When the brief British fad for 'Afro-Rock' was started in the early seventies I eagerly awaited the first record release from a group called Osibisa, who were being raved about in the pages of Melody Maker and such like music papers. I must admit that I was somewhat underwhelmed by Osibisa at the time, although with hindsight (which is always 20/20) I can see that they were quite important in that they did open the door to a wider audience for non American black music. Here is an example of them at their best, playing Gong Gong Song from around 1971. I much preferred Assagai, the band formed by Pukwana, Feza and Moholo from The Blue Notes with fellow South Africans Bizo Muggikana and Fred Coker. Here they play Hey Jude accompanied rather incongruously by a video of some elderly folk walking in Richmond Park) and make this Beatles classic very much their own. The other two clips are well worth checking out as well - Beka and Cocoa. All three tracks are from their eponymous 1971 album on the Vertigo label.
In the meantime another South African performer had emerged in the mid sixties. This was Miriam Makeba, whose Click Song gained her an international following (and introduced the world to the Xhosa language). The performance here is from a Dutch TV broadcast from 1979. Once again the African / Brazilian connection shows up as Ms Makeba employed the great Sivuca (see Accordion Crimes) as her musical director for a while. He was the arranger of her next big hit, Pata Pata and in this clip taken from a sixties TV broadcast in São Paulo, Sivuca is seen playing acoustic guitar. She was also married to trumpeter Hugh Masekela for a while and I believe, was instrumental (if you'll pardon the unintended pun) in raising his international profile. He had a world wide hit with Grazin' in the Grass in 1968.
By the time that Paul Simon released his Graceland album in 1986, African music had become an established part what of was now known as 'World Music', with artists such as The Bhundu Boys, Fela Kuti, Ali Farka Touré, Manu Dibango and Salif Keita becoming well established all over the world. Simon's - at the time, controversial - album helped refocus attention on the South African music scene, giving a boost to Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela (although they did not appear on the album but did play some concerts with him) and launching the international career of Ladyship Black Mambazo. Here's Paul Simon and Miriam Makeba performing Under African Skies and Simon with Ladyship Black Mambazo performing Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes in Zimbabwe in 1987.
In the early eighties I was lucky enough to meet and play with a Nigerian musician who went by the name of Silver Ada and was in fact Squadron Leader Sylvester Ada of the Nigerian Air Force. He was on secondment to The Band of the Royal Air Force Central College, where he was learning how to lead a military band. He himself was one of the most popular Highlife musicians in Nigeria and had been selected for the job of leader of the Nigerian Air Force Band because the bigwigs wanted cheap musicians for their parties - at least, that's what he told me. He was a reasonable saxophonist, a good conga player and a passable guitarist, but his feel was absolutely tremendous and I learned an awful lot about playing African grooves from him, which later stood me in good stead when I started playing Brazilian music in earnest.
When not in his uniform (which, to my great amusement had 'NAF' inscribed on every brass button) he would parade around town in a slightly dated cream suit, accompanied by a different laughing girl every time I saw him. It was this uninhibited and joyful womanising that finally drew the RAF's attention to him and I later learned that he had been sent home in disgrace. I've never heard from or of him since and can find no trace of him via the Internet, but if you're out there Silver and you happen to be reading this - please get in touch. The six months or so that we played together have served me well and I thank you for that.
In recent years it has slowly dawned on me that, in fact, African music has had an immense influence on the rest of the world. The slave trade was an appalling thing but it nevertheless ultimately gave us blues, which gave us jazz. Rock and Roll couldn't have happened without it, anymore than rock, soul, R and B etc. Wherever African music interfaced with European music it span off a new form. The influence of predominantly Northern European classical music and Protestant church music helped shape the emergent black music of America, which in turn influenced the popular music composers of the day. The same thing was happening in South America in Brazil, which had an even larger slave population than North America. Here the African interface was mainly with music of the Iberian Peninsular (which in turn had been influenced by the Moors when it was part of their empire - hence Flamenco and Fado with their characteristic quarter tones) and with Catholic church music.
