"The Babatunde Lea Quintet took us on a compelling musical trip through the African Diaspora, hunkering into the rich shores of jazz right here in Southern California."
"The Babatunde Lea Quintet took us on a compelling musical trip through the African Diaspora, hunkering into the rich shores of jazz right here in Southern California."
– Dee Dee McNeil, Allaboutjazz.com
"Lea's quartet relied heavily on traditional African rhythms with an influence of Latin origins. The sound quality was top-notch and the fast-paced music had influences of bebop."
– Peter Hironaka, Spartan Daily
"Lea's quartet relied heavily on traditional African rhythms with an influence of Latin origins. The sound quality was top-notch and the fast-paced music had influences of bebop."
– Stephanie Brown, The Boston Globe"Yearning, uplift, and ancestry permeate this celebration of late vocalist Leon Thomas, a leading figure of post-Coltrane spiritual jazz who combined deep melodicism with a signature yodel-like technique on classics like Pharoah Sanders’s “Creator Has a Master Plan.”
"The deep love Babatunde Lea felt, and obviously still feels, for Leon Thomas and the music they made together comes through on every note of this disc."
– Phil Freeman, All Music Guide
"For this beautiful tribute to the spirit and music of Thomas, Lea captures the mesmerizing essence of Thomas ...not only a wonderful tribute to a great artist, but a tremendous work in its own right."
"For this beautiful tribute to the spirit and music of Thomas, Lea captures the mesmerizing essence of Thomas ...not only a wonderful tribute to a great artist, but a tremendous work in its own right."
– Glenn Daniels, Thejazzpage.com
Metro Times
by W. Kim Heron, 9/30/09
Umbo Weti - A Tribute to Leon Thomas 1937-1999: Babatunde Lea, Motéma Music
The great Leon Thomas turns out to be not so inimitable after all. And that's not a bad thing. Thomas, for the uninitiated, started out as a Basie band blues-belter in the mold of Joe Williams, then became the vocalist most identified with the post-Coltrane avant-garde. In addition to his bedrock of blues, he brought a prayerful presence to invocations like "The Creator Has a Master Plan." And he met the volcanic horn solos of Pharoah Sanders, for instance, with some heat of his own: a kind of avant-yodel that we might not have expected anyone to pick up on in his wake.
But here's vocalist Dwight Trible covering all of Thomas' bases in a band led by Thomas' former percussionist Babatunde Lea. This is a tribute disc in the narrow sense of celebrating its subject rather than taking his work into new areas. We get such Thomas classics as the aforementioned "Creator," "Boom Boom" (from the John Lee Hooker songbook), "Cousin Mary" and the title track (and thankfully leaving behind Thomas' badly dated "China Doll"). Saxophonist Ernie Watts, keyboardist Patrice Rushen and bassist Gary Brown round complete the band.
http://metrotimes.com/news/story.asp?id=14417
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Motéma, (mo-tay-ma) means 'Heart' in the Language of 'Lingala' ...matters of the essential, authentic, intimate and powerful heart. For booking information, please contact booking@motema.com.