Six Sax Sets

So far, the features here have been on guitarists and vocalists.

It's about time we gave a listen to a few saxophonists. The sax has been the backbone of the horn section in Congolese music for much of the music's history. There have been a number of extraordinary saxophonists, but I've featured six here this time with tracks from some of their solo albums.

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Let's start with Moro Maurice Beya, a.k.a. Moro Beya Maduma.I'm starting with him for a couple of pretty arbitrary reasons. The first is that the title cut of this LP is a real classic that just cries out to be played as loud as you can stand it.

I'm also featuring this album first because in my earlier post "Lassissi Presente..." I forgot to add a track from this great album.

Arguably, Verckys Kiamuangana should have been seen first on this page. One of the great saxophonists with a career of that now spans well over four decades, Verckys Kiamuangana Mateta also was instrumental in producing Zairean music beginning in the 1970s.

His latest CD was released just this year, but let's hear a killer track from this LP.

The song included from this session is DADA.

Verckys worked with Franco & the T.P. O.K. Jazz as did Sax Matalanza. You can also hear Matalanza on the AMBIANCE A KASAVOUGOU album featured in the Laasissi Presente post.

If you enjoyed MAMEMA from Moro Maurice, I think you'll like GENEROSE by Sax Matalanza from his solo LP called LOLOMBO.

The next song is by Empompo Loway who worked with Franco's brother Bavon Marie-Marie and later with Docteur Nico.

Included here is ZUNGULUKE from his solo album called "84".

Across the river in Brazzaville, no saxman has a bigger name than "Trois S" Jean-Serge Essous.

One of the founders of Les Bantous de la Capitale, Essous also lent his saxophone stylizations to sessions by many others and issued a number of solo albums.

Here is the title cut from PHILOSOPHIE.

"Fefe" David Diambouana, also from Congo Brazzaville, put out a couple of albums with Master Mwana Congo on guitar on Eddy Gustave's label. Eddy Gustave was also a saxman, from Guadeloupe, who later produced Congolese records.

From Fefe's self-titled album, our last song is NGOMBELE.