Brazilian music has many parallels with North American music - Choro (see Anarchy in the UKe) and Ragtime for example. It was the black influence on polite Portuguese Parlor music that gave us Choro just as Ragtime was emerging in a similar way in the U.S.A. Ragtime was a principal ingredient in the mix that became 'jazz', which in turn was heard by Choro musicians, notably the great Pixinguiha, who incorporated elements of New Orleans jazz back into Choro (he had met up with black North American jazz musicians in Paris whilst touring Europe) and even called his group 'Pixinguinha and his Jazz band' for a while. Later, in the fifties when Bossa Nova first emerged, it too was influenced by cool school and West coast jazz, and in turn fed back into the North American jazz and popular music scene - but I'll try and untangle this one in a later posting!
My most recent African music 'find' has been the extraordinarily gifted Cameroonian musician, Richard Bona, who in many ways pulls quite a few of these threads together. His roots are firmly in his own culture and yet he is one of the most ferociously talented electric bass players in the world - up there with Jaco Pastorius - for musicality as well as for technique. His ability to enhance other people's music with his contributions is second to none. He has worked with everyone from Pat Metheny to Lenine and from Bobby McFerrin to Janis Ian. He sings like an angel, plays great guitar, percussion and balafon as well as writing some beautiful songs. If you haven't already heard him then I earnestly recommend that you check out some of his work. Just to whet your appetite, here is a clip of a bass solo from a live gig sometime before 2006 and here's his website - Bonatology. Oh, and here's a repeat of the clip of him performing with French accordianist Marc Berthoumieux that appears in the Accordion crimes posting. Incidentally, he's appearing with his band at The Barbican on Sunday 16th November. Here's a link if you want to book tickets (needless to say, I've got mine!). http://www.barbican.org.uk/music/event-detail.asp?ID=7784
Just to round these two postings off, I took the title from this song by the
Brazilian singer / songwriter, Chico Cesar. It certainly puts the Africa - Brazil connection in focus. So - here's Mama Africa.
Saturday, 12 July 2008
Thursday, 10 July 2008
Mama Africa part 1
When I was up in London recently for the Maria Rita gig I had the pleasure of 'sitting in' and playing percussion with three superb Congolese musicians who perform under the name 'Trio Lokito'. I was actually quite surprised at how easily I slotted in with their music: they were very complimentary about my grasp of their rhythms and I really don't think they were just being polite because they asked me to stick around and play the rest of the gig with them. Afterwards I discovered that they are part of a bigger unit - Grupo Lokito -which is quite well established in and around London. The group fuses Congolese and Cuban rhthms to great effect and you can here examples of the music if you follow the above link.
In fact I'm no stranger to African music. I was first drawn to the sounds of Kwela - the black South African music that surfaced in the fifties - when I was about fourteen and I heard Tom Hark by Elias and his Zig Zag Jive Flutes. Quite how this record found its way into the English pop charts I don't know, but the music seemed to resonate beyond the Townships. A Kwela sequence featured in the musical King Kong, which opened in the West End in with an all black cast in 1961. I don't recall how I saw the scene in question -I guess it must have been shown on TV - but I remember vividly the image of a small black boy (Lemmy 'Special' Mabaso) leaping out of a dustbin in full flight on the penny whistle. Another Kwela musician that I heard around that time was Spokes Mashiyane, who was considered to be the best of them. (If you follow the link you will find quite a few examples of his music.)
My appetite had been whetted for this kind of music and when a show called 'Wait a Minim' came to England it brought with it singer / songwriter Jeremy Taylor (see Woke up this afternoon Part two) and the Tracey brothers - Paul and Andrew (sons of the famous ethnomusicologist Hugh Tracey), all three of whom were of English origins but had strong South African connections. They released an album in 1964 called 'Always Something New Out of Africa', which I pounced on eagerly. This contained a wealth of interesting stuff including, ironically, a version of Jobim's 'Garota De Ipanema', neatly linking Africa with Brazilian music by playing the melody on a Kalimba. Of particular interest to me was the tune Masanga by a Congolese musician called Jean Bosco Mwenda. I loved the way it rippled and bubbled along with a sweet, yearning kind of quality to it and it was not that much of a surprise to find that the guitarist John Williams had subsequently recorded it, along with a wealth of other African material, on his 2001 album The Magic Box. I managed to find this clip of Mwenda on YouTube. It's about eight minutes long and is pretty uninspiring at first, but at about 2. 40 secs in he starts to play Masanga. It's well worth waiting for.
