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Orchestra Makassy was a Tanzanian-Zairean soukous group and probably one of the best around in Tanzania. Formed in 1975 in Uganda and then forced into exile in Tanzania, the group included musicians who are still seen as greats decades later such as Remmy Ongala and Mose Fan Fan. This was the group people would flock to see at hotels and bars around the country, where they would treat audiences to covers as well as their own compositions and get them dancing.

This is the re-release on CD of the 1982 album Agwaya recorded in Kenya. It was an East African hit at the time of its first release. All are original tracks with a couple never released before. As a whole, the album still pushes all the right buttons nearly 20 years later. The soukous is there of course with the characteristic flowing electric guitar sounds, perfect pitch vocals and feet-tapping rumba rhythm.

On some of the tracks it is Orchestra Makassy’s brass section — vibrant and constantly blasting its way through many of the songs — that really takes the music up a notch, such as ‘Nakolela Cherie’. But then that’s followed by masterfully meandering guitar work from Mose Fan Fan that sounds like it should go on forever, as in ‘Mosese’, or the rousing vocals in the opening track ‘Mambo Bado’. And so it goes on…

Even today, soukous can be heard and danced to everywhere in East Africa and it still guarantees crowded dance floors but its when you hear an album like this that you realise how great it can sound — this is seamless musicianship from the masters.

Legends of East Africa Orchestra Makassy is released by ARC Music www.arcmusic.co.uk