Africahit - Jazz - Forever

RUMOURS of Miriam Makeba's retirement have, thankfully, been greatly exaggerated. Important events -- such as the independence anniversary in Cuba -- can still get her on stage, and now there is a new album, FOREVER, on the Gallo label.

Forever takes a dozen songs from various stages of Makeba's career and gives them new arrangements from Nelson Lee and Guinean musician Papa Kouyate (who also guests), for a selection of South African and international backing artists including Barney Rachabane, Marcus Wyatt and bass players from Concorde Nkabinde and Carlo Mombelli to Herbie Tsoaeli and Mandla Zikalala.

Makeba does not have the voice she started out with in The Skylarks more than half a century ago. Instead, she has an extra 50 years' worth of musical intelligence about everything a singer can do with a song besides charming vocal acrobatics. That insight makes many of the tracks more interesting than they were first time around.

You become aware of the shape and structure of the music: its bones and sinews rather than tender flesh. That's particularly true of the rhythmically intricate songs from Makeba's Conakry period, and of three of her own earlier compositions: Angilalanga, Samba and Nyankwabe -- on the last of which she crafts some impressive traditional extended vocalising. There are also some powerful solos from Rachabane, Wyatt, trumpeter Prince Lengoasa and trombonist Jabu Magubane.

Not all the songs succeed so well. The formulaic structures of Nomeva and Ibhabalazi don't offer Makeba the same scope for a fresh approach. Wrapping string arrangements around them like a kind of Sof'town jive cotton-wool does nothing to disguise that they sound tired. But only because this is an album from Makeba do we even expect every track to be equally superb. Less talented singers often can't claw one triumph from a dozen songs. Forever remains a collector's must.

Makeba shares her record label with the much younger Simphiwe Dana. The company's publicists have made much of Dana's potential to assume the Mama Afrika mantle. It's mostly flimflam. Dana has a pleasant, unexceptional, midrange voice, and she doesn't do much with her songs except sing them straight. But what her first, successful, album Zandisile hinted at and what her second, ONE LOVE MOVEMENT ON BANTU BIKO STREET, confirms, is that she is an exceptional songwriter.

Some of Dana's fans like the new album less than they did the first. Certainly it is more difficult. It cannot play along simply as a nu-soul background. Stripped of Zandisile's pop trimmings, and handed to a large and stellar collection of jazz players (Feya Faku, Sydney Mnisi, Sylvester Mazinyane, Kelly Petlane, Bheki Khoza -- who also produces -- and many more) One Love Movement stands or falls on the compositions. They survive magnificently.

One of Dana's vocal strengths is her excellent diction -- which is just as well, because the lyrics matter. (Even a linguistically handicapped reviewer such as this one has no problem matching lines to translation, so clear are her words.) Intensely poetic expressions of Africanist pride and aspiration and personal spirituality are carried by tunes that catch the right mood every time. The strength of the melodic lines is apparent in what the soloists can do with them, and there is particularly interesting improvisation from Mazinyane and another pianist, Mncedisi Kupa.

Three arrangements, Sisophum'elokshini, Uzobuya Nini and the title track, make explicit reference to Makeba's work with The Skylarks, running the lead vocal over a close-harmony swing female chorus. But the mood is different. Instead of cooing entreaties to a sweetheart, we have solid, conscious politics: "And you, Mr Governor ... educate our kids. (That's what we fought for/You seem to have forgotten.)"

As with the Makeba album, there are strings -- this time, the Miagi Orchestra. Since Thandiswa Mazwai scored a world hit with Nizalwa Ngobani, strings seem to have become obligatory for albums with world music marketing ambitions. They don't always help: on Sizophum'elokshini they add interesting texture but on the orchestral reprise of Bantu Biko Street they simply clutter up the catchy melody and open texture. Dana writes songs that are strong enough to breathe on their own.

SA's popular music scene abounds in talented singers but has far fewer good songwriters. That lack shows in many current albums. In an ideal world, those singers would be jamming Dana's line with requests for her to write for them.