Post-Colonial African Groove of the Week #11 – Allalah Kounoudion
Posted on | July 23, 2010 | No Comments
Today we move back to Mandinka territory, specifically to Casamance, an area in southern Senegal south of the Gambia which was subject to both French and Portugese colonial rule at various points, for a track from one of the greatest of the “old guard” of Senegambian kora players, Lalo Keba Drame. (Senegambia refers to the combined area of Senegal and the Gambia, which share many similarities in kora styles, as contrasted with the slower, more stately styles prevalent farther east in Mali).
There is somewhat of a misconception going around these days that all kora music is necessarily slow, quiet, and very low-key. This is perpetuated by the kora albums which are most prevalent and available in the US and Europe. Although I am a huge fan of the “household name” kora players, if there are any such things, such as Toumani Diabate and Ballake Cissokho, I do have a certain love for the older, more “raw” kora sound embodied by such players as Lalo Keba and Alhaji Bai Conte, and there is a certain urgent energy in the faster, more athletic style of the Senegambian players which certainly puts to rest any question of the kora as an inherently quiet, sleepy, background-y instrument. I feel that one of the things we are trying to do in the Kora Band is to integrate this more old-school Gambian approach into a modern setting. Fortunately for me, Kane spent many years training with Gambian masters and is extremely proficient at the style, so his own experiences have played strongly into the band sound as well, of course.
So, here is a barely post-colonial track from Lalo Keba Drame, recorded not too long after Senegal’s independence, I believe. I don’t know much about the history of this particular song, but you will certainly get a taste of an earlier style kora player who draws clear lines between the various elements at work: the vocal lines that are sung, the similar vocal lines that he plays on the kora (a couple of times he really bangs them out in octaves, which is awesome), the kumbengo (repeated rhythmic/harmonic pattern that accompanies the vocals), and the rapid solo lines which fill in the rest of the space. It’s a great example of a traditional kora-centric setting with a female vocalist and Lalo Keba singing the traditional vocal line, and lots of great kora soloing in a trademark Gambian genre of tune which has a repeating right thumb pattern alternating between the 1 and the 5 of the key. Also note that his kora is really cranked up, most people today tune them around F, and his is up around A somewhere. That also partially accounts for the short sustain and highly percussive effect of his instrument, along with the fact that he is really hitting it hard. Also note the female singer is tapping a clave-type rhythm on his kora while he plays, a common practice as well. Click to listen:
Lalo Keba Drame – Allalah Kounoudion
Hope everyone enjoys what I hope will be a bit of a different perspective on the instrument! For plenty more kora this week, my Kora Band will be at the Portland Classical Chinese Garden’s Tuesdays by Twilight series this week, which we’re really looking forward to, and we’ll be opening for Loveness Wesa and the Bantus on Saturday night at the Goodfoot! What a week!
Post-Colonial African Groove of the Week #10 – Takava Neko
Posted on | July 16, 2010 | No Comments
Allright I’m finally back at it here with the Post-Colonial African Groove of the Week with another one from Zimbabwe, this one by the Four Brothers, one of the most popular groups to emerge from Zimbabwe in the past 60 years. As you can see on the left, there are more than four. Actually, there have been varying numbers throughout the band’s history.
The drummer and lead singer (!), as well as the founder of the group is Marshall Munhumumwe, who is also the great Thomas Mapfumo’s nephew! The group was formed in the 70′s, and pioneered a style of Zimbabwean music called “jit” which was also played by other well known artists such as the Bhundu Boys and John Chibadura. It’s a guitar-based style which draws somewhat on Congolese influences and east African guitar styles as well as traditional music of the Shona people, and is sung in Shona.
