ON THE OFFBEAT : Thriving on a Collision of Cultures

Pop music thrives on the collisions of cultures. Look what happened when the Mississippi Delta blues was transplanted to Chicago. Consider the myriad of ingredients that spiced New Orleans R&B.; A geographic area may spawn music with common elements--particularly rhythmic--but it’s the cross-fertilization of different styles that creates the most heady hybrids.

Take the sweep of music found around the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean--the focus of this edition of On the Offbeat, a periodic review of roots, international and non-mainstream pop. The music from those coastal regions has made its home in nortenas cantinas and sweaty Jamaican dance halls, in swank jazz clubs and high-tech Parisian recording studios.

STEVE JORDAN

“The Return of El Parche.” Rounder.

Jordan is a one-eyed Tex-Mex performer who has been dubbed the Jimi Hendrix of the accordion. This compilation of material recorded from 1976 to 1984 is the first of his 34 albums to be released on a label with easy access for Anglos. It’s a good introduction to this wild and woolly talent, who appeared briefly in the films “True Stories” and “Born in East L.A.” You can hear why Jordan has made purists cringe. His solos and the arrangements spin off on unexpected tangents, and his tone is tart, florid and vaguely European (“Oaxaca” even recalls Argentine tango maestro Astor Piazzolla). The Spanish version of “Yakity Yak” is fun, but it’s Jordan’s flair and unpredictability that make him special.

MOSE ALLISON

“Greatest Hits--The Prestige Collection.” Prestige.

Wildness is not part of Mose Allison’s game plan. The Mississippi-born pianist is all understatement, his gently funky piano and weathered, soft-spoken drawl putting a lazy jazz tinge to material often drawn from the songbooks of Delta bluesmen. Allison has mined the same vein for more than 30 years, which makes him the kind of musician a casual fan can explore through a greatest-hits collection . . . like this one, where some 1957-59 classics--”Parchman Farm,” “Lost Mind,” “The Seventh Son,” “Young Man Blues”--are given the quietly insinuating Allison treatment.

TIGER

“Bam Bam.” RAS.

Quietly insinuating definitely doesn’t apply to Tiger, a young Jamaican toaster with a harsh, raspy voice and a taste for ferociously up-tempo dance-hall rhythms. Tiger’s intense energy on selections like “Do It Any Way” forces you to take notice, but the best moments on his second album come when he slows down a bit and settles into the high-stepping grooves of “Decent Man” and the title track. The combination of his rasp, his high-speed delivery and his accent makes it hard to understand what he’s raving on about, but he makes you pay attention.

VARIOUS ARTISTS

“When the Time Comes: Rebel Soca.” Shanachie.

This compilation spotlights a period when the popular Caribbean music known as soca --short for soul calypso --was heavily influenced by reggae. Calypso lyrics are often political, but the focus here falls too heavily on message over melody. And it’s even hard to make out some of the lyrics. Nelson’s “When De Time Comes” and Johnny King’s “War Mongers” cut through the murky production, but the opening song--Safi Abdullah’s “Afrika Is Burning”--sets such a high standard with its majestic, reggae-tinged arrangement and barbed lyrics that the remainder of “Rebel Soca” pales in comparison.

GAZOLINN

“Gazolinn.” Rhythmo-Disc (French import).

While Kassav’ is the most visible of the bands working in the exciting new zouk style, this unit is often credited as the most musically challenging. That assessment doesn’t sound far-fetched on “Gazolinn,” a successful marriage of tropical dance pulses and sophisticated arrangements.

“Machann’ Lanmou” moves without a hitch from hard funk to pure salsa; “C.B.W.I.” follows a jazzy blues harmonica solo with an excursion to carnival time down at percussion junction. Best of all is “Tchie Moin Pa Pare,” which opens with upscale Euro-pop before shifting gears as a synthesizer melody ushers in massed vocal harmonies playing so smoothly off the horn lines that you instinctively realize that this is elemental, primal zouk from the islands. The big drawback: only 30 minutes of music.

QUATRE ETOILES

“Dance.” Tangent (French import).

One fascinating development in international music has been the collaborations between French-speaking African and Antillean musicians in Parisian recording studios. Zouk or soca e lements have been popping up more frequently in African pop records, and “Dance” is a marvelous example by this “supergroup” of prominent musicians from Zaire. The guitar drive and gentle lilt are Zairian traits, while the crackling horn lines and contemporary synthesizer squiggles inject Caribbean color. The vocal harmonies mesh beautifully, but the star among these four stars is lead guitarist Syran M’benza, who brings a feathery, bluesy touch (that shouldn’t sound foreign to Mark Knopfler fans) to solos on “Mayanga” and “Ba Relations.” Imaginative arrangements and fine performances add up to a great record.