http://www.officialhankjones.com
http://www.cheick-tidiane-seck.com
Country : USA , Mali
Genre : World Music
Style : Jazz Fusion World , Afro Jazz
Label : Verve
Tracklist :
01. Aly Kawélé
22. Sarala
03. Maningafoly
04. Tounia Kanibala
05. Komidiara
06. Fantaguè
07. Mâkè
08. Walidi ya
09. Soundjata
10. Hank Miri
11. Hadja Fadima
12. Moriba Ka Foly
http://www.ebotaylor-loveanddeath.com
https://www.myspace.com/ebotaylor
Origine du Groupe : Ghana
Style : Afrobeat , Afro-Jazz-Funk , World Music
Sortie : 2012
By Robin Denselow from http://www.bbc.co.uk
A fine new studio set mixing traditional sounds and sturdy funk.
Ebo Taylor may be in his mid-70s, but the versatile guitarist, singer and songwriter is still one of the finest musicians in West Africa, covering Highlife to Afrobeat, jazz and traditional songs. Starting out in Ghana in the 1950s, he was influenced by Highlife pioneer E.T. Mensah, who mixed West African influences with American big band styles brought to the region during the Second World War. Since then, Taylor has released solo albums and worked with a series of bands, including the Apagya Show Band. He has been helped recently by London-based label Strut, behind Taylor’s excellent 2010 studio album Love and Death and the following compilation, Life Stories.
Appia Kwa Bridge is a new studio album, recorded in Berlin with members of the Afrobeat Academy, with whom he was been touring since they recorded Love and Death together. It’s a sturdy set of mostly new material mixing Afrobeat and funk with traditional influences. “I wanted to go back to a Highlife feeling with this album,” he has explained. “The songs are very personal and it is an important part of my music to keep alive many traditional Fante songs, war chants and children’s rhymes.”
The results switch between sturdy brass-backed big band pieces and solo works. Opener Aysesama – “a Fante war song… the song of victory” – struts confidently, driven by fine saxophone work. Elsewhere, there’s insistent, chugging brass on the religious song Abonsam, one of several tracks on which Taylor contributes powerful vocals and delivers a finely fluid, jazz-influenced guitar solo.
There’s more of his excellent guitar work on the upbeat Assomdwee, another religious piece that features compelling percussion from the great Tony Allen. Then comes a jangling funk piece, based on a nursery rhyme said to have been “composed by a lunatic in Saltpond, my home town on Ghana’s Cape coast”, and the cheerful title-track, also influenced by life in Saltpond (Appia Kwa Bridge is apparently a favourite lovers’ rendezvous).
Taylor may be best-known for his guitar solos with big band backing, but there are a couple of solo tracks featuring just his guitar and voice. Yaa Amponsah, a favourite song in Ghana that dates back to the 1920s, and Barrima, a finely-sung lament for the death of his first wife, are further reminders of his impressive range.
Tracklist :
01. Ayesama 7:04
02. Abonsam 5:31
03. Nsu Na Kwan 4:47
04. Yaa Amponsah 4:26
05. Assom Dwee 5:55
06. Kruman Dey 4:39
07. Appia Kwa Bridge 5:30
08. Barrima 3:27
http://www.ebotaylor-loveanddeath.com
https://www.myspace.com/ebotaylor
Origine du Groupe : Ghana
Style : Afrobeat , Afro-Jazz-Funk , World Music
Sortie : 2012
By Robin Denselow from http://www.bbc.co.uk
A fine new studio set mixing traditional sounds and sturdy funk.
Ebo Taylor may be in his mid-70s, but the versatile guitarist, singer and songwriter is still one of the finest musicians in West Africa, covering Highlife to Afrobeat, jazz and traditional songs. Starting out in Ghana in the 1950s, he was influenced by Highlife pioneer E.T. Mensah, who mixed West African influences with American big band styles brought to the region during the Second World War. Since then, Taylor has released solo albums and worked with a series of bands, including the Apagya Show Band. He has been helped recently by London-based label Strut, behind Taylor’s excellent 2010 studio album Love and Death and the following compilation, Life Stories.
Appia Kwa Bridge is a new studio album, recorded in Berlin with members of the Afrobeat Academy, with whom he was been touring since they recorded Love and Death together. It’s a sturdy set of mostly new material mixing Afrobeat and funk with traditional influences. “I wanted to go back to a Highlife feeling with this album,” he has explained. “The songs are very personal and it is an important part of my music to keep alive many traditional Fante songs, war chants and children’s rhymes.”
The results switch between sturdy brass-backed big band pieces and solo works. Opener Aysesama – “a Fante war song… the song of victory” – struts confidently, driven by fine saxophone work. Elsewhere, there’s insistent, chugging brass on the religious song Abonsam, one of several tracks on which Taylor contributes powerful vocals and delivers a finely fluid, jazz-influenced guitar solo.
There’s more of his excellent guitar work on the upbeat Assomdwee, another religious piece that features compelling percussion from the great Tony Allen. Then comes a jangling funk piece, based on a nursery rhyme said to have been “composed by a lunatic in Saltpond, my home town on Ghana’s Cape coast”, and the cheerful title-track, also influenced by life in Saltpond (Appia Kwa Bridge is apparently a favourite lovers’ rendezvous).
Taylor may be best-known for his guitar solos with big band backing, but there are a couple of solo tracks featuring just his guitar and voice. Yaa Amponsah, a favourite song in Ghana that dates back to the 1920s, and Barrima, a finely-sung lament for the death of his first wife, are further reminders of his impressive range.
