http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRmdFATQOUc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEl49zZfM9I

Have a look and see what you think and join the discussion.

The DVD shot last summer of Yacub Addy and Wynton Marsalis’s

composition “Congo Square” on the opening night of the 2007 Montreal

Jazz Festival has been released by Shanachie Entertainment. It is

available on amazon.com, in Barnes & Noble stores, and can also be

rented from Netflix.This is a culturally historic masterwork combining Ghanaian rhythms

and songs with jazz forms, but it’s also some of the most dynamic and

hot music you’ve ever heard - it lifts the spirit and moves the body.

Each of the musicians of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and

Yacub Addy’s ensemble Odadaa! have made a great effort and the love shows.

Congo Square DVD

The concert captured in the DVD came at the end of the second national

tour of the music. The music naturally evolved over this time and the

result is a performance unique from the CD recorded at the end of the

first tour.

The Congo Square CD is available digitally from iTunes (type in “Congo

Square”) and from Jazz at Lincoln Center: http://www.jalc.org/congo/

If you order it from iTunes, I suggest buying the whole album as it

was written as one continuous piece with 15 movements. With an album

purchase you also digitally receive a 28-page booklet with articles by

Mr. Addy and Mr. Marsalis, and song translations.