Product Description
There was always music along the banks of the Congo River-lutes and drums, the myriad instruments handed down from ancestors. But when Joseph Kabsele and his African Jazz went chop for chop with O.K. Jazz and Bantous de la Capitale, music in Africa would never be the same. A sultry rumba washed in relentless waves across new nations springing up below the Sahara. The Western press would dub the sound Soukous or rumba rock; most of Africa called it Congo music.Born in Kinshasa and Brazzaville at the end of World War II, Congo music matured as Africans fought to consolidate their hard-won independence. In addition to great musicians - Franco, Essous, Abeti, Tabu Ley, and youth bands like Zaiko Langa Langa - the cast of characters includes the conniving King Leopold, the martyred Partrice Lumumba, corrupt dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, military strongman Denis Sassou Nguesso, heavyweight boxing champs George Foreman and Muhammad Ali, along with a Belgian baron and a clutch of enterprising Greek expatriates who pioneered the Congolese recording industry. Rumba on the River portrays an era when the currents of tradition and modernization collided along the banks of the Congo Rivers. It is the story of twin capitals engulfed in political struggle and the vibrant new music that flowered amidst the ferment. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Great read and reference
This book covers a lot of information, and does a surprisingly decent job at it. The author makes little attempt to be judgemental or pretencious. He just tries to present the complex history of modern Congolese music(the most dynamic and popular music from Africa) as best as he could source it, AND OBVIOUSLY BETTER THAN ANYONE ELSE COULD HAVE DONE IT.
A neat reference book for anyone interested in music from the Congos.

Explores music, dance, and evolving trends in rumba
Chapters explore music, dance, and evolving trends in Congolese rumba tradition and provide so much accompanying explanatory history that even ethnomusicologists and college-level students of African culture and tradition will find it fascinating.
 Very highly recommended.

How changing times and ancient traditions blended
Ably written by a published author of articles on African and Caribbean music whose work has appeared in "The Beat", "Option", "West Africa" and more, Rumba On The River: A History Of The Popular Music Of The Two Congos is an enthralling dissemination of how changing times and ancient traditions blended to create a distinctive type of music along the Congo River. From the currents of political struggle to the tides of self-expression, the history, vibrancy, and popularity of this music flowed, and its indelible impressions upon the human psyche are succinctly framed in an unforgettable prose.

