Tony Allen & Hugh Masekela’s album Rejoice, originally released in March 2020, is set for a new expanded reissue.
Due out next month, Rejoice [Special Edition] takes in the original album, as well as unheard parts from the 2019 studio sessions that saw Allen finish the record with a number of guest musicians after Masekela died from prostate cancer in 2018. Those unheard parts have been added to Allen and Masekela’s original 2010 recordings to create eight additional reimagined bonus mixes. You can listen to one of those bonus mixes, ‘Slow Bones (Cool Cats Mix)’, above.
Rejoice was originally born from some studio time that Allen, who passed away in April 2020, and Masekela shared in 2010, with producer Nick Gold taking the opportunity to record the encounter. The unfinished sessions remained in the archives until after Masekela’s passing, with Allen and Gold, having received the blessing of Masekela’s estate, resolving to finish recording the album in summer 2019 at the same London studio where the original sessions had taken place. Allen and Masekela are accompanied on the record by a number of guest jazz musicians, including Tom Herbert (Acoustic Ladyland / The Invisible), Joe Armon-Jones (Ezra Collective), Mutale Chashi (Kokoroko) and Steve Williamson.
World Circuit will release Rejoice [Special Edition] on October 22, 2021.
