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Hugh Masekela
REVIVAL
(Heads Up Africa)
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South Africa’s legendary, chameleon pop/jazz man came out swinging on his 2002 release Time. Three years later, he’s lost none of his wit or his cool worldliness, but this set feels a tad lazy, the work of a contented, mellowed jazz gentleman who’s been through the wars — apartheid, exile, Graceland, return to the homeland, sobriety — and is ready to graze once again. His unmistakable flügelhorn voice is intact, as he shows on the slinky instrumental opener, "After Tears," and also when he complements Corlea’s rich vocal on "District Six." Only on an athletic, muted solo that graces the ballad "Fresh Air" does he really cut loose, and it’s a treat. His robust, lightly graveled singing works best on playfully sophisticated fare like "Woman of the Sun," a celebration of the African woman, who knows both the Orishas (Yoruba gods) and the Bible and listens to Beethoven, Fela Kuti, and Ravi Shankar. But in his current contented, laid-back mode, his more engaged songs lack bite. "Smoke" protests against air pollution with all the urgency of a smoky lounge lament. "Working Underground," a merry ditty about the hell of life in the diamond mines, suffers from a similar disconnect between music and theme. Only when he denounces self-serving militants in Africa and the Caribbean on "Sleep" do we get a glint of the old fire. (Hugh Masekela appears next Friday, June 24, at Scullers Jazz Club, in the Doubletree Guest Suites Hotel, 400 Soldiers Field Road at the Mass Pike; call 617-562-4111.)
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