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SUPERBREW: Africa Aroha (Re-release)

Superbrew was formed after multi-instrumentalist Jim Langabeer
returned from a three-month New York intensive in 1984, and reflects
his exposure to the Big Apple’s melting pot of genres, ethnicities,
instruments and performers. The band’s novel multi-mix of style,
instrumentation and jazz solo is all here: African hi-life influence
on Abdullah Ibrahim’s Namibia, a funky version of Mike Nock’s In Out
and Around, a straight-ahead reading of John Coltrane’s Afro-Blue,
Langabeer’s free-form-sounding Aroha, Paul McCandless’ lightly-salsa’d
Mood and Mind, and Langabeer and drummer Barry Young’s freely rhythmic
Agbekor, all played with intense, upbeat, cheerful energy. The band
contains many musicians prominent at the time, including saxophonists
David Colven and Rick Robertson, and percussionist Brian Waddell. The
late great Kenny Pearson contributes fine, loping bass in both section
and solo; and check guitarist Graeme Webb’s lovely elliptical intro to
his own solo on Namibia. Leading Superbrew through all of this is the
protean, individual spirit of Jim Langabeer, long one of NZ’s ‘world
jazz’ innovators (and still going strong). Although it was originally
a direct-to-two-track, spontaneous-in-the-studio, vinyl-only release,
‘Africa Aroha’ remains as fine a record of these great players as you
could wish for, and an essential Kiwi jazz classic.

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