Chaino - Jungle Echoes - The Best Of (2012)

The self-styled "percussion genius of Africa," exotica-era enigma Chaino was actually born Leon Johnson in Philadelphia in 1927; raised primarily in Chicago, the details of his early life are largely a mystery, although at some point he learned to play the bongos and began touring the so-called "chitlin" circuit of black nightclubs. During the mid-1950s he surfaced in Los Angeles, and with producer Kirby Allan entered the famed Gold Star studio to record a series of otherworldly jungle exotica LPs; the first, the 1958 Verve label release Jungle Mating Rhythms, featured not only a lurid fusion of African rhythms, primal chants and lusty moaning-and-groaning but also liner notes claiming "Chaino is the only survivor of a lost race of people from the wilds of the jungle in a remote part of central Africa where few white men have ever been...(he) could play seven or more drums at the same time, with such a blur of speed that you can hardly see his hands." In the months which followed, Chaino issued three more albums -- Jungle Echoes, Night of the Spectre and Africana -- each for a different label; on occasion, he also worked as a session musician, and even appeared in pair of feature films, Nighttide and The Devil's Hand. A notoriously difficult and eccentric figure, however, in time he and Allan parted ways, and Chaino's activities over the decades to follow remain unknown; with the resurgence of interest in exotica during the mid-1990s, his brother George Johnson discovered the percussionist's whereabouts and briefly brought him back home to Chicago. Chaino nevertheless resumed his nomadic ways soon after; following surgery to remove a brain tumor, he suffered a fatal heart attack on July 8, 1999.

Tracklist:
01 - Chaino - Jungle Mood (2:32)
02 - Chaino - Swingin' Congo Bird (2:33)
03 - Chaino - Gone Ape (2:31)
04 - Chaino - Bongo Serenade (2:57)
05 - Chaino - Jungle Love Chant (2:25)
06 - Chaino - Swamp Girl (3:20)
07 - Chaino - Walking Bongos (2:15)
08 - Chaino - Bad and Beautiful (2:34)
09 - Chaino - Bi La (2:39)
10 - Chaino - The Spear Dance (2:43)
11 - Chaino - Soo-Mak (3:48)
12 - Chaino - Bongo Stick Boogie (2:26)
13 - Chaino - Jungle Chase (2:55)
14 - Chaino - Toomba-Leeru (2:25)
15 - Chaino - Watusi Ceremonial Dance (2:40)
16 - Chaino - Poko Cha Cha (2:44)
17 - Chaino - Torture of the Mau Mau (2:19)
18 - Chaino - Ubangi Rock (2:19)
19 - Chaino - Johannesburg Blues (4:11)
20 - Chaino - Bongos and Whistling (2:12)
21 - Chaino - Breathing Bongos (2:12)
22 - Chaino - Jungle Drums (2:47)
23 - Chaino - Ceremonial Feast Dance (3:22)
24 - Chaino - Slave Girl (2:52)
25 - Chaino - Cumba See (2:25)
26 - Chaino - African Jazz (2:19)
27 - Chaino - Rockin' Bird Bongo (2:26)