| Summary: | Ebo Taylor returned to the spotlight in 2009, to our great pleasure, after Strut Records, Mr Bongo and Superfly Records resurrected a discography that had been poorly distributed in Europe until then. Accompanied by the Saltpond City Band led by his son Henry, who displays great pride in his father, Ebo Taylor presents himself, his eternal hat screwed on a wise old head with more than 80 years experience and mischievous eyes. He doesn't appear on stage until the twentieth minute, where he performs two long pieces before relaxing in his chair for the next section. His voice has muffled over the years, but it does nothing to obliterate the sacred presence of his character, nor the vitality of his music. On tracks that utilize hypnotic repetition techniques, riffs come in and out while brass solos bear the traces of jazz influence. Ebo Taylor, born in 1936 into a Ghanaian Catholic family, opened himself up to the influences of jazz and funk during a student trip to London between 1962 and 1965. It was there that he befriended Fela Kuti, to whom he is often compared, but his music has always differed from his Nigerian friend's Afrobeat. It was by combining these ingredients that he would become the main architect of the modernisation of Highlife, the dance music genre which became loved all over in West Africa. **Philippe Lesage**
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