Tracklist :
01. Ayesama 7:04
02. Abonsam 5:31
03. Nsu Na Kwan 4:47
04. Yaa Amponsah 4:26
05. Assom Dwee 5:55
06. Kruman Dey 4:39
07. Appia Kwa Bridge 5:30
08. Barrima 3:27
http://www.myspace.com/bandaolifante
Origine du Groupe : Italia
Style : Alternative Fusion World Music , Afro Jazz Funk , Brass Fusion
Sortie : 2009
By George De Stefano from http://www.rootsworld.com
Brass bands became popular in Italian towns and villages in the 1800s, performing for funerals and religious processions and rituals. The bande also brought the music of opera houses and symphony
halls - albeit in easily digested excerpts - to the workers and peasants who hadn't the means or inclination to enter those temples of high culture. Italian immigrants formed bande in North
America, often under the auspices of Catholic parishes, and the tradition still endures. On religious feast days and other holidays, the marching band of St. Mary's Church parades through the
streets of my Queens, New York neighborhood, playing their repertoire of hymns, marches, arias and Neapolitan songs.
In Italy, some noted jazz and pop artists have turned to banda as a vehicle for new forms of expression. Sicily's Roy Paci, who started out as a trumpeter in jazz bands, has collaborated with two
groups, Banda Ionica and Banda D'Avola. The latter, which specializes in secular marches, is a typical Sicilian marching band, full of brassy exuberance. Ionica, especially on their Paci-produced
album "Matri Mia" (2002), are far less traditional and much more irreverent - check their madcap version of folksinger Rosa Balestreri's lament, "Mi votu e mi rivotu." With its cabaret cum banda
arrangement and vocal in Sicilian and German, it sounds like Paci's channeling Kurt Weill.
With his band Aretuska, Paci made something wonderful out of that cheesy bit of americanata called "Mambo Italiano." Paci's "Cantu sicilianu" opens with the horn section playing a slow and solemn
intro before the full band bursts into rollicking ska, as if the coffin being carried through the streets of Palermo in a funeral procession suddenly popped open and the corpse leapt out and
started dancing.
The debut CD of Banda Olifante isn't as innovative as Paci's work with Ionica and Aretuska. But Olifante has made a well crafted and thoroughly enjoyable recording that is grounded in the Italian
banda tradition but isn't limited to it, either in repertoire or instrumentation. Besides brass and woodwinds, the 13-piece ensemble includes double bass and drum kit, as well as African and
Afro-Cuban percussion. Led by two veteran jazz players, Stefano Bertozzi and Massimo Eusebio, this self-described "brass fusion band" exudes an infectious energy and joy in music-making.
The band's name refers to a medieval carved ivory horn - hence the rendering of an elephant on the CD jacket - celebrated in the Chanson de Roland. Most of the medieval olifants made in southern
Italy were the handiwork of Arab craftsmen, according to the Oxford Companion to Musical Instruments. Perhaps in homage to this lineage, Banda Olifante serves up several Maghrebi-influenced
numbers. But the record, which deftly straddles jazz and world music, also has the Balkans, Jewish Eastern Europe, Spain and Latin America, India, New Orleans, and Africa in the mix.
The album opens with a folksy touch - the creaky but jovial voice of an elderly Italian man offering a blessing of "pace and fortuna" (peace and good luck). That nicely sets the tone - warm and
ebullient - for the twelve tracks, most of them original compositions, which follow. The band kicks in with "La Madonna dell'Uso," a stirring, echt-Southern Italian number that sounds traditional
but was written by reedman Stefano Bertozzi. The players don't hang around the Mezzogiorno for long. The next track, the misleadingly titled "Casbah Funk," evokes Manu Dibango and the Average
White Band. "Los Peces," a Christmas carol popular in Spain and Latin America, is of unknown authorship, but the melody has definite Arabic qualities. Olifante's rendition, however, brings the
song closer to klezmer.
There's a pronounced klezmer flavor throughout the record - Italians are crazy for shtetl soul - and one of the best tracks, "Biba Zoom," features The Klezmatics' trumpeter Frank London. The band
turns to India with "Man Chali," the theme of a popular 1970s Hindi film of the same name, while "Big Noise" is Latin jazz, complete with the rhythmic scrape of a guiro and a clave heartbeat.
Saxophonist-composer Oliver Lake's "Africa" is the album's only other straight-up jazz number. It's well played, but I wish the soloists had been given a little more space to cut loose.
The members of Olifante are all strong players - it's no secret that the level of musicianship in Italian bands tends to be quite high - and their guests are pretty impressive, too. Besides Frank
London, there's accordionist Simone Zanchini, whose solo heats up "Le Moko," its Gallic-North African ambiance inspired by "Pépé le Moko," the 1937 French film about a Marseille gangster hiding
out in Algiers. "Eclipse," the only track with vocals, features Vincenzo Vasi, a self-described practitioner of "musica eterodossa" - we can call him an avant-gardist - whose wordless, percussive
chant is reminiscent of Tuvan throat singing.
Banda Olifante reminds me of another Italian big band, the Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio. Led by an Italian, Mario Tronco, formerly of Avion Travel, but composed of immigrants to Italy, the
orchestra's material reflects its members' musical cultures - Indian, Arabic, African, and Latin American. Olifante, though an all-Italian band, has a similarly multicultural repertoire. And both
bands, their strengths not withstanding, suffer from the same weakness: so much eclecticism makes for a diffuse group identity. What is Banda Olifante, besides a group of highly proficient
musicians playing various "ethnic" musics? Maybe their next record will give us a better idea.
Tracklist :
1. La Madonna dell’Uso (S. Bertozzi)
2. Casbah Funk (S. Bertozzi)
3. Le Moko (S. Bertozzi)
4. Big Noise (Blood Brothers)
5. Man Chali (trad.)
6. Africa (O. Lake)
7. Eclipse (S. Bertozzi)
8. Los Peces (trad.)
9. Biba Zoom (L. Militi)
10. Ksar el Souk (G. A. Coatti)
11. Barab (F. Tassani)
12. Grecale (S. Bertozzi)
http://www.myspace.com/bandaolifante
Origine du Groupe : Italia
Style : Alternative Fusion World Music , Afro Jazz Funk , Brass Fusion
Sortie : 2009
By George De Stefano from http://www.rootsworld.com
Brass bands became popular in Italian towns and villages in the 1800s, performing for funerals and religious processions and rituals. The bande also brought the music of opera houses and symphony
halls - albeit in easily digested excerpts - to the workers and peasants who hadn't the means or inclination to enter those temples of high culture. Italian immigrants formed bande in North
America, often under the auspices of Catholic parishes, and the tradition still endures. On religious feast days and other holidays, the marching band of St. Mary's Church parades through the
streets of my Queens, New York neighborhood, playing their repertoire of hymns, marches, arias and Neapolitan songs.
