Hugh Masekela – The Boy’s Doin’ It (Verve)

Like most artists who persevere long enough to see the popular styles of their origins fall sway to new ones, Hugh Masekela readily opened his music up to the sound diaspora of the Seventies. Signing to Casablanca, his LPs of the era reflected the diversity of the label’s roster, drawing on disco, funk, R&B and rock to color his core template of Township jazz. The imprint was home to both Donna Summer and the Wildflowers Loft Jazz Sessions for a time, after all. This valuable Verve comp contains the entirety of Masekela’s debut along with a pair of songs apiece from his three subsequent platters. Strong funk horn charts and percussion-thick vamps suffuse many of the cuts from the opener on down. “Toe-Jam” sounds uncannily like an unused outtake by the Westbound funk band The Counts. Vocals harmonies are also heavy elements in the playbook, with Masekela’s crisp trumpet runs usually trading in easy riffs rather than improvisations. There’s also a fair bit of Fela-style Afrobeat on tracks like the syncopated ode to maternal appreciation “Mama” and the tribal chant “Ashiko,” an extended number that allows the leader some welcome space with his horn. My favorite tune, “Colonial Man” covers some the Nigerian icon’s same political concerns blending Afro-Cuban and Reggae components into a tasty Santana-like stew and indicting a rogue’s gallery of European colonial catalysts along the way. Some cuts betray their age in corny combinations of dated keyboards and hip banter and all carry strong doses of studio polish and production. Nevertheless, the joy and brio of the performances counteracts any calculated commercialism. The cover shot of Masekela’s crew in the midst of a congenial beach party conclave captures the laidback vibe of this collection just right.