Une oeuvre de toute une vie! A lire absolument
Sorry: I'll write my appreciation in french.
Après avoir lu les 23 chapitres de cet ouvrage, j'avoue avoir été impressionné par la quantité d'informations, la qualité du matériel et des sources historiques auxquelles l'auteur (Gary Stewart) a eu recours pour réaliser son ouvrage. Il s'agit de l'oeuvre de toute une vie, car l'auteur ne se contente pas de retracer le parcours historique de la musique congolaise (les deux Congo), mais se donne la peine de situer les événements dans leur contexte socio-politique aussi bien au niveau local qu'international.
Je rends un vibrant hommage à Gary Stewart. Avec son ouvrage, il met les pendules à l'heure et ouvre les voiles sur plusieurs zones d'ombre de l'évolution de la musique congolaise. Grâce à son ouvrage, nous pouvons dessiner l'arbre généalogique de cette musique. Nous pouvons remonter dans le temps avec les premiers phonos en 1904, Henri Bowane, Wendo Kolosoy et les autres. L'apport de Nicolas Jeronimidis, des frères Papadimitriou et de Bill Alexandre dans l'édification de l'industrie du disque au Congo est exposé avec une verve digne d'un véritable historien.
Lorsqu'arrive les temps modernes avec le Grand Kallé, nous pouvons nous rendre compte de la contribution hautement significative, si pas décisive, du Dr Nico Kasanda dans le façonnnement de ce qu'on peut appeler l'École "African Jazz". Bien sûr, le Grand Kallé reste le monument incontournable, le père fondateur incontestable de cette musique et de cette école. Mais c'est le Dr Nico qui, par son ingéniosité, sa virtuosité, par la "magie" de sa guitare, qui en est l'icône, l'artisan incontesté. Ignorer ce détail ou faire semblant de l'ignorer comme le fait Tabu Ley Rochereau dans son témoignage sur "La musique congolaise et son évolution dans le temps" est de la pure malhonneteté intellectuelle et une abjecte méprise qui enlève toute crédibilité à son fameux "témoignage". Quelle ingratitude! De cette école sont issus de grands orchestres, notamment Africa Fiesta Sukisa, Africa Fiesta National (plus tard Afisa International), Vox Africa, Les Grands Maquisards, Bamboula etc.
Luambo Franco (surnom qu'il emprunta d'un autre chanteur du nom de François Engbondu) est présenté comme fondateur de l'école OK Jazz. À la suite de cette école, naîtront des rejetons dont Congas Succès, Negros Succès, Cobantou et Los Angel pour ne citer que ceux-là. Qui a oublié L'orchestre Bantous avec Essous Jean-Serge et Les Bantous de la Capitale?
Le livre met à jour les implications politiques pendant le règne dictatorial de Mobutu sur le financement de certains orchestres. Il retrace l'évolution jusqu'à la génération présent. Le lecteur sera comblé par les nombreuses anecdotes sur la vie des musiciens, les alliances, les aspects financiers ainsi que l'éclosion du phénomène "Ngulu".
Les générations suivantes: Pépé Kallé, Les Frères Soki, Zaïko Langa Langa, Lokasa,Emeneya, Papa Wemba, Koffi Olomide ainsi que les jeunes de Wenge (diverses branches) y sont également traités. L'exposé sur la contribution de la junte fémininePhotas (African Fiesta), Abeti, Mpongo Love, Tshiala Muana, Mbilia Bel est suffisamment étoffé.
Le livre met également à jour une évidence: le façonnement d'un rythme (rumba dans ses variantes "soucous", "kono", "kiri-kiri" et autres "kwempa-kwempa", "ndombolo") n'est jamais l'affaire des seuls chanteurs: les instrumentistes y sont pour beaucoup. Ainsi, les guitaristes comme Pépé Felly Manuaku Waku, Tshimpaka Roxy "Nyau" et les jeunes d'aujourd'hui sont des véritables "créateurs" rythmiques. À l'exemple de Déchaud Muamba et son frère Nicolas Kasanda, Simarro Lutumba (un compositeur de talent), Noel Nedule (Papa Noel) ils ont su valablement prendre la relève.
Un autre point fort de cet ouvrage, c'est la compilation bibliographique, presque complète. Le repertoire par l'index est une excellente idée pour guider le lecteur à travers ces 400 pages et plus.

Des nombreuses photos inédites: Le célèbre guitariste Déchaud, à 14 ans, en culotte, accompagnant au chant (et nom à la guitare!) le magicien de l'époque Jhimmy L'Hawaïen. Image saisissante!
Par contre, permettez-moi de souligner une grande omission: l'absence de l'apport des "Belgicains": Zatho Kinzonzi, Maxime Mongali ("Idi Mane") Tony Dee, Zizi, Joe Rhino et les autres est difficilement justifiaable dans un ouvrage d'une telle envergure. Pourtant, les orchestres comme Zaïko LL et Thu Zhaïna à leurs débuts puisaient leur inspiration de Los Nickelos et de Yéyé National, lesquels s'inspiraient des rythmes des deux grandes écoles. Quoi qu'il en soit, cet ouvrage est unique en son genre et tout le mérite revient à son auteur qui a eu le reflexe de le dédier aux "immortels" musiciens qui ont quitté ce monde. Encore une fois, Félicitaions Gary!
Un livre à lire absolument et à faire lire!

Labor of Love and Remarkable Accomplishment
Gary Stewart's book is so very well researched. If you are not familiar with the Congolese Rumba, the material will not really interest you and be difficult if not impossible to read. If you are familiar with this remarkable music in any way, you will end up seeking out and acquiring as much of this music and record titles as you can afford. I must have bought about 150 CD titles of the artists mentioned in the book.Stewart's book puts these artists and their music in the context of a history previously unwritten about in the English language. The only other book that comes to mind is Graeme Ewens' "Congo Colossus", but that title is more confined to the history of Franco (Francois Luambo Makiadi) and Le T.P. OK Jazz.If there is a criticism, it is a small one. He leaves out Orchestra Super Mazemba and Samba Mapangala. Although those artists made their mark in Kenya, they were in fact major Rumba artists from the Congo. However, Mr. Stewart performed remarkable research not to mention a history book that moves like an impossible to put down novel. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (11)

Interesting Account of Peace Corp Experience
Mike Tidwell's "The Ponds of Kalambayi: An African Sojourn" is an interesting account of his trials and tribulations living in Zaire.He starts out a wide eyed foreigner ready to solve poverty and then comes to realize ugly truths.His fight with constant sickness, native's mistrust, and universal poverty/death is startling.