In Italy, some noted jazz and pop artists have turned to banda as a vehicle for new forms of expression. Sicily's Roy Paci, who started out as a trumpeter in jazz bands, has collaborated with two
groups, Banda Ionica and Banda D'Avola. The latter, which specializes in secular marches, is a typical Sicilian marching band, full of brassy exuberance. Ionica, especially on their Paci-produced
album "Matri Mia" (2002), are far less traditional and much more irreverent - check their madcap version of folksinger Rosa Balestreri's lament, "Mi votu e mi rivotu." With its cabaret cum banda
arrangement and vocal in Sicilian and German, it sounds like Paci's channeling Kurt Weill.
With his band Aretuska, Paci made something wonderful out of that cheesy bit of americanata called "Mambo Italiano." Paci's "Cantu sicilianu" opens with the horn section playing a slow and solemn
intro before the full band bursts into rollicking ska, as if the coffin being carried through the streets of Palermo in a funeral procession suddenly popped open and the corpse leapt out and
started dancing.
The debut CD of Banda Olifante isn't as innovative as Paci's work with Ionica and Aretuska. But Olifante has made a well crafted and thoroughly enjoyable recording that is grounded in the Italian
banda tradition but isn't limited to it, either in repertoire or instrumentation. Besides brass and woodwinds, the 13-piece ensemble includes double bass and drum kit, as well as African and
Afro-Cuban percussion. Led by two veteran jazz players, Stefano Bertozzi and Massimo Eusebio, this self-described "brass fusion band" exudes an infectious energy and joy in music-making.
The band's name refers to a medieval carved ivory horn - hence the rendering of an elephant on the CD jacket - celebrated in the Chanson de Roland. Most of the medieval olifants made in southern
Italy were the handiwork of Arab craftsmen, according to the Oxford Companion to Musical Instruments. Perhaps in homage to this lineage, Banda Olifante serves up several Maghrebi-influenced
numbers. But the record, which deftly straddles jazz and world music, also has the Balkans, Jewish Eastern Europe, Spain and Latin America, India, New Orleans, and Africa in the mix.
The album opens with a folksy touch - the creaky but jovial voice of an elderly Italian man offering a blessing of "pace and fortuna" (peace and good luck). That nicely sets the tone - warm and
ebullient - for the twelve tracks, most of them original compositions, which follow. The band kicks in with "La Madonna dell'Uso," a stirring, echt-Southern Italian number that sounds traditional
but was written by reedman Stefano Bertozzi. The players don't hang around the Mezzogiorno for long. The next track, the misleadingly titled "Casbah Funk," evokes Manu Dibango and the Average
White Band. "Los Peces," a Christmas carol popular in Spain and Latin America, is of unknown authorship, but the melody has definite Arabic qualities. Olifante's rendition, however, brings the
song closer to klezmer.
There's a pronounced klezmer flavor throughout the record - Italians are crazy for shtetl soul - and one of the best tracks, "Biba Zoom," features The Klezmatics' trumpeter Frank London. The band
turns to India with "Man Chali," the theme of a popular 1970s Hindi film of the same name, while "Big Noise" is Latin jazz, complete with the rhythmic scrape of a guiro and a clave heartbeat.
Saxophonist-composer Oliver Lake's "Africa" is the album's only other straight-up jazz number. It's well played, but I wish the soloists had been given a little more space to cut loose.
The members of Olifante are all strong players - it's no secret that the level of musicianship in Italian bands tends to be quite high - and their guests are pretty impressive, too. Besides Frank
London, there's accordionist Simone Zanchini, whose solo heats up "Le Moko," its Gallic-North African ambiance inspired by "Pépé le Moko," the 1937 French film about a Marseille gangster hiding
out in Algiers. "Eclipse," the only track with vocals, features Vincenzo Vasi, a self-described practitioner of "musica eterodossa" - we can call him an avant-gardist - whose wordless, percussive
chant is reminiscent of Tuvan throat singing.
Banda Olifante reminds me of another Italian big band, the Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio. Led by an Italian, Mario Tronco, formerly of Avion Travel, but composed of immigrants to Italy, the
orchestra's material reflects its members' musical cultures - Indian, Arabic, African, and Latin American. Olifante, though an all-Italian band, has a similarly multicultural repertoire. And both
bands, their strengths not withstanding, suffer from the same weakness: so much eclecticism makes for a diffuse group identity. What is Banda Olifante, besides a group of highly proficient
musicians playing various "ethnic" musics? Maybe their next record will give us a better idea.
Tracklist :
1. La Madonna dell’Uso (S. Bertozzi)
2. Casbah Funk (S. Bertozzi)
3. Le Moko (S. Bertozzi)
4. Big Noise (Blood Brothers)
5. Man Chali (trad.)
6. Africa (O. Lake)
7. Eclipse (S. Bertozzi)
8. Los Peces (trad.)
9. Biba Zoom (L. Militi)
10. Ksar el Souk (G. A. Coatti)
11. Barab (F. Tassani)
12. Grecale (S. Bertozzi)
http://www.myspace.com/djukeobbo
http://www.myspace.com/ondavis
Origine du Groupe : North America
Style : Afrobeat , Afro Jazz , Free Jazz
Sortie : 2009
From http://www.rockpaperscissors.biz
Musical Nomads Taking Root: Guitarist On Ka’a Davis Builds a Home for Deep Black Grooves that Lead from Jazz Abstraction to Afrobeat
An incessant pulse runs through the African diaspora; it’s the beat that tears the roof off the cerebral avant garde. Classically trained experimental guitarist On Ka’a Davis discovered it while
squatting in the once derelict tenements of the Lower East Side. Davis and his Famous Original Djuke Music Players take this pulse on Seeds of Djuke (LiveWired Music; released April 21, 2009) and
retrace the long-lost taproot of a future music.
