Tabu Ley Rochereau

Critics can be awfully hard on rock and jazz pros, especially when the schlock impulse leads talented musicians to pander to the lowest common denominator—sort of like bad politicians. This characterization has long tarnished the stateside reputation of honey-tenored singer-bandleader Tabu Ley Rochereau, the other great man of modern Congolese music (alongside guitar hero Franco). But the two-disc retrospective The Voice of Lightness finally gives domestic listeners a lilting, gorgeous survey of the Rochereau his countryfolk know and worship, a pioneer who wrote jingles, started dance crazes and led a series of precision Vegas-caliber extravaganzas that moved Congolese music from its emphasis on Cuban rumba toward a streamlined homegrown style called soukous. Perusing the credits in the 40-page booklet also shows that Rochereau put a good number of the soukous generation’s ace guitarists, singers and percussionists through their paces.