At some point towards the end of the sixties I became aware of one Chris McGregor. He was a white South African jazz pianist and composer who had been forced into exile along with the black members of his band, by a regime that couldn't tolerate such a unit. The group was called The Blue Notes and their music came as a revelation to the European jazz scene. by this time I was involved with The Freeman Syndicate club at The White Hart, Southall (see also Mutt and Jeff) and we booked the band to play one Friday night around 1967 or 68 - I can't remember exactly. I do remember being completely poleaxed by the power of their performance however, even if I didn't yet entirely understand what they were doing. Their mixture of Township grooves and free jazz was a bit bewildering at first, but by the end of that evening I was beginning to have a dim glimmering of comprehension.
Most English jazz musicians were not as slow on the uptake as me, and Chris McGregor, Dudu Pukwana and Louis Moholo in particular, went on to influence some of our finest musicians. Chris went on to found The Brotherhood of Breath, a big band based around The Blue Notes and expanded by like-minded British players. I was invited to the concert that launched their first LP on the RCA 'Neon' label in 1971. It was a memorable night and I can still remember the kick I got from event, especially a tune called 'Union Special' which made me laugh with joy. Chris died in 1990 but his music lives on when the band is occasionally reassembled to play his compositions. Of the original core Blue Notes, only Louis Moholo is still alive, but the 'empty chairs' are eagerly filled, often with musicians who came to prominence in the great Loose Tubes big band, a unit that drew great inspiration from The Brotherhood and the original Blue Notes. The piano chair has been taken by both Roland Perrin and Keith Tippet. There are no YouTube clips of either the Blue Notes or The Brotherhood to be found at the moment, but here are Dudu Pukwana: sax, Chris McGregor: piano, Louis Moholo: drums and Johnny Dyani: bass, playing Blue Notes For Mongezi - Fourth Movement (end) which was recorded immediately after Mongezi Feza's memorial service in December 1975.
I'll pick the story up in the next posting.
In fact I'm no stranger to African music. I was first drawn to the sounds of Kwela - the black South African music that surfaced in the fifties - when I was about fourteen and I heard Tom Hark by Elias and his Zig Zag Jive Flutes. Quite how this record found its way into the English pop charts I don't know, but the music seemed to resonate beyond the Townships. A Kwela sequence featured in the musical King Kong, which opened in the West End in with an all black cast in 1961. I don't recall how I saw the scene in question -I guess it must have been shown on TV - but I remember vividly the image of a small black boy (Lemmy 'Special' Mabaso) leaping out of a dustbin in full flight on the penny whistle. Another Kwela musician that I heard around that time was Spokes Mashiyane, who was considered to be the best of them. (If you follow the link you will find quite a few examples of his music.)
My appetite had been whetted for this kind of music and when a show called 'Wait a Minim' came to England it brought with it singer / songwriter Jeremy Taylor (see Woke up this afternoon Part two) and the Tracey brothers - Paul and Andrew (sons of the famous ethnomusicologist Hugh Tracey), all three of whom were of English origins but had strong South African connections. They released an album in 1964 called 'Always Something New Out of Africa', which I pounced on eagerly. This contained a wealth of interesting stuff including, ironically, a version of Jobim's 'Garota De Ipanema', neatly linking Africa with Brazilian music by playing the melody on a Kalimba. Of particular interest to me was the tune Masanga by a Congolese musician called Jean Bosco Mwenda. I loved the way it rippled and bubbled along with a sweet, yearning kind of quality to it and it was not that much of a surprise to find that the guitarist John Williams had subsequently recorded it, along with a wealth of other African material, on his 2001 album The Magic Box. I managed to find this clip of Mwenda on YouTube. It's about eight minutes long and is pretty uninspiring at first, but at about 2. 40 secs in he starts to play Masanga. It's well worth waiting for.