“The very first time I saw Sun Ra and his Arkestra was in Central Park,” Davis recalls. “They walked through the crowds, passing right by me. They were all wearing Egyptian make-up on their faces
and I thought, ‘This is the Blackest band I have ever seen in my life. This is Deep Nubian music.’” Two years after this revelation, Davis was playing in the Arkestra himself, living in the
communal setting in Philadelphia that was the social basis for Sun Ra’s group.
Davis traveled far to reach deep: from the R&B and prog rock grooves of his childhood home in Cleveland to the rigorous classical guitar training at Vienna’s Hochschule für Darstellende
Kunst, to the rollicking Roma riffs of the Austrian streets. There, he saw the ripple effect of jazz in a whole new light, discovering the bebop solos of Charlie Parker, the European classical
gestures of Keith Jarrett, the worldly improvisation of John McLaughlin. Busking alongside Roma musicians for pocket money, Davis experienced the “subset culture” of gypsy life, a world that
caused him to reflect on his own complex African American heritage.
Davis eventually wound up on New York’s Lower East Side, where he played for punks in the squatter revolution that transformed the neighborhood in the 1980s. The squatters’ battle to reclaim the
derelict shells of Lower Manhattan had its sonic side, with a groundbreaking (and regulation-defining) micro-broadcasting radio station and infamous shows in myriad basements. It was in the squat
that the outlines of what Davis calls djuke emerged, a music that draws on everything from Afrobeat sensibilities to Spanish classical guitar to space culture.
“The first idea for my music came out of basement rehearsing,” says Davis. “Our building on 13th Street hosted a lot of ‘Squat or Rot’ parties, and all the punks would come. That was the first
beginnings of the music, and ‘I Stayed Cool,’ for example, is an original tune, a Malian blues kind of thing, that survived from my band rehearsals in the squat. Some of the point of view I
express in my music has been tempered by my experience of being in a squat, by my need to express socially conscious ideals.”
As a musical squatter, Davis bivouacked wherever he went, but with djuke, he found an essence beyond genre, the Deep Blackness that united Sun Ra’s remapping of ancient Egyptian culture and
cosmic interpretation of Dogon legends of African space travel with Fela’s defiant poetics and rhythmic discipline.
It powers Davis’ perception of pulse-beat, a call to movement and rhythm that defies genre while defining it. “People learn to identify the beat of a music by genre, by namesake, a reggae
nyabinghi beat, or a mambo, or a rock beat,” Davis explains. “The idea of pulse-beat goes beyond that. It gives me the opportunity to create dance rhythms based on pulsations and the freedom to
work with rhythms that are overlapping, elliptic rhythms if you will, with 3 over 5.” The many shades of the pulse-beat shine on “Yea Yea!” and “No! No Go For It!” — setting what Davis
calls the “rhythmic cornerstones” of djuke.
Rhythm, for Davis, is about more than percussion; it is rooted in traditions like the “two-guitar” approach in R & B, when the guitars have a rhythmic as well as a melodic mission. This
approach dominates tracks like “Voodoo Ultralux,” where rhythmic parts combine in a fugue that “flows in and out like ocean waves.”
Deep Blackness inspires Davis’ quirky use of English, a personal pidgin and shout-out to Fela’s linguistic medium and message. "By altering the language, I can make it fit phrasing and rhythmic
schemes differently,” Davis notes. “That’s one thing I noticed about Fela's music. The language itself presupposes the rhythmic values of the music. You cannot get the same things in straight
English that you get with a patois.”
The power of patois is in full force on “Ain’t Nobody Teach Nobody Nothin’!” where the message has been transformed into a rhythmic statement that throws meaning in a new light. “I wanted to bend
it a certain way to force people to relate to the music divorced from any ownership of a high-brow identity,” Davis explains, “where everything is neatly said and nicely said and well understood.
I wanted people to have to think about what the words mean."
Deep Blackness is also why Davis adopts a more theatrical stage persona, inspired more by Hendrix or P-Funk than by the tennis shoes and black jeans of the New York experimental music scene. “Les
Paul, in his first efforts, took his electric guitar to a club to demonstrate. It was a block of wood with a guitar neck attached. Nobody was interested. They laughed at it,” Davis recounts. “He
realized if it looked more like a guitar, people would accept it better. So he built his next model with the outside shape of a guitar. He realized that people see the music first before they
hear it.”
Music’s impact on the eyes brought to mind the flamboyance that African American musicians had long employed to heighten their musical presence, a physicality often missing from the musical
avant-garde. “Having a style, a personality on stage has always been a tradition in Black music. It’s always been that either you dressed up looking sharp or you had some kind of atmosphere you
create with your look. I’d like to re-identify with that. It would help the music a lot.”
Reuniting body and soul with the fringe of sonic possibility lies at the heart of djuke, and Davis is building a new music with Seeds of Djuke, drafting “blueprints for future designs in the
music, whether it be harmonic or rhythmic schemes or both.” It brings the beat back to free jazz, getting listeners out on the dance floor. It creates avant-garde music that makes you “pat your
foot, snap your fingers,” Davis laughs, “makes you jump and dance around.”
“Jazz music is the ability to integrate music and dance,” Davis muses. “Charlie Parker recognized that. If I am using elements of the abstract, then the music has to be centered in the
round.”
