1975 Mombasa “African Rhythms & Blues” on Spiegelei

You’d be forgiven from the cover alone for thinking this is a Cape Jazz grail, not to mention the title, year, and especially ultra funky trumpet/bass opening groove. And yet, this badboy comes out of Germany (The Dark Heart of Cologne) and is helmed by the very American trombonist Lou Blackburn. Now, if you’ve never heard Lou’s very rare and exceedingly excellent ’63 “Jazz Frontier”, you’d immediately buy Mombasa once you did, forget that the two records sound absolutely nothing alike. Each track of Mombasa is named after a different African region/tribe and the composition/rhythmic approach changes accordingly. Lou knew what he had in mind, because apparently the whole thing was cut in one day, which makes more sense when you consider that “Spiegelei” is German for “fried egg” (note initially mystifying label art.) Lou says the record is “A mixture of rhythm, folklore, blues, spirituals and worksongs” and he would prefer not to use the word jazz. Cool with me, because it’s also CRAMMED with drum and bass breaks. In fact, let’s take a second here to recognize the KILLER bass playing of Gerald Luciano Hartwig, who I’ve never heard of and appears to be a sort of Krautrock session guy, but I have nothing but respect for his groove. I’ve also never heard of Cephus McGirt (best jazz name ever?) but he’s tight as pie on drums. Charles (Hitman) Jefferson plays thumb harp and flugelhorn and Doug “Niara” Lucas and Carmell “Jay Hawk Talk” Jones are also in this band, although not on the credits for the debut release. Man, this record boogies, and I love it.