At some point towards the end of the sixties I became aware of one Chris McGregor. He was a white South African jazz pianist and composer who had been forced into exile along with the black members of his band, by a regime that couldn't tolerate such a unit. The group was called The Blue Notes and their music came as a revelation to the European jazz scene. by this time I was involved with The Freeman Syndicate club at The White Hart, Southall (see also Mutt and Jeff) and we booked the band to play one Friday night around 1967 or 68 - I can't remember exactly. I do remember being completely poleaxed by the power of their performance however, even if I didn't yet entirely understand what they were doing. Their mixture of Township grooves and free jazz was a bit bewildering at first, but by the end of that evening I was beginning to have a dim glimmering of comprehension.
Most English jazz musicians were not as slow on the uptake as me, and Chris McGregor, Dudu Pukwana and Louis Moholo in particular, went on to influence some of our finest musicians. Chris went on to found The Brotherhood of Breath, a big band based around The Blue Notes and expanded by like-minded British players. I was invited to the concert that launched their first LP on the RCA 'Neon' label in 1971. It was a memorable night and I can still remember the kick I got from event, especially a tune called 'Union Special' which made me laugh with joy. Chris died in 1990 but his music lives on when the band is occasionally reassembled to play his compositions. Of the original core Blue Notes, only Louis Moholo is still alive, but the 'empty chairs' are eagerly filled, often with musicians who came to prominence in the great Loose Tubes big band, a unit that drew great inspiration from The Brotherhood and the original Blue Notes. The piano chair has been taken by both Roland Perrin and Keith Tippet. There are no YouTube clips of either the Blue Notes or The Brotherhood to be found at the moment, but here are Dudu Pukwana: sax, Chris McGregor: piano, Louis Moholo: drums and Johnny Dyani: bass, playing Blue Notes For Mongezi - Fourth Movement (end) which was recorded immediately after Mongezi Feza's memorial service in December 1975.
I'll pick the story up in the next posting.
Wednesday, 9 July 2008
Look for the silver lining...
I'll be honest - the week did not start well. On Sunday morning as is my usual practice, I came downstairs to make tea for Mrs Voltarol and me. We usually drink this in bed whilst reading our books so I was clad only in my dressing gown and my feet were bare. As I opened the fridge door and reached in for the milk jug I managed to dislodge a piece of Parmesan cheese, which fell and landed on my big toe, immediately behind the nail. Who would of thought that a piece of cheese could have caused so much pain. I currently have a small but spectacularly coloured bruise and a slight limp that I am somewhat reluctant to talk about. This was a portent of things to come.
We use our oil-fired central heating system to heat water all the year round because, up until recently at any rate, it still works out cheaper than using the immersion heater. We have it set to come on for an hour, twice a day. On Monday evening it occurred to me that I hadn't checked the oil level in the tank recently, so I popped outside for a quick glance at the sight tube. There were a couple of inches showing, so I pulled the little doohickey that bleeds the air out and there was a faint burping sound as the last of the oil disappeared from view. "Oh dear" I said (or words to that effect), "I'd better go and turn the system off before it fires up again and locks out". I stepped back into the kitchen at the precise moment that the boiler fired up and of course, locked out as per prediction. "Oh dear" I said again (or words to that effect). This meant that the system would now need bleeding after the oil had been delivered and before we could use it again. Another job for Dave, the People's Plumber. (For those of you crying "Wimp! Fool! Do it yourself! etc. I should point out that I have slightly less DIY competence than my pet hamster - and I don't have a pet hamster.)
