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LP
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OME 1027LP
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Reduced price, last copies. Fantôme Phonographique present a reissue of Chaino And His African Percussion Safari's Jungle Echoes, originally released in 1959. The African American bongo player known as Chaino released a series of sublime exotica albums during the 1950s, based around themes of "savage Africa," supposed tribal mating rituals, voodoo practices, and other concepts of exotica excess. Born Leon Johnson in Philadelphia in 1929, he was raised on the south side of Chicago and began making a name for himself as a bongo player on the Chitlin Circuit of nightclubs catering to a black clientele. In 1957, he was discovered by the nightclub singer and producer Kirby Allan (AKA Sidney Allen Pitmann), who travelled extensively in African earlier in the decade and who was seeking someone that could emulate the ceremonial rhythms he encountered in Kenya and the Gold Coast. In a peculiar marketing strategy, Allan recast Johnson as Chaino, "an orphan from a lost tribe in Africa who was taken in by missionaries and brought to the US." Together they produced eight albums, typically with Johnson playing every instrument himself, with added shouts, whelps and pseudo-African language. Jungle Echoes, first issued in 1959 on the Hollywood-based Omega Disc, is a thoroughly mesmerizing example of Chaino's over-the-top brilliance.
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LP
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BS 020LP
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"A young boy found and raised by American missionaries, the only survivor of a nonviolent African tribe whose members, entranced by ancient rhythms, had the ability to communicate with animals and run like cheetahs... Pulled away from this original enchanted world, he grew up among Westerners. He tried to adapt as much as he could but remained very much rooted in the land of his ancestors. Still haunted and nourished by his origins, he engraved the rhythms of his land into the grooves of an Omega Disk..." The year is 1959 and exotica music is in full swing. Beautiful women with banana belts and flower necklaces are gathering serious attention by seducing each and every average Joe dreaming of sunny holidays on exotic islands populated by colorful birds. Low-cost travel and mass tourism were on their way. Chaino and His African Percussion Safari were capable of playing for 17 hours straight -- seven percussion instruments at the same time. They recorded Jungle Echoes in a sublime delirium; it's an absurd myth and an imaginary product of the past. A unbelievable record made of rhythms and shouts; a jungle, a furnace, a disturbing trip into the imaginary world of this unrivaled percussionist, this son of Africa -- regardless of the myth surrounding his real origin. A dangerously addictive and syncopated atomic bomb of a record. Reissued by Black Sweat Records with Moi J'Connais.
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