Tracklist :
1. ...Speaking of You
2. Yea! Yea!
3. No! No Go for It!
4. Ain't Nobody Teach Nobody Nothin'!
5. Voodoo Ultralux
6. There, In Theatre
7. Return-Send
8. Splendor
9. Zero, Zero
10. I Ain't Scared
11. Na Na Not Me!
12. Ain't Nobody Teach... (Reprise)
13. Put It To It
14. We've Been Observing You
15. I Stayed Cool
16. Djuke No Go Die
17. Stars At On
http://www.myspace.com/djukeobbo
http://www.myspace.com/ondavis
Origine du Groupe : North America
Style : Afrobeat , Afro Jazz , Free Jazz
Sortie : 2009
From http://www.rockpaperscissors.biz
Musical Nomads Taking Root: Guitarist On Ka’a Davis Builds a Home for Deep Black Grooves that Lead from Jazz Abstraction to Afrobeat
An incessant pulse runs through the African diaspora; it’s the beat that tears the roof off the cerebral avant garde. Classically trained experimental guitarist On Ka’a Davis discovered it while
squatting in the once derelict tenements of the Lower East Side. Davis and his Famous Original Djuke Music Players take this pulse on Seeds of Djuke (LiveWired Music; released April 21, 2009) and
retrace the long-lost taproot of a future music.
“The very first time I saw Sun Ra and his Arkestra was in Central Park,” Davis recalls. “They walked through the crowds, passing right by me. They were all wearing Egyptian make-up on their faces
and I thought, ‘This is the Blackest band I have ever seen in my life. This is Deep Nubian music.’” Two years after this revelation, Davis was playing in the Arkestra himself, living in the
communal setting in Philadelphia that was the social basis for Sun Ra’s group.
Davis traveled far to reach deep: from the R&B and prog rock grooves of his childhood home in Cleveland to the rigorous classical guitar training at Vienna’s Hochschule für Darstellende
Kunst, to the rollicking Roma riffs of the Austrian streets. There, he saw the ripple effect of jazz in a whole new light, discovering the bebop solos of Charlie Parker, the European classical
gestures of Keith Jarrett, the worldly improvisation of John McLaughlin. Busking alongside Roma musicians for pocket money, Davis experienced the “subset culture” of gypsy life, a world that
caused him to reflect on his own complex African American heritage.
Davis eventually wound up on New York’s Lower East Side, where he played for punks in the squatter revolution that transformed the neighborhood in the 1980s. The squatters’ battle to reclaim the
derelict shells of Lower Manhattan had its sonic side, with a groundbreaking (and regulation-defining) micro-broadcasting radio station and infamous shows in myriad basements. It was in the squat
that the outlines of what Davis calls djuke emerged, a music that draws on everything from Afrobeat sensibilities to Spanish classical guitar to space culture.
“The first idea for my music came out of basement rehearsing,” says Davis. “Our building on 13th Street hosted a lot of ‘Squat or Rot’ parties, and all the punks would come. That was the first
beginnings of the music, and ‘I Stayed Cool,’ for example, is an original tune, a Malian blues kind of thing, that survived from my band rehearsals in the squat. Some of the point of view I
express in my music has been tempered by my experience of being in a squat, by my need to express socially conscious ideals.”
As a musical squatter, Davis bivouacked wherever he went, but with djuke, he found an essence beyond genre, the Deep Blackness that united Sun Ra’s remapping of ancient Egyptian culture and
cosmic interpretation of Dogon legends of African space travel with Fela’s defiant poetics and rhythmic discipline.
It powers Davis’ perception of pulse-beat, a call to movement and rhythm that defies genre while defining it. “People learn to identify the beat of a music by genre, by namesake, a reggae
nyabinghi beat, or a mambo, or a rock beat,” Davis explains. “The idea of pulse-beat goes beyond that. It gives me the opportunity to create dance rhythms based on pulsations and the freedom to
work with rhythms that are overlapping, elliptic rhythms if you will, with 3 over 5.” The many shades of the pulse-beat shine on “Yea Yea!” and “No! No Go For It!” — setting what Davis
calls the “rhythmic cornerstones” of djuke.
Rhythm, for Davis, is about more than percussion; it is rooted in traditions like the “two-guitar” approach in R & B, when the guitars have a rhythmic as well as a melodic mission. This
approach dominates tracks like “Voodoo Ultralux,” where rhythmic parts combine in a fugue that “flows in and out like ocean waves.”
Deep Blackness inspires Davis’ quirky use of English, a personal pidgin and shout-out to Fela’s linguistic medium and message. "By altering the language, I can make it fit phrasing and rhythmic
schemes differently,” Davis notes. “That’s one thing I noticed about Fela's music. The language itself presupposes the rhythmic values of the music. You cannot get the same things in straight
English that you get with a patois.”
The power of patois is in full force on “Ain’t Nobody Teach Nobody Nothin’!” where the message has been transformed into a rhythmic statement that throws meaning in a new light. “I wanted to bend
it a certain way to force people to relate to the music divorced from any ownership of a high-brow identity,” Davis explains, “where everything is neatly said and nicely said and well understood.
I wanted people to have to think about what the words mean."
Deep Blackness is also why Davis adopts a more theatrical stage persona, inspired more by Hendrix or P-Funk than by the tennis shoes and black jeans of the New York experimental music scene. “Les
Paul, in his first efforts, took his electric guitar to a club to demonstrate. It was a block of wood with a guitar neck attached. Nobody was interested. They laughed at it,” Davis recounts. “He
realized if it looked more like a guitar, people would accept it better. So he built his next model with the outside shape of a guitar. He realized that people see the music first before they
hear it.”
Music’s impact on the eyes brought to mind the flamboyance that African American musicians had long employed to heighten their musical presence, a physicality often missing from the musical
avant-garde. “Having a style, a personality on stage has always been a tradition in Black music. It’s always been that either you dressed up looking sharp or you had some kind of atmosphere you
create with your look. I’d like to re-identify with that. It would help the music a lot.”