All was not lost. I went up stairs and switched on the immersion heater. There was a faint 'popping' sound and every electrical appliance in the house went dead. "Oh dear" I said and then (departing from the euphemistic because it simply can't do it justice), "double-buggering shit arse BOLLOCKS to it!" (and even here I rein myself in for the benefit of the more genteel amongst my readership). I went downstairs and reset the trip, went back upstairs to the airing cupboard, checked for loose connections, replaced the fuse and tried again with the same result, except that this time the lights went out as well, because by now dusk was upon us. Having reached the end of my expertise and with no hamster available to consult, I turned the immersion heater off again, went back down stairs, reset the trip once more and resigned myself to a temporary absence of hot water and a bigger bill from Dave, the People's Plumber. "Ah well" I thought, "at least tomorrow I'm going to interview Neil Davey and Hilary Coleman from the Cornish music group Dalla for the blog. I do have something to look forward to". Ha!
I usually use my trusty MD Walkman to record interviews but it's seen a lot of service over the last eight years and I had been lent a new, state of the art, digital sound recorder, so I packed both as I set out yesterday morning - belt and braces - just to be on the safe side. I arrived at their house on time and started to set up my equipment, only to find that I had brought the wrong power adaptor for the Mini disc and that it's battery was practically flat. No matter. I set up the borrowed machine, did a quick level test and started recording. I have known Neil and Hilary for quite a while and we get on very well, so the interview was a pleasure. I seem to have found the right questions to get them going and they disgorged a wealth of material about the evolution of their own musicality, their musical philosophy, direction and ambitions. I couldn't wait to get home and start transcribing it for these pages...
I might have known. Despite the fact that everything had seemed to be performing correctly, the gremlins that had so far dogged my week were now resident in the recorder. The entire sound file of the interview consisted of seven seconds of me saying "Testing...no...that's fine...excellent. OK folks, first que". And that was that. I phoned Hilary and somewhat shamefacedly explained what had happened and said that I could probably put some sort of article together from memory but she very gallantly agreed to do the interview again at a later date. So - watch this space.
In the meantime I was short a scheduled posting for this blog. During the course of our conversation, Neil and Hilary had made much of the value of being able to identify with the music of your heritage and your place of birth. Somewhat flippantly I had replied "Are you familiar with the Folk Songs of Middlesex?" - which is where I was born and spent the first forty-odd years of my life. Confronted by a sudden lack of intended blog material I decided to do a quick Google search and see if I couldn't just save the day with a posting about traditional Middlesex music. That it wasn't successful is clearly evinced by the actual subject matter of this piece. There were references to one or two folk clubs in Middlesex, a website for a Morris Dancing team who perform dances from the Cotswolds in Middlesex U.S.A. and quite a lot of material about trans sexuality. And that, dear readers, is why you are reading this catalogue of disasters...and the week's not over yet.
We use our oil-fired central heating system to heat water all the year round because, up until recently at any rate, it still works out cheaper than using the immersion heater. We have it set to come on for an hour, twice a day. On Monday evening it occurred to me that I hadn't checked the oil level in the tank recently, so I popped outside for a quick glance at the sight tube. There were a couple of inches showing, so I pulled the little doohickey that bleeds the air out and there was a faint burping sound as the last of the oil disappeared from view. "Oh dear" I said (or words to that effect), "I'd better go and turn the system off before it fires up again and locks out". I stepped back into the kitchen at the precise moment that the boiler fired up and of course, locked out as per prediction. "Oh dear" I said again (or words to that effect). This meant that the system would now need bleeding after the oil had been delivered and before we could use it again. Another job for Dave, the People's Plumber. (For those of you crying "Wimp! Fool! Do it yourself! etc. I should point out that I have slightly less DIY competence than my pet hamster - and I don't have a pet hamster.)
All was not lost. I went up stairs and switched on the immersion heater. There was a faint 'popping' sound and every electrical appliance in the house went dead. "Oh dear" I said and then (departing from the euphemistic because it simply can't do it justice), "double-buggering shit arse BOLLOCKS to it!" (and even here I rein myself in for the benefit of the more genteel amongst my readership). I went downstairs and reset the trip, went back upstairs to the airing cupboard, checked for loose connections, replaced the fuse and tried again with the same result, except that this time the lights went out as well, because by now dusk was upon us. Having reached the end of my expertise and with no hamster available to consult, I turned the immersion heater off again, went back down stairs, reset the trip once more and resigned myself to a temporary absence of hot water and a bigger bill from Dave, the People's Plumber. "Ah well" I thought, "at least tomorrow I'm going to interview Neil Davey and Hilary Coleman from the Cornish music group Dalla for the blog. I do have something to look forward to". Ha!
