London Is the Place for Me, Vol. 2

Although it isn't quite as striking as the first volume, this second installment in Honest Jon's Records' survey of the impact of African and Caribbean musicians on London's music scene in the 1940s and 1950s is still a very pleasant listen. Covering roughly 1950 through 1956, Volume 2 features a multicultural mix of Londonized calypso, African jazz, and highlife with just a touch of bop thrown in, and if nothing exactly startling leaps out of the sequence, there is a wonderful and unhurried warmth to everything that makes it well worth a listen. Highlights include a pair of point/counterpoint hybrid calypsos that take on the musical merits of bebop, Young Tiger's (George Browne) "Calypso Be," which embraces Count Basie in the lyrics but dismisses Dizzy Gillespie and the whole bop movement (although the tenor sax playing of Jamaica's Sam Walker undercuts the whole song with a bop sensibility), and King Timothy's (Al Timothy) "Gerrard Street," which pays tribute to Soho's Gerrard Street, home of several bop clubs. Also worth noting is Mona Baptiste's easy and fluid version of Nat King Cole's "Calypso Blues" and Gwigwi Mrwebi's bouncing and swinging "Nyusamkhaya" instrumental. As a whole, this 20-cut anthology has a warm and mellow flow, and while it probably won't change anyone's life, it features several African and West Indies musicians who would become key players in the emerging multicultural London jazz scene. ~ Steve Leggett