London is the Place for Me: The Music of Young Black London, 5 & 6

This double-CD release follows three engaging, high-quality compilations of Caribbean and African music in 50s Britain from the specialist label and one single collection by the Nigerian-born Ambrose Adekoya Campbell. Volumes five and six certainly don’t disappoint, featuring the bonus of striking Latin-infused numbers to add to notable cuts from senior Calypsonians Lord Kitchener, Mighty Terror and a bevy of wonderful jams by the West African Rhythm Brothers and Buddy Pipp’s Highlifers.

This volume’s first CD opens with Pipp’s ‘Cuban Nightingale’, a West African rhythm with Latin horns backing up a bebop workout, which makes the overarching theme of the set clear:a vivid demonstration of the creative cross¬pollination of African, Caribbean and American styles that were rampant in the music of West Indian immigrants in post-war London. By the time we reach the 19th track – the superbly-produced romantic ballad ‘My Sorrow’ by the West African Swing Stars – the musical tour has taken in ‘Trumpet Highlife’ by virtuoso trumpeter Shake Keane and calypso classics such as Lord Beginner’s ‘The Dollar and the Pound’ and Kitchener’s ‘My Wife Went Away With Yankee’.

The second CD in no way slows the pace, with the album’s undoubted standout track – Nigerian percussionist Ginger Johnson’s ‘Mambo Contempo’, a stripped-down slice of pure mambo magic. There is more vintage calypso and another hypnotic mambo-inflected instrumental from Rupert Nurse’s Calypso Band, one of many tracks here that bring sun, sea, sand and sizzle to a rainy London town.