DESPERATE to see some live music on a trip to Ghana, I turned up at the open-air +233 Club in Accra one balmy evening, prepared to take in whoever was playing.

I fell on my feet as the Zuum International Band, a Ghanaian institution, were heading the bill.

Typical of the hard-working and versatile musical groups that ply their trade across West Africa, Zuum think nothing of playing non-stop for several hours.

While their bedrock is the local highlife music, they can turn their hand brilliantly to almost any other genre, usually with a Ghanaian feel to the arrangements.

They’d been on stage for well over three hours without a break when, mindful of a flight home the next day, I reluctantly decided to retreat to my bed. It’s possible they went on for much longer after my departure — there was certainly no sign of anyone getting tired or bored, either on stage or in the audience.

West African music also featured in another of my 2019 highlights, this time at Kings Place in London, where kora player Sona Jobarteh, British but of Gambian origin, knocked me off my feet.

Beautifully poised, strikingly good-looking and quietly charismatic, Jobarteh is the first woman to make a living out of playing the kora. There's no disputing that she's a master of her trade, which for seven centuries has been a male-only preserve in her ancestral lands.

Most of Jobarteh’s songs were extended pieces that showed off not only the breathtaking assurance of her flying fingers but the inspired professionalism of her four-piece band, calling and responding to their leader’s string-based invitations and matching her note for dizzying note.

Kings Place was also the venue for a stunning concert by Norwegian tuba player Daniel Herskedal, mainly showcasing material from Voyage, a beautiful collection of oceanic-themed tunes that turned out to be my album of the year.

Herskedal was certainly something to behold but so too was the utterly superb musicianship of his accompanists, Bergmund Waal Skaslien on viola, Eyolf Dale on piano and Helge Andreas Norbakken on drums and percussion.

It would be hard to imagine a group of musicians operating in such complete harmony and understanding, or with such inventive command of their instruments. They really were remarkable.