Consumer Guide Album

Dollar Brand: African Marketplace [Elektra, 1980]
More than any other jazz musician I know of, the South African pianist doesn't just honor and evoke popular traditions, he redefines them, injecting his Ellinigtonian structures with r&b-based urban dance rhythms and strange (to us) tribal voicings. As often as not his band projects a crudely gorgeous songfulness most unjazzlike in its simplicity--folklike tunes repeat obligingly, ostinatos just don't quit. Take the synthesis for the patriotism of an exile who believes in the wisdom of his people and his land and refuses to indulge his alienation from both. A−