Jazz Jamaica All Stars

Updated, jazz flavored remake of some old Ska hits and some originals. Fun and danceable.

Various

Three volume set of classic Cuban music. Stars like Ibrahim Ferrer and Celia Cruz and some lesser-knowns. Lots of variety. Lots of fun.

Lila Downs

Updated Mexican music featuring Lila's rich and evocative voice. Mostly originals, plus surprisingly original covers of La Bamba and La Cucaracha.

Kekele

Four veteran Congolese vocalists decided to get back to their Afro Cuban Roots and formed this band playing classic African rhumba.  They performed at the Grassroots Festival  in Ithaca this past summer and were just amazing. The album is actually from 2003, but we received it  during the summer, so it is this year's album for us

Gypsy Kings

I have never been a great fan of this band. But this all-acoustic album gets closer to their gypsy-flamenco origins and has made a believer of me.

Toots and the Maytals

Reggae is continually re-inventing itself, so to stay on top Toots Hibbert does the same. Is joined on this album of Toots classics by Eric Clapton, Bootsy Collins, Bonnie Raitt (on the title tune),  No Doubt, etc, etc.

Various

Great label. Putting out CD after CD of great World music. Extensive, informative notes. Won’t you come see me, Queen Jane?

Angelique Kidjo

Angelique Kidjo refuses to make the same album twice. On her latest she adds an Afro Cuban sound to her distinctive and irresistible voice.

Tinariwen

This guitar-based band from the Sahara region of Mali falls somewhere between Jimi Hendrix and Ali Farka Toure. And thank goodness for that.

Ladysmith Black Mambazo

Including a song discouraging drunk driving  the South African acapella group puts out a solid, spirit raising album.

Warsaw Village Band

They're young and versatile. They breathe new life into Polish  folk music. Exciting, high energy, not your grandma's polkas.

Samite

He's from Uganda and lives in Ithaca. He plays lovely, gentle songs on albums and  trance music for dancing at Grassroots. And once in a while he plays in Syracuse.

Various

Ground-breaking World music label presents some of the greatest of the  female vocalists from Africa including Souad Massi, Angelique Kidjo, and Dorothy Masuka.

Youssou N'Dour

The great Senegalese singer makes an album about his  Muslim faith. His vocals are strong and passionate. The music is a synthesis of North African (Arabic flavored) and West African.

Oumou Sangare

Two disk greatest hits set of this Malian singer. Slow and hypnotic, funky and danceable, bluesy and sensuous, it's all here.

Cachao

Cachao has been playing Cuban music a long time. And he’s still got it.

Rokia Traore

More compelling music from Mali. A less Westernized sound than her previous "Wanita," but with the iconoclastic lyrics that get her into trouble with Malian musical conservatives.

Mory Kante

Acoustic album from West African griot. Great vocals and kora playing.

Vasen

Virtuosic Nordic string band featuring the nyckelharpa, an instrument with 3 keyed melody strings and 12 sympathetic vibration strings.  Most of the songs developed from in-studio improvisations.

Various

Just what the title says, reggae music from all over the world. Some familiar singers like Lucky Dube and Majek Fashek share the disk with lesser knowns like Gnawa Diffusion and  Mas y Mas  from places as unlikely as Algeria and Spain.