Reuniting body and soul with the fringe of sonic possibility lies at the heart of djuke, and Davis is building a new music with Seeds of Djuke, drafting “blueprints for future designs in the
music, whether it be harmonic or rhythmic schemes or both.” It brings the beat back to free jazz, getting listeners out on the dance floor. It creates avant-garde music that makes you “pat your
foot, snap your fingers,” Davis laughs, “makes you jump and dance around.”
“Jazz music is the ability to integrate music and dance,” Davis muses. “Charlie Parker recognized that. If I am using elements of the abstract, then the music has to be centered in the
round.”
Tracklist :
1. ...Speaking of You
2. Yea! Yea!
3. No! No Go for It!
4. Ain't Nobody Teach Nobody Nothin'!
5. Voodoo Ultralux
6. There, In Theatre
7. Return-Send
8. Splendor
9. Zero, Zero
10. I Ain't Scared
11. Na Na Not Me!
12. Ain't Nobody Teach... (Reprise)
13. Put It To It
14. We've Been Observing You
15. I Stayed Cool
16. Djuke No Go Die
17. Stars At On
Origine du Groupe : Brazil
Style : World Music , Afro Samba
Sortie : 2011
Par Olivier Cathus pour http://lelixirdudrfunkathus.blogspot.com
Avec “Metá Metá”, Kiko Dinucci, Juçara Marçal et Thiago França nous offrent un plongeon sans retour dans la nouvelle scène afro-samba brésilienne
Quand on pense à São Paulo, ce n’est pas le samba qui nous vient à l’esprit. Même s’il a existé de grandes figures locales en la matière (Adoniran Barbosa, Paulo Vanzolini…), l’industrieuse
mégapole est plutôt cet incroyable carrefour cosmopolite où germent les formes métissées-globalisées d’un Brésil moderne, rock et électro. Pourtant, il existe aussi une scène pauliste qui creuse
vers ses racines afro-brésiliennes, qui s’imprègne de sa spiritualité et vibre de ses rythmes. Une scène indépendante, qui outre son effervescence artistique, essaie d’inventer un nouveau modèle
pour diffuser sa musique. Au centre de cette scène, on trouve Kiko Dinucci, jeune compositeur ayant trouvé son inspiration dans des afro-sambas très personnelles et originales. En compagnie de
Juçara Marçal et Thiago França, il vient de signer Metá Metá, un album qui risque fort de figurer parmi les plus beaux de l’année.
Avant de présenter ce disque, il me semble utile de préciser ce qu’on entend par afro-samba… On se souvient qu’en 1966, Vinícius de Moraes et Baden Powell ont enregistré certaines des chansons
qu’ils avaient composé ensemble un peu plus tôt. Ces chansons ont été réunies sur l’album Os Afro-Sambas. Assurément un des disques essentiels de la musique brésilienne. La particularité de cette
œuvre est qu’elle a trouvé son inspiration dans la spiritualité des religions afro-brésiliennes. Les chansons s’y faisant évocation des orixas de ce panthéon : “Lamento de Exu”, “Canto de
Ossanha”, etc… Le terme afro-samba pourrait n’être que bêtement redondant tant le samba est déjà en soi bien afro, si ce préfixe ne soulignait ici une particularité de plus, à savoir cette
inspiration spirituelle. Ainsi, sera considérée comme afro-samba, une musique qui chantera les orixas, aura recours à la langue yoruba (ou ce qu’il en reste) même si, paradoxe, elle n’est pas
stricto sensu… samba !
Si la notion d’afro-samba est encore associée au génie de Baden Powell, Kiko Dinucci ne s’en est jamais inspiré pour développer son jeu de guitare. Aux envolées de Baden, toujours à la limite de
la démence, il préfère une sobriété toute terrienne, posant les bases qui autorisent toutes les libertés à ses partenaires.
Né en 1977, Kiko Dinucci est un artiste qui a commencé par le rock avant d’évoluer vers le samba et de s’impliquer dans une recherche sur les religions afro-brésiliennes. Cette quête spirituelle
est même au cœur de son travail. S’il est musicien avant tout, Kiko Dinucci est également peintre, graveur (sur bois) et réalisateur. Il est ainsi l’auteur d’un film documentaire Dança das
Cabaças - Exu no Brasil où il s’est interrogé sur la place occupée par Exu dans l’imaginaire brésilien. En allant à la rencontre de dignitaires des Candomblés (de tradition Nagô, Gege ou
Bantoue), Tambor de Mina, Umbanda et Quimbanda, il souligne qu’Exu pourrait être décrit comme un “diable bon” quand, pendant des siècles, l’Eglise s’est acharnée à le diaboliser, engoncée dans
ses notions de Bien et de Mal manichéennes. Des notions plus ambigües et complexes dans les religions afro-brésiliennes et, surtout, qui ne sont pas le prisme obligée pour appréhender la vie.
Dans la musique de Kiko Dinucci, on trouve les échos de cette force spirituelle. Que ce soit avec son groupe, Banda AfroMacarrônico, ou ici avec ce dernier projet, c’est la véritable source
d’inspiration d’une grande partie de son travail. Metá Metá est un album surprenant, intense. Assurément un des albums de l’année pour qui aime les musiques brésiliennes exigeantes. Alors que
Kiko et Juçara Marçal collaborent depuis quelques années, ayant notamment enregistré ensemble l’album Padê en 2007, la rencontre avec le saxophone et la flûte de Thiago França vient grandement
enrichir leur musique et soutenir la voix magnifique de Juçara Marçal. Car pour incarner cette musique, il fallait une voix exceptionnelle, à rendre jalouses toutes ses consœurs, une voix
toujours juste, capable de tout chanter sans jamais forcer.
A eux trois, Kiko, Juçara et Thiago développent un son résolument original qui ne ressemble à nul autre. Si un des plus beaux titres de l’album, “Samuel”, composé par Kiko et Rodrigo Campos, est
un titre tout en douceur, il est par ailleurs très étonnant de constater que, sur cet album résolument afro, il n’y a ni batterie ni percussions sur la moitié des titres ! Mais quand Samba Ossalê
aux percussions et Sergio Machado à la batterie se mettent de la partie, sur la deuxième partie du disque, c’est une montée vertigineuse, comme si les orixas se mettaient au free !