Yet even when surrounded by a sense of fatalism he moves on and tries to help the lives of the poorest.His ponds do not promise prosperity but they do promise sustenance.

Tidwell may not be Superman but he is a hero in my book.

AFRICA
This is an amazing book about Africa. For one who has never been there it shows the other half, the half that you don't hear in the news, the part that we all know exists but never hear of it. Love, life, death, courage, tradition. It is a two year long journey dealing with adaptation to a different culture, teaching how to raise fish in the middle of Africa.
I got this book as a gift from my sister and have thanked her for it, because didn't just provide with a time for entertainment but it taught me a lot about another culture, taught me about respect for others beliefs.
It is heartbreaking, but beautifull.

Great Book
As a returned Peace Corps volunteer who served in francophone Africa (Gabon - 89-91), Mike Tidwell captures the experience better than any other Peace Corps writer I've read.Contrast this book with the Village of Waiting (George Packer) and you'll see what I mean.He also is a master story teller and offers a lot for anyone interested in Africa.

Great Memoir for Any Westerner Going to Live in Africa!
Mike Tidwell's memoir of his two years of Peace Corp work teaching villagers to build fish ponds is about so much more than that. He writes so honestly about what he learned from working closely with his African neighbors and how he came to understand their generosity from an African perspective as opposed to his American perspective. He has so many adventures with the men the Kalambayi region that each chapter taught me something new. Mike shares his doubts about himself and those he works with. He confesses his errors and shares his times of despondency. But all in all I think he feels the way that I do...living in Africa as an American is the best education because you are forever changed...your world of thought is so much larger. I wanted the story to go on and on because every evening I looked forward to being with Mike's world in Zaire.

Surprisingly Good
After deciding that I wanted to apply to the Peace Corps, I began doing online and literary research on the experience as a whole.I bought this book, totally uninterested in how a Caucasion man in Africa would learn to adapt to the local culture and thus be successful at showing the (willing) villagers how to raise "fish farms."Needless to say, this book never has a dull moment, which is a major shock for me.Although he doesn't talk much about the Peace Corps (if at all), he does constantly touch on the topics of attempting to shed his American normalities/viewpoints and just plain adapting to life in his African villages.His cultural adaptation and the frustrations that come along with teaching the locals about fish farming are just two things that make this book a page turner. ... Read more

Product Description
This book illustrates and describes the decorated wall panels, sculpture and masks created during initiation rites of the young men of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola. On a broader level, the book explores the artistic and craft traditions of the local artisans.
... Read more

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The Forest People -- Colin M. Turnbull's best-selling, classic work -- describes the author's experiences while living with the BaMbuti Pygmies, not as a clinical observer, but as their friend learning their customs and sharing their daily life.

Turnbull conveys the lives and feelings of the BaMbuti whose existence centers on their intense love for their forest world, which, in return for their affection and trust, provides their every need. We witness their hunting parties and nomadic camps; their love affairs and ancient ceremonies -- the molimo, in which they praise the forest as provider, protector, and deity; the elima, in which the young girls come of age; and the nkumbi circumcision rites, in which the villagers of the surrounding non-Pygmy tribes attempt to impose their culture on the Pygmies, whose forest home they dare not enter.

The Forest People eloquently shows us a people who have found in the forest something that makes their life more than just living -- a life that, with all its hardships and problems and tragedies, is a wonderful thing of happiness and joy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (29)

Required reading for college class
Great discount on Amazon.com price compared to college book store. Shipped quickly and in great condition. This book was just the book she needed for class. She likes the book and said she wanted me to read it.

Check the Publisher carefully before you buy the printed version of "The Forest People."
"The Forest People" is a very interesting book. Perhaps unfortunately in some cases (such as this), Amazon associates reviews of a book with different versions of the same book from different publishers. Unfortunately for us customers, Amazon is seeing a growing plague of new Print-On-Demand Publishers who are specialising in reprinting copyright-expired books. Such as "The Forest People." Some of these publishers produce quite good quality books, some do not.

A classic example of the "not good quality" is the imprint of "The Forest People" published by General Books LLC. A previous reviewer commented that the version he bought was unreadable. At a guess, the previous reviewer was unfortunate enough to buy the edition published by General Books LLC. Why unfortunate?

