Praise Drumming

Bengt Berger has studied and performed music in Ghana, specifically Ewe drumming, and funeral music from the north. He returned to Sweden, formed a jazz collective and in 1980, performed and recorded the first Bitter Funeral Beer Band album, featuring trumpeter Don Cherry.
Praise Drumming is a reissue of a 1986 recording (without Don Cherry). It starts in a similar vein to Neil Ardley's magnificent jazz-fusion classic Kaleidoscope of Rainbows, with a beautiful instrumental based on the meditative Balinese musical scale. The rest of the album is either derived from, inspired by or taken from traditional songs and rhythms of Ghana. Anita Livstrand sings a haunting vocal on ‘Two Ewe Songs’ and the rest of the record is all instrumental. The songs feature classy soloing on flute, flugelhorn, soprano sax, trumpet, guitar and cello – all backed by an expressive and enthusiastic percussive rhythm section. Closing the album is an excellent ensemble segment, sounding similarly powerful as the Burundi drummers. The band are an ensemble of talented Scandinavian musicians who clearly have a passion for the fusion of jazz and Ghanaian traditional music; it works extremely well.