Metá Metá est une œuvre qui ouvre les afro-sambas sur le jazz. Les tire jusqu’à l’afrobeat. Leur fait toucher sur “Obatalá”, tout en apaisement apollinien, une forme de spiritual jazz qui ne
déparerait pas sur un album du collectif Build An Ark. Une façon d’en faire des méta-afro-sambas, en quelque sorte. A ceci près que le sens de méta ici est tout autre. En effet, Metá Metá est un
mot yoruba qui signifie “trois en même temps”, soit une synthèse de trois éléments en un seul. Kiko Dinucci, Juçara Marçal et Thiago França incarnent cette idée à merveille. Non seulement l’album
est disponible gratuitement en téléchargement, mais vous pouvez également installez sur votre ordinateur l’application Bagagem sur le site de Kiko Dinucci, également gratuite, qui vous permet
d’écouter l’album en regardant les vidéos réalisées pour chacun des titres.
Tracklist :
1. Vale do Jucá
2. Umbigada
3. Papel Sulfite
4. Trovoa
5. Samuel
6. Vias de Fato
7. Oranian
8. Obá Iná
9. Obatalá
10. Ora Iê iê o
Origine du Groupe : Brazil
Style : World Music , Afro Samba
Sortie : 2011
Par Olivier Cathus pour http://lelixirdudrfunkathus.blogspot.com
Avec “Metá Metá”, Kiko Dinucci, Juçara Marçal et Thiago França nous offrent un plongeon sans retour dans la nouvelle scène afro-samba brésilienne
Quand on pense à São Paulo, ce n’est pas le samba qui nous vient à l’esprit. Même s’il a existé de grandes figures locales en la matière (Adoniran Barbosa, Paulo Vanzolini…), l’industrieuse
mégapole est plutôt cet incroyable carrefour cosmopolite où germent les formes métissées-globalisées d’un Brésil moderne, rock et électro. Pourtant, il existe aussi une scène pauliste qui creuse
vers ses racines afro-brésiliennes, qui s’imprègne de sa spiritualité et vibre de ses rythmes. Une scène indépendante, qui outre son effervescence artistique, essaie d’inventer un nouveau modèle
pour diffuser sa musique. Au centre de cette scène, on trouve Kiko Dinucci, jeune compositeur ayant trouvé son inspiration dans des afro-sambas très personnelles et originales. En compagnie de
Juçara Marçal et Thiago França, il vient de signer Metá Metá, un album qui risque fort de figurer parmi les plus beaux de l’année.
Avant de présenter ce disque, il me semble utile de préciser ce qu’on entend par afro-samba… On se souvient qu’en 1966, Vinícius de Moraes et Baden Powell ont enregistré certaines des chansons
qu’ils avaient composé ensemble un peu plus tôt. Ces chansons ont été réunies sur l’album Os Afro-Sambas. Assurément un des disques essentiels de la musique brésilienne. La particularité de cette
œuvre est qu’elle a trouvé son inspiration dans la spiritualité des religions afro-brésiliennes. Les chansons s’y faisant évocation des orixas de ce panthéon : “Lamento de Exu”, “Canto de
Ossanha”, etc… Le terme afro-samba pourrait n’être que bêtement redondant tant le samba est déjà en soi bien afro, si ce préfixe ne soulignait ici une particularité de plus, à savoir cette
inspiration spirituelle. Ainsi, sera considérée comme afro-samba, une musique qui chantera les orixas, aura recours à la langue yoruba (ou ce qu’il en reste) même si, paradoxe, elle n’est pas
stricto sensu… samba !
Si la notion d’afro-samba est encore associée au génie de Baden Powell, Kiko Dinucci ne s’en est jamais inspiré pour développer son jeu de guitare. Aux envolées de Baden, toujours à la limite de
la démence, il préfère une sobriété toute terrienne, posant les bases qui autorisent toutes les libertés à ses partenaires.
Né en 1977, Kiko Dinucci est un artiste qui a commencé par le rock avant d’évoluer vers le samba et de s’impliquer dans une recherche sur les religions afro-brésiliennes. Cette quête spirituelle
est même au cœur de son travail. S’il est musicien avant tout, Kiko Dinucci est également peintre, graveur (sur bois) et réalisateur. Il est ainsi l’auteur d’un film documentaire Dança das
Cabaças - Exu no Brasil où il s’est interrogé sur la place occupée par Exu dans l’imaginaire brésilien. En allant à la rencontre de dignitaires des Candomblés (de tradition Nagô, Gege ou
Bantoue), Tambor de Mina, Umbanda et Quimbanda, il souligne qu’Exu pourrait être décrit comme un “diable bon” quand, pendant des siècles, l’Eglise s’est acharnée à le diaboliser, engoncée dans
ses notions de Bien et de Mal manichéennes. Des notions plus ambigües et complexes dans les religions afro-brésiliennes et, surtout, qui ne sont pas le prisme obligée pour appréhender la vie.
Dans la musique de Kiko Dinucci, on trouve les échos de cette force spirituelle. Que ce soit avec son groupe, Banda AfroMacarrônico, ou ici avec ce dernier projet, c’est la véritable source
d’inspiration d’une grande partie de son travail. Metá Metá est un album surprenant, intense. Assurément un des albums de l’année pour qui aime les musiques brésiliennes exigeantes. Alors que
Kiko et Juçara Marçal collaborent depuis quelques années, ayant notamment enregistré ensemble l’album Padê en 2007, la rencontre avec le saxophone et la flûte de Thiago França vient grandement
enrichir leur musique et soutenir la voix magnifique de Juçara Marçal. Car pour incarner cette musique, il fallait une voix exceptionnelle, à rendre jalouses toutes ses consœurs, une voix
toujours juste, capable de tout chanter sans jamais forcer.