Well, the version published by General Books LLC is scanned in using OCR technology (and using pretty poor quality OCR scanning equipment and software from the look of their books), is overall of very poor print quality, automated reproduction with no index, no illustrations and an excessive number of typos.

To quote a few specifics from the publishers web site:
"We created your book using OCR software that includes an automated spell check. Our OCR software is 99 percent accurate if the book is in good condition. However, with up to 3,500 characters per page, even one percent can be an annoying number of typos....

After we re-typeset and designed your book, the page numbers change so the old index and table of contents no longer work. Therefore, we usually remove them. Since many of our books only sell a couple of copies, manually creating a new index and table of contents could add more than a hundred dollars to the cover price....

Our OCR software can't distinguish between an illustration and a smudge or library stamp so it ignores everything except type. We would really like to manually scan and add the illustrations. But many of our books only sell a couple of copies....

We created your book using a robot who turned and photographed each page. Our robot is 99 percent accurate. But sometimes two pages stick together. And sometimes a page may even be missing from our copy of the book. We would really like to manually scan each page and buy multiple copies of each original. But many of our books only sell a couple of copies....."

General Books LLC are flooding Amazon with these low quality publications (450,000+ listed under General Books LLC) and, unfortunately, many of them have the reviews associated with the original or with better quality imprints associated with them. The product description is totally misleading for the buyer that's not aware of this publisher. Also, if you do the "Look Inside" thing and check, you will see that the version displayed is actually another publishers edition and in fact is nothing like the General Books LLC version (which is rubbish, believe me). IMHO this is unethical marketing.

A general rule of thumb for these Print on Demand publishers is to take a look at the cover - if it's a good quality illustration that reflects the content, there's a table of contents, and when you do the Look Inside thing there's no disclaimer saying you're looking at another book, and they've used facsimile reproduction technology (rather than OCR), it's usually a pretty safe bet. Conversely, if any of these are missing, you're taking a chance on the quality. I've bought a few based on my selection criteria above and they've been good quality. General Books LLC however, is a publisher to steer clear of at all costs.

If you have been unfortunate enough to buy the General Books LLC version by mistake, you can return to Amazon for a full refund (but check Amazon's return policy and process first).

Enter a life without time, without religion
The Forest People (Touchstone Book)The Forest People

by Colin M. Turnbull

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I just finished a wonderful book, Colin Turnbull's The Forest People. Turnbull lived `a while' (pygmies don't measure time with a watch or a calendar) with African pygmies to understand their life, culture, and beliefs. As he relays events of his visit, he doesn't lecture, or present the material as an ethnography. It's more like a biography of a tribe. As such, I get to wander through their lives, see what they do, how they do it, what's important to them, without any judgment or conclusions other than my own.

One point that became clear early on is that pygmies have no leaders. How can that be, you might ask? Doesn't somehow just assume that mantle? Well, until I read this book, I would have agreed whole-heartedly, but that doesn't seem to happen. A tribe member might demand everyone go hunting with him (it takes a large group to capture/kill the forest animals) and people may go, or they may not. Whatever they feel like. When they move to a new camp, houses and furniture must be built. People may start full of energy and ambition, promising to help neighbors and build big houses with multiple rooms. And then the builders dwindle away as some other adventure grabs their attention. They might finish, maybe not. Often, they'll use some of their neighbor's roof leaves, or even his house until their own house is built.

Most surprisingly, I have yet to discover if they have a belief in a god. They don't pray for help, for food or safety, for anything. If life doesn't seem quite right, the closest they get to wishing it was better is to return to the forest where life is always good, to a camp surrounded by the depths of the jungle, where outsiders are afraid to go. But the forest isn't their god, it's merely where life is always good.

Hmmm. I have to ponder this...

Study of a pygmy tribe
This is a fine study of how a pygmy tribe in Africa based on hunting and gathering tries to maintain its own mores while living in proximity to Negro tribes who have settled down and become farmers with banana plantations.

The story is awesome, but the printing was horrible.
Shame on the publisher.

I bought this book for an anthropology course.The words were jumbled and out of order and made very little sense.Chapter headings and footnotes were mixed in with the text. I had to borrow the book from a library because my copy was so unreadable. The story itself is amazing; I loved it. But to sell a book that is printed like that...it is inexcusable. ... Read more