**** Barungwa

THE MESSENGERS

(B&W Music)

B&W Music is going after South African jazz musicians in a big way. It's more than about time some domestic label did. And Barungwa are the most exciting group I've heard thus far on the B&W label. They consist of two South African jazzsters -- singer Max Mntambo and keyboardist Moses Molelekwa -- working in an African studio with a talented pair of English jazzmen, drummer/producer Andrew Missingham and saxophonist Chris Bowden, and a small army of guest vocalists, percussionists, and hornmen. The result? An electrifying fusion, the kind of music you wish Hugh Masekela had recorded. Imagine that the voices of Township Jive meet the Young Lions live at Birdland during a night dedicated to acid jazz, and they tear into nine molten originals plus a cover of "Tutu" by Miles Davis that turns Marcus Miller's lukewarm fusion into luminous voodoo bop. That's The Messengers.

-- Norman Weinstein