Amalume (Lekani Mowa) (New LP)

Label: Sharp-Flat Records

Emerging to serve the entertainment needs of Zambia's United National Independence Party (UNIP) in the early 1960s, The Broadway Quintet gathered seasoned talent from Lusaka's best hotel bands to fashion its esteemed lineup. Starting as a quartet and later evolving into a quintet, the group's career spanned over twenty years as favourites on the cabaret circuit and boasted a myriad of prestigious collaborations.

The Broadway Quintet's jazz sensibilities set them apart from the rock sound that dominated Zambia's music landscape in the 1970s. Yet the formula behind Zamrock, fusing indigenous rhythms with Western pop, shaped their one and only 1976 long-player. Featuring modern arrangements of traditional songs, Amalume blended congas with sax sounds, African folk lyrics with electric keyboard shenanigans and show business tunes with jazz guitar noodling. With its psychedelic illustrated cover, which references the title track's warning against the perils of drinking alcohol, it was an explosive package of "originality and electrifying beauty" as the album's liner notes proclaimed.