A eux trois, Kiko, Juçara et Thiago développent un son résolument original qui ne ressemble à nul autre. Si un des plus beaux titres de l’album, “Samuel”, composé par Kiko et Rodrigo Campos, est
un titre tout en douceur, il est par ailleurs très étonnant de constater que, sur cet album résolument afro, il n’y a ni batterie ni percussions sur la moitié des titres ! Mais quand Samba Ossalê
aux percussions et Sergio Machado à la batterie se mettent de la partie, sur la deuxième partie du disque, c’est une montée vertigineuse, comme si les orixas se mettaient au free !
Metá Metá est une œuvre qui ouvre les afro-sambas sur le jazz. Les tire jusqu’à l’afrobeat. Leur fait toucher sur “Obatalá”, tout en apaisement apollinien, une forme de spiritual jazz qui ne
déparerait pas sur un album du collectif Build An Ark. Une façon d’en faire des méta-afro-sambas, en quelque sorte. A ceci près que le sens de méta ici est tout autre. En effet, Metá Metá est un
mot yoruba qui signifie “trois en même temps”, soit une synthèse de trois éléments en un seul. Kiko Dinucci, Juçara Marçal et Thiago França incarnent cette idée à merveille. Non seulement l’album
est disponible gratuitement en téléchargement, mais vous pouvez également installez sur votre ordinateur l’application Bagagem sur le site de Kiko Dinucci, également gratuite, qui vous permet
d’écouter l’album en regardant les vidéos réalisées pour chacun des titres.
Tracklist :
1. Vale do Jucá
2. Umbigada
3. Papel Sulfite
4. Trovoa
5. Samuel
6. Vias de Fato
7. Oranian
8. Obá Iná
9. Obatalá
10. Ora Iê iê o
http://www.myspace.com/kouyateneerman
Origine du Groupe : France
Style : World Music , Afro-jazz , Alternative
Sortie : 2011
Pour http://hop.over-blog.com
D’un côté, le joueur de balafon Lansiné Kouyaté, de l’autre, le vibraphoniste David Neerman. Ensemble, ils forment un duo des plus détonants, jouant une musique aux consonances africaines mais
nourries d’influences rock, jazz, qui lui donnent une originalité folle. Explications.
En 2008, le duo Kouyaté-Neerman débutait une collaboration avec un premier album assez remarquable "kangara", mélangeant déjà des sons africains à des musiques occidentales. Trois ans plus tard,
leur second opus, "skyscrapers & deities", constitue une nouvelle étape dans le travail de collaboration entre le français et le malien, avec une volonté de proposer un album encore plus
fouillé, proposant une palette sonore encore plus large. Bien leur en a pris ca cette album se révèle être une des choses les plus passionnantes entendues durant cette rentrée.
Réunissant autour d’eux la kora de Ballake Sissoko, la voix d'Anthony Joseph, la batterie de David Aknin ou la contrebasse d’Antoine Simoni, ils revisitent le "Requiem pour un con" de
Gainsbourg et mettent un peu de rock indé dans la musique africaine en construisant des morceaux savamment arrangés, entre jazz, rock ou dub, dans lesquels le son du vibraphone trouve des
raisonnances toutes particulières grâce à un jeu de branchements assez audacieux.
De tout ça, ils tirent un album d’afro-beat moderne, varié et très harmonieux, aux ambiances cinématographiques, ou par moment presque psychédéliques, et dont on n’a jamais vraiment fini de faire
le tour. Une perle !
Tracklist :
01. Kalo Dié 4’36
02. Requiem pour un con 4’07
03. Diétou 4’23
04. Le Commissariat 2’22
05. Toumbéré 3’53
06. Phalènes 3’25
07. Haiti 5’21
08. Un Soleil Noir sur le Déclin 6’40
09. Hawagis 2’01
10. Djely 3’16
http://www.myspace.com/kouyateneerman
Origine du Groupe : France
Style : World Music , Afro-jazz , Alternative
Sortie : 2011
Pour http://hop.over-blog.com
D’un côté, le joueur de balafon Lansiné Kouyaté, de l’autre, le vibraphoniste David Neerman. Ensemble, ils forment un duo des plus détonants, jouant une musique aux consonances africaines mais
nourries d’influences rock, jazz, qui lui donnent une originalité folle. Explications.
En 2008, le duo Kouyaté-Neerman débutait une collaboration avec un premier album assez remarquable "kangara", mélangeant déjà des sons africains à des musiques occidentales. Trois ans plus tard,
leur second opus, "skyscrapers & deities", constitue une nouvelle étape dans le travail de collaboration entre le français et le malien, avec une volonté de proposer un album encore plus
fouillé, proposant une palette sonore encore plus large. Bien leur en a pris ca cette album se révèle être une des choses les plus passionnantes entendues durant cette rentrée.
Réunissant autour d’eux la kora de Ballake Sissoko, la voix d'Anthony Joseph, la batterie de David Aknin ou la contrebasse d’Antoine Simoni, ils revisitent le "Requiem pour un con" de
Gainsbourg et mettent un peu de rock indé dans la musique africaine en construisant des morceaux savamment arrangés, entre jazz, rock ou dub, dans lesquels le son du vibraphone trouve des
raisonnances toutes particulières grâce à un jeu de branchements assez audacieux.
De tout ça, ils tirent un album d’afro-beat moderne, varié et très harmonieux, aux ambiances cinématographiques, ou par moment presque psychédéliques, et dont on n’a jamais vraiment fini de faire
le tour. Une perle !
Tracklist :
01. Kalo Dié 4’36
02. Requiem pour un con 4’07
03. Diétou 4’23
04. Le Commissariat 2’22
05. Toumbéré 3’53
06. Phalènes 3’25
07. Haiti 5’21
08. Un Soleil Noir sur le Déclin 6’40
09. Hawagis 2’01
10. Djely 3’16
