Teranga

Hervé Samb is a self-taught guitarist and composer from Senegal whose way with harmony and technique has won him considerable success in West Africa and in France, where he has been resident for two decades. A regular collaborator with the likes of Cheikh Tidiane Seck, saxophone giant Pharoah Sanders and most recently Lisa Simone, daughter of the great Nina, Samb has brought the African-American jazz sensibility back to Senegal, with a polymorphic sound he calls ‘sabar jazz’. A sabar is the traditional conical drum from Senegal, played with one hand and beaten with a stick. Flanked by bass, percussion and drums, and with guests including golden-voiced singer Souleyman Faye and rapper Faada Freddy, Samb gifts us a work that's both an ode to his birthplace and a showcase for the bridge-building potential of jazz. And while a couple of tracks, namely ‘My Romance/Sama Leerâ’ have an overproduced feel, there is much to love here. Opener ‘Thiossane’, probably a homage to the Youssou N'Dour-owned nightclub – floats along on breezy Afro-Brazilian rhythms, while Henry Mancini's ‘Wine and Roses’ is enlivened by fierce West African percussion. John Coltrane's ‘Giant Steps’, deftly Africanised, is a work the composer himself might have sanctioned. Classy.