This tune is one of my all-time favorite Zimbabwean tracks, thanks not only to the killer vocal harmonies and pleasant swing of the drumming but also to the lead guitar line half-way through, which is so silky and full of high-end that I can only imagine these guys were using a Roland Jazz Chorus, which has not only EQ knobs for bass, mid, and treble, but one for “high treble!” The drummer’s swing is also interesting, I am always on the lookout for the surprisingly varied ways in which drummers from different regions in Africa (and for that matter from around the world) execute the seemingly easy task of playing constant 8th notes on the hi-hat. Munhumumwe certainly has an accent scheme reminiscent of Congolese grooves, with a stronger accent on the 3rd and 4th note of each group, but his swing is more laid back and uneven, in keeping with a typical Zimbabwean style. Anyway, enjoy the tune, and prepare to your day to be improved by that guitar lick in the middle! (click to listen):
The Four Brothers – Takava Neko
And, speaking of constant eighth notes, I’ll be playing tonight in Portland at the Camellia Lounge with “The Ocular Concern,” my new-ish trio with Dan Duval on guitar and Stephen Pancerev on drums, where we play a bunch of great original music and covers of weird minimalist things. Lots of constant eighth notes in that band, among various other pieces inspired by Zimbabwean music and a Kinks tune for good measure. I’ll be posting some audio of that band very soon, so stay tuned!
Bridgetown Sextet!
Posted on | July 14, 2010 | No Comments
Well I’ve been a bit absent from the internet of late, partially due to nice weather and partially due to various trips and a typically nutso schedule in general. However, I’m back and ready to type, as it were, armed with some great upcoming shows for the rest of the summer and into the fall, as well as some more Post-Colonial African Grooves of the Week (starting up again on Friday), the reprise of some more thoughts on Morton and other jazz pioneers, and more.
Speaking of Morton, my first big show this summer (yes, here in Portland the sun has only recently come out for good!) is a double-bill I’ve been looking forward to for some time, featuring my old-timey band the Bridgetown Sextet and the Midnight Serenaders, one of my favorite bands of any genre in Portland, at Jimmy Mak’s, Portland’s classiest jazz club, this Saturday night!
I don’t always mention Bridgetown stuff on this blog, but it has really turned from sort of a fun side-hobby band into one of my favorite projects of late. My good friend of many many years Scott Kennedy and I started the group a couple of years ago after a long history with the style. We met in 5th grade, at which point I was a nerdy classical pianist and he knew nothing about music. Several years later, we both began to develop an interest in ragtime and early jazz, and around that time I decided to teach myself trumpet and we both picked up some drumming from my high school band teacher after school. Meanwhile, I began moving from classical to jazz piano and Scott decided to teach himself piano from scratch, starting out rather amazingly with the Maple Leaf Rag, hardly the world’s easiest piece of music.
After many years of blundering through attempts to play as a duo and occasionally add other musicians, Scott and I found ourselves back in Portland after college, and decided to put this group together. We figured that we would just call the best musicians in the style who we could find in town and see if they would do it, and miraculously they all said yes! We’ve made a very strong effort to play the music in a fresh and energetic style reminiscent of the original vibe of the music, rather than in any sort of “preservationist” manner, and I feel that we’ve developed a uniquely exciting way of approaching the repertoire, a sentiment which, fortunately for us, has been echoed by Portland’s vibrant swing dance community!
So, all in all, we’re excited to bring the old-time stomp down to Jimmy Mak’s on Saturday and of course to share the bill with the Serenaders, who have really been instrumental in bringing attention to old-time jazz and swing in Portland over the past 5 years. We were recently in the studio recording the first half of a new album, so here are some excerpts from those tracks to whet your appetite for the show (click to listen):
Our first album, “Authentic Old-Time Jazz and Swing” is available over at Bandcamp, you can check it out below and click on the album art to get there!
And I would be amiss not to finish by listing the personnel who make this whole thing happen.
Bridgetown Sextet:
Scott Kennedy – piano, drums
Andrew Oliver – cornet, drums, piano
Doug Sammons – guitar, vocals
David Evans – clarinet, tenor sax
John Moak – trombone (on recordings linked above)
Dave Bryan – trombone (currently in the band)
Eric Gruber, bass
Great Tour!
Posted on | June 15, 2010 | No Comments
Well, it’s finally come and gone! A year ago, we decided at the conclusion of the Banff Workshop that the group at that time known as the EPIC Sextet, and now Tunnel Six, should not cease to exist at the end of the workshop, and set out to book an ambitious cross-Canada tour. Now, a year later, we’ve done it, with great success!
