Digital OK Jazz

Well we don't know whether to rejoice or to be annoyed. We have just discovered that Tamasha Corporation have digitally released many Franco and Ok Jazz records. They have in a lot of cases released albums in their original track order, but in other instances have done the same thing that Sonodisc did, by pairing bits from different albums together.

Here is one example http://itunes.apple.com/ie/album/anjela/id387922205

'Anjela' was originally just a two track album. Tamasha Corporation have released it with two extra tracks, unfortunately they are not long lost out-takes but just two tracks from another album 'Mamie Zou', which is incidentally available if you search for Ntesa Dalienst on iTunes.

So there are pluses to this, the tracks seem to be free from the skips and clicks that are on some of our vinyls and we have found some tracks that we have not heard before, like Malunzi found on this album

http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/tobeya-to/id391064986

We had to be careful to check this was a real OK Jazz track because we are sure the track before it 'Afrique Aux Africains' is not. Also be careful if you see a track with a name you don't recognise, it is probably because it is wrongly titled. Like Amour Retreouve which you can see here http://www.amazon.com/Amour-Retreouve/dp/B004189I4G is actually the same as Amour Viole from the Live Afro-European Tour album. This one doesn't have any fake audience noise though which is good.

There are a lot of releases there now but it has been poorly catalogued, often with no reference to OK Jazz or even Franco! If you look up Youlou Mabiala you will find the Franco Presente albums. The cover art is also very poor in most cases, we don't know why a big record company like Tamasha couldn't reproduce the original labels.

Anyway, it is better than the music not being available and I'm sure many of you will be happy to find these tracks available digitally now. The full 20 minute version of Tres Fache is there, which is good.