The Ogun Collection


The Ogun Collection is a five-CD box set compilation album by The Blue Notes, featuring saxophonists Nick Moyake and Dudu Pukwana, trumpeter Mongezi Feza, pianist Chris McGregor, double bassist Johnny Dyani, and drummer Louis Moholo. It brings together the contents of four albums previously released by Ogun Records: Legacy: Live in South Afrika 1964 ; Blue Notes for Mongezi ; Blue Notes [in Concert Volume 1|Blue Notes in Concert] ; and Blue Notes for Johnny. The latter three albums appear here in expanded form. The Ogun Collection, which also includes a booklet containing photos and essays, was released by Ogun in 2008. In 2022, the label reissued all four albums as stand-alone releases, using the expanded versions found on the compilation.

Reception

The editors and critics of The Village Voice ranked the album #7 in their list of the top 10 jazz reissues of 2008. The Wires editors included it in their "2008 Rewind," listing the year's top releases.
In a review for The Guardian, John Fordham called the album "historic," and noted that the band's arrival in London "brought new sounds and a new attitude that had an incalculable influence."
A writer for Jazzwise wrote: "there was something truly special about these guys from the outset. Even when apart and engaged in their own projects, they were still Blue Notes first and the music they shared poured out into their solo work. And yet it is hard to imagine six more individually distinctive musical stylists."
Writing for Point of Departure, Bill Shoemaker commented: "The real power of a box set of recordings lies in it potential to alter your understanding of the history that you think you already know... Some box sets accomplish this through connecting dots previously thought to be unrelated. Others just grab you by the collar until it all sinks in... The Ogun Collection is one of the few that does both."
JazzWords Ken Waxman called the Blue Notes "arguably the best jazz band to emerge fully formed from Apartheid-era South Africa," one that "energized European – especially British – jazz by intermixing African rhythms and melodies, Hard Bop styling plus emerging Free Music," and stated that the album "leaves us with many examples of the skill and excitement the band exhibited in its time."
Jason Weiss of Itineraries of a Hummingbird described the album as "marvelous," and remarked: "Though the band had effectively broken up as a working ensemble by the late '60s, still it reunited occasionally: the Ogun box demonstrates their unique longevity, that of a family bond forged in exile."

Track listing

Disc 1: Legacy: Live in South Afrika 1964

  1. "Now" – 8:36
  2. "Coming Home" – 9:08
  3. "I Cover the Waterfront" – 9:22
  4. "Two for Sandi" – 10:32
  5. "Vortex Special" – 12:08
  6. "B My Dear" – 9:10
  7. "Dorkay House" – 13:52

Personnel