TCHOKOLA

It's hardly a surprise that a Jazz artist makes an effort to connect with the roots of Jazz by engaging traditional African elements. My first impression was that this full vocals release may have been inspired by the odd vocal experiment found on the quite good Weather Report album "Procession". But whereas the W.R. tune works well, here Ponty goes into absolute overkill, perhaps ignoring that Jazz came to be via the Blues by African-Americans and not directly from Africa.

This album of traditional sounding African songs where Ponty appears to be guesting only seems to miss the mark of establishing the bridge between traditional and modern approaches to music. The songs are rather plain and not very rhythmic either (Manfred Mann does it better). Lightning fast runs on the electric violin are technically brilliant, but the whole concept appears to be a mismatch. Chances are that with repeated listening this work may grow on one over some time - but life is too short to spend on struggling with a weak album. 2.5 stars at most.

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