Post-Colonial African Groove of the Week #3 – Tantine
Posted on | September 12, 2009 | 1 Comment
Well, I’m a day behind, though yesterday’s post generated enough attention that it was clearly worth it! Thanks Darcy!
Moving along with the series, I have chosen for this week one of my favorite songs out of the D.R.C. (back when it was Zaire), by the “James Brown of Africa”, Francois Luambo Makaidi (known as Franco), and his band, the Tout Puissant Orchestra Kinshasa Jazz (that’s “All-Powerful Kinshasa Jazz Orchestra”, or just “TPOK jazz”). All powerful it was – one of Africa’s most influential bands of the 20th century, featuring many great musicians who would go on to become famous in their own right: Sam Magwana, Ya Ntesa Dalienst, Madilu System, and many others. This is a bit of a departure from the West-African Mandinka tunes I’ve been featuring, but I also have a soft spot for Conglosese pop, and wanted to share that with everyone as well.
Congolese pop from the 80’s is my favorite vintage, somewhat after the move from the acoustic guitars and timbales of early “Rumba” to a 4-singer and 4-electric guitar setup, but before the over-production and excessively fast tempos of modern soukous. The formula is virtually foolproof (actually, not unlike the formula Morton used in King Porter Stomp, see previous post). Slow, somewhat romantic section, exciting transition, fast vocal section repeated many many times, exciting transition, and then what my good friend and collaborator Kane Mathis called the “musical equivalent of laughter”, the seben, a fantastic instrumental dance section. I am a connoisseur of the seben, always excited by the mix of hard-driving snare groove (called the cavacha), multiple interlocking guitar parts, unstoppable off-the-beat basslines, and often great triumphant horn lines as well (but not in this tune). But the best part of the seben is the timeless tension-release effect, after having listened through and enjoyed the entire rest of the (often near-20 minute) song, you are rewarded by this fantastic dance section.
Mark DiFlorio and I discovered the cavacha, the snare drum groove used during the seben, when we were in the Congo with the State Department’s Rhythm Road tour in 2007 – and were struck by the similarities between that groove and many of the New Orleans snare drum grooves Mark has spent many years playing, though the accent scheme and placement are very subtly different. This tune, “Tantine” was written by one of Franco’s best singers, Ya Ntesa Dalienst, who spent many years with the TPOK jazz, producing many hits including “Mouzi” and “Bina Na Ngai Na Respect.” For my money, his manipulation of the leading tones in 1-4-5 chord progressions is really masterful, and his vocal stylings (in Lingala, a fascinating tonal language which is very musical and adds a very specific sound to Congolese music) are always pleasent and well-phrased. This tune features the classic formula I described above. The recording quality is quite clear, but the drums are unfortunately de-emphasized, especially during the seben, though this does allow the interlocking guitar parts to come out very clearly.
Click to listen:
Franco et le TPOK Jazz feat. Ntesa Dalienst – Tantine
For another look into this great tune, someone has kindly posted a video of the band performing this song. The seben groove is much clearer here, and Ntesa’s excellent moon-walk-esque dance steps are as priceless as the matching shiny red shirts. Franco is the big guy in white off to the right:
Hope you enjoy this song as much as I do! We’ll actually be playing our version of it tonight at the Kora Band’s return from our summer hiatus at Egan’s in Seattle, which I’m very excited about. Stay tuned, the Post-Colonial African Groove of the Week will return to Fridays beginning next week, and I’ll be posting some audio from this weekend’s gigs as well continuing the “Jazz Pioneers” series very soon.
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October 9th, 2009 @ 12:20 pm
[...] Franco & the TPOK Jazz on one side (see my previous post on their song “Tantine” here), and Tabu Ley Rochereau & African Fiesta on the other side. Franco represented the [...]