Delicious Peace: Coffee, Music & Interfaith Harmony In Uganda is actually the title of an incredibly upbeat story of recovery and healing spun on a musical axis through sixteen exceptional songs.
J.J. Keki & The Peace Kawomera Jazz Band "Get Up & Grow Coffee"
The song I started today's Sound Travels with was from this amzing compilation of field recordings made by Jeffrey Summit, on assignment in Uganda's coffee growing regions for Smithsonian Folkways' music department. Usually, the Smithsonian's endeavors in sound are decidedly scholastic, and for their accuracy they are usually hard to dig as a music "fan." This one however, is much better than the ones I've heard in the past; rustic and rootsy, but fresh, more living history than glance at some near-forgotten past. But that's what they are, preservers of cuture and taxonomers.
Integrated Rural Development Support Program's Choir "Hit The Jerrycan!"
Delicious Peace: Coffee, Music & Interfaith Harmony In Uganda, is a bit different. Not only a testament to improvements in field recording, but also of recovery efforts in Uganda. A country recovering from the ravages wrought by the dictatorship of Idi Amin and the violence and intolerance it fostered.
Akuseka Takuwa Kongo Group "The Benefits Of Coffee"
This is music recorded in the village of Namonyomi, Uganda by regular folks. Coffee growers, farmers, Muslims, Christians and Jews who just a few years ago were in conflict. Now, they're living in relative harmony operating a small coffee cooperative and at the center of a grassroots change in the coffee industry in Uganda.
