The Benin-born guitarist and singer Lionel Loueke’s employers and mentors include jazz stars as big as Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter. Jazz and west African traditions mingle in both Loueke’s vocals and his vivid guitar sound. He regularly collaborates with the Belgian saxophonist/composer Nicolas Kummert, an original inspired by both post-bop and African music. This enticing set balances rhythmically limber quartet tracks and six intimate sax/guitar duets, the compositions being mostly Kummert’s, plus group and duo covers of a poignant Erik Satie Gnossienne and Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. Rainbow People is a kind of Celtic/west African dance; the group’s Hallelujah (driven by a muscular double bass line and busily pattering drums) is dreamily unfolded by Kummert’s tenor; Diversity Over Purity is earthily bluesy; We’ll Be Alright is a hard-rocking anthem. Whooshing tenor sax figures spin over hi-life guitar vamps in the duo pieces, alongside organ-mimicking guitar grooves, quiet spoken exchanges in English and French, and acoustic guitar and boppish sax swoops on the duo version of Gnossienne. It’s an enticingly hip and conversational set.