Of course, none of this would have been possible without the generous sponsorship of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Regional Arts and Culture Council in Portland, and Swiss Alpine Landscaping in Winnipeg, and of course I’m more than happy to acknowledge their support of what was a pretty far-fetched idea when we first proposed it last year.
There were many high points and not many low points of the tour. The low points consisted mostly of driving for 14 to 16 hours at a time. Those drives were especially rough when we had a gig the same night, or the one grueling time when we packed up after our gig in Edmonton, rolled out and drove overnight through the Rockies, through an enormous blizzard, avoided colliding with an elk, and locked our keys in the van at a Starbucks in Kamloops, to arrive in Vancouver just in time to take the Sunshine Coast ferry to Sechelt and play a great gig kicking off the Gibsons Landing Jazz Festival.
However, that particularly epic journey (and our general fatigue level) notwithstanding, we had a really great time on the road. We brought our unique music to a wide variety of audiences across Canada and the Pacific Northwest, something none of us had done before on nearly as large of a scale. I was consistently impressed with the musical chemistry of the band, which was indeed immediately evident from the first time we played together at Banff, but I was unsure what to expect a year later. In fact, the band sound was even more cohesive and “on the same page” than I even anticipated at the beginning of the tour, and needless to say by the end we had taken huge steps forward in developing a distinctive way of playing together. As Brian Seligman, the guitarist, and myself were discussing near the end of the tour, we are all very lucky that our individual musical visions intersect in a melody-driven style which is not only rewarding from our perspective but seems (at least from our experience on this tour) to really draw in our audiences in a way that is sometimes difficult with jazz.
Now I’m back in Portland, where (like the rest of the continent last month, as we unfortunately discovered on tour), it is still raining. The forecasters say it will pass soon, and we’ll have some real summer weather, but they keep pushing back the day when that will happen. Now it’s supposed to be Friday. Well, we’ll see about that. Meanwhile I’m getting all my projects (not to mention office) back in order. There’s lots of stuff coming up in the summer and the fall, including a new Kora Band record and tour, some big shows with the Bridgetown Sextet, and the Dec. or Jan. release of the Tunnel Six album that we recorded at the end of the tour. Of course I’ll keep updating this blog with (I hope) more regularity and fun stuff as the summer continues.
Meanwhile there’s plenty of photos over at the Tunnel Six site and we’ll be posting some select tour recordings there soon, which I will also link to here. Cheers!
Blogging at tunnelsix.com
Posted on | May 15, 2010 | No Comments
Well after nine months of insane planning, the Tunnel Six tour is finally underway!
Myself and other band members will be blogging it over at our site, http://www.tunnelsix.com
Chad and I are currently driving out to Toronto to meet up with the rest of the band in our enormous tour van, MOOSE WARRIOR:
We’re about to leave Sioux Falls, SD and move on to Madison, WI where we will meet up with my old college roommate and former drummer in my band and in Sound for the Organization of Society back in New Orleans, Kevin Dewan.
Anyway, I will keep updating on here but there’s plenty more over at the Tunnel Six site. Thanks everyone, and if you’re in Canada or Seattle or Portland, make sure to check our performance schedule!
Friday Night at Jimmy Mak’s!
Posted on | May 6, 2010 | 1 Comment
I’m excited to be repeating a great double-bill over at Jimmy Mak’s. Last February my Kora Band opened for Ben Darwish‘s last CD release party, with his Trio, during the Portland Jazz Festival, and it was really a great time. Tomorrow night we’re at it again, opening for his new quartet (the “Ben Darwish Group”)’s EP Release. They’ve recorded a really nice 5-track EP which you can check out, buy, and stream here, and we’re happy to be sharing the bill with them!
We’re just about to head into Two Sticks studio in Seattle to record our second album (our first, Just 4 U, came out in April of 09) with Don Gunn, our favorite engineer. This one will be out in September on Origin Records, continuing my excellent relationship with them!
So, come out to Jimmy’s tomorrow night for this show if you’re in Portland, it’ll be a great one! Reservations at 503-295-6542.
