First Pan-African Cultural Festival
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The First Pan-African Cultural Festival was a music festival held in Algiers from July 21 to August 1 1969. The Festival was organized by the [Organization of African Unity] (OAU). The festival was hosted by Houari Boumédienne, Algeria's military dictator, who had come to power in a military coup.
The musical sessions were recorded and released by the French BYG/Actuel label under the title "Live At The Pan-African Festival". Given the conditions in which the recordings were made, it comes as no surprise that the sound quality is rather poor. Sunny Murray's drumming and Silva's double bass are completely drowned in the trance-inducing fury of the massed Algerian and Touareg percussion: drums, tambourines and karkabous (metallic castagnettes). Dave Burrell's piano can be heard only occasionally. The wind-instrument players - Shepp himself, Thornton and Moncur III - improvise their lines over the North-African rhythms, but the jazzmen's playing seems a little lost at the roaring sea of North-African percussion.