, the word azel means the roots or stems of a tree. This album is a reflection of Bombino's unique place in Tuareg music in that he simultaneously honors the traditional roots of the music while still taking on entirely new territory, thus roots and stems. Lastly, the word azel is also Tamasheq slang, loosely equivalent to 'it's my chance!' In American English. The importance of that meaning should be immediately obvious to anyone who listens to this album.

01 Akhar Zaman (This Moment)

02 Iwaranagh (We Must)

03 Inar (If You Know The Degree Of My Love For You)

04 Tamiditine Tarhanam (My Love, I Tell You)

05 Timtar (Memories)

06 Iyat Ninhay / Jaguar (A Great Desert I Saw)

07 Igmayagh Dum (My Lover)

08 Ashuhada (Martyrs Of The First Rebellion)

09 Timidiwa (Friendship)

10 Naqqim Dagh Timshar (We Are Left In This Abandoned Place) 

Rokku Mi Rokka (give and take) was the next studio album by Senegalese singer and songwriter Youssou N'Dour, after winning the Grammy, in 2005, for the album Egypt. The album, sung in Wolof (the majority language of Senegal), contains eleven new songs and five bonus tracks, with a vibrant African rhythmic pulse. The inspiration for the album comes from the sounds of the areas of Senegal that border Mali and Mauritania. In it you can also hear, in the words of the singer himself, "some reggae, blues and a bit of Cuba. In Africa we get excited when we hear these sounds because they are part of our cultural heritage."

Youssou has recorded the album with his touring band Le Super Etoile de Dakar, featuring Neneh Cherry, Malian musician Bassekou Kouyate and members of the Orchestra Baobab.

Tracks list:

01. 4-4-44

02. Pullo Àrdo (Le berger)

03. Sama Gàmmu (Mon rival)

04. Bàjjan

05. Baay Faal

06. Sportif

07. Tukki (Voyage)

08. Létt Ma (Irrésolution)

09. Dabbaax

10. Xel (Intelligence)

11. Wake Up (It's Africa Calling) (con Neneh Cherry)

Bonus tracks:

01. Boul Bayékou

02. Beugue Dou Bagne

03. Borom Gaal

04. Téléphone

05. Yonou Deugue

Scientist Meets The Roots Radics - Scientist Meets The Roots Radics - 1981 - Jamaica

Brown (Scientist) was introduced to electronics by his father, who worked as a television and radio repair technician. He began building his own amplifiers and would buy transformers from Tubby's Dromilly Road studio, and while there would keep asking Tubby to give him a chance at mixing. He was taken on at Tubby's as an assistant, performing tasks such as winding transformer coils, and began working as a mixer in the mid-1970s, initially creating dubs of reworked Studio One riddims for Don Mais' Roots Tradition label, given his chance when Prince Jammy cut short a mixing session for Mais because he was too tired to continue. The first hit record that he mixed wasBarrington Levy's "Collie Weed".

He left King Tubby's studio at the end of the 1970s and became the principal engineer for Channel One Studio when hired by the Hoo Kim brothers, giving him the chance to work on a 16-track mixing desk rather than the four tracks at Tubby's.

He came to prominence in the early 1980s and produced many albums, his mixes featuring on many releases in the first part of the decade. In particular, he was the favourite engineer of Henry "Junjo" Lawes, for whom he mixed several albums featuring the Roots Radics, many based on tracks by Barrington Levy. He also did a lot of work for Linval Thompson and Jah Thomas. In 1982 he left Channel One to work at Tuff Gong studio as second engineer to Errol Brown. He then emigrated to the Washington, D.C. area in 1985, again to work in studios as a sound engineer.

Jah Army

Flabba Is Wild

Some Dub

Whip Them

Fighting Radics

Kill The Devils Wife

Jah Is Love

Wa Di Is Free

Best Dub On Yah

Forward Dis Ya Dub

Weep And Wail *

Gunman *

Radification *

Inforce Ah *

Road Block *

Producer : Errol Flabba Holt

Mixing Engineer : Scientist

Engineer : Bunny Tom Tom

Backing Band : The Roots Radics

Drums : Style Scott

Bass : Errol Flabba Holt

Lead Guitar : Noel Bailey & Dwight Pickney

Rhythm Guitar : Bingy Bunny

Keyboards : Steely

Piano : Gladstone Anderson

Trombone : Nambo Robinson

Saxophone : Dean Fraser

Percussions : Sky Juice

Studios :

Recording : Channel One (Kingston, JA)

Mixing : King Tubby's (Kingston, JA)

 (Fuente: Wikipedia)

The Cuban group Orishas mixes hip hop rhythms with traditional sounds from the Caribbean island. The three members of Orishas met in Paris and live throughout Europe (Roldán in Paris, Ruzzo in Milan and Yotuel in Madrid). Roldán González Rivero has been singing since he was 8 or 9 years old, he studied classical guitar and choral singing at the conservatory and has worked with several Cuban traditional music groups. In 1997 Roldán had the singing voice in the group Rico Son and Ruzzo (Hiram Riverí Medina) and Youtel "Guerrero" (Yotuel Omar Romero Manzanares) rapped together with Joel "El Pionero" Pando in "Amenaza", one of the pioneering bands of the Cuban hip hop scene.

After winning the Grand Prix with "Amenaza" at the 3rd Edition of the semi-clandestine Cuban Rap Festival, Ruzzo and Youtel wanted to do something else, but the group could not decide, so Ruzzo and Yotuel were joined by Liván, with extensive experience in the Franco-Cuban musical world. To complete the formation, guitarist Roldán joined them.

For a long year they were working in Paris, with the collaboration of rap producer Niko Noki. The result was an album entitled A lo Cubano, published in 1999, with excellent reviews in the press throughout Europe since it went on sale. This album became a gold record in France and Switzerland and was the first hip hop album to be certified platinum in Spain, exceeding 100,000 copies sold.

After some personal problems, Liván leaves the group in the middle of a tour of France. Shortly after, Orishas went on a triumphant tour of Cuba, where his success was tremendous.

Tracks list:

01. Intro

02. Represent (feat Niko Noki)

03. Atrevido

04. A Lo Cubano

05. Barrio

06. S.O.L.A.R.

07. 1.9.9.9.

08. Atención

09. Mística

10. Canto Para Elewa y Changó

11. Madre

12. Orishas Llegó (feat Niko Noki)

13. 537 C.U.B.A.

14. Connexión

15. Triunfo