I usually use my trusty MD Walkman to record interviews but it's seen a lot of service over the last eight years and I had been lent a new, state of the art, digital sound recorder, so I packed both as I set out yesterday morning - belt and braces - just to be on the safe side. I arrived at their house on time and started to set up my equipment, only to find that I had brought the wrong power adaptor for the Mini disc and that it's battery was practically flat. No matter. I set up the borrowed machine, did a quick level test and started recording. I have known Neil and Hilary for quite a while and we get on very well, so the interview was a pleasure. I seem to have found the right questions to get them going and they disgorged a wealth of material about the evolution of their own musicality, their musical philosophy, direction and ambitions. I couldn't wait to get home and start transcribing it for these pages...
I might have known. Despite the fact that everything had seemed to be performing correctly, the gremlins that had so far dogged my week were now resident in the recorder. The entire sound file of the interview consisted of seven seconds of me saying "Testing...no...that's fine...excellent. OK folks, first que". And that was that. I phoned Hilary and somewhat shamefacedly explained what had happened and said that I could probably put some sort of article together from memory but she very gallantly agreed to do the interview again at a later date. So - watch this space.
In the meantime I was short a scheduled posting for this blog. During the course of our conversation, Neil and Hilary had made much of the value of being able to identify with the music of your heritage and your place of birth. Somewhat flippantly I had replied "Are you familiar with the Folk Songs of Middlesex?" - which is where I was born and spent the first forty-odd years of my life. Confronted by a sudden lack of intended blog material I decided to do a quick Google search and see if I couldn't just save the day with a posting about traditional Middlesex music. That it wasn't successful is clearly evinced by the actual subject matter of this piece. There were references to one or two folk clubs in Middlesex, a website for a Morris Dancing team who perform dances from the Cotswolds in Middlesex U.S.A. and quite a lot of material about trans sexuality. And that, dear readers, is why you are reading this catalogue of disasters...and the week's not over yet.
Friday, 4 July 2008
KRIS GAYLE - 8.00 am: Album review
After seeing Kris Gayle perform recently ( see Local Hero(ine)s) I was keen to get my hands on her latest CD and review it for this blog. The album arrived a couple of days ago but I haven't had a chance before now of sitting down and giving it my full attention. Now that I have I can say that it was well worth the wait. Here's a 'blow by blow' account.
1. Blue in Green (Bill Evans - Cassandra Wilson).
From the opening bars one has an immediate sense of musical authority. This track has a great contemporary feel and Kris's voice slides effortlessly through a high-tech arrangement that exploits synthesis to the full but, paradoxically, never loses its sense of organic centre. An excellent bass solo from Damian Rodd puts the icing on the cake of this track.
2. Watch What Happens (Michel Legrand).
A crisp conga beat sets up a latin feel and as the album progresses I have to keep reminding myself that this is a Cornish product! The horn arrangements are excellent and Marc Hadley delivers a fine tenor sax solo. The word 'effortless' springs to mind for the vocal - but that is, of course, 'the art that conceals art'. The next word that comes to mind is 'sublime'.
3. It Never Entered My Mind (Richard Rogers - Lorenz Hart).
This is one of my favourite songs by my all-time favourite song writing team. Kris gives a beautiful reading of the oft-omitted verse, before sliding into the main body of the song like oiled silk. Most of the great jazz singers have performed this song, Ella Fitzgerald particularly making it her own and influencing many versions, but Kris, as I have observed before, really inhabits a song. If this gets enough airplay it will, in turn, influence many singers to come.
4. I'm All Smiles (Michael Leonard - Herbert Martin).
A jazz waltz with a lovely relaxed feel that features a nice synth solo from Viv.
5. Sermonette (Julian 'Cannonball' Adderly - Jon Hendricks).
This 'soul jazz' classic is delivered here with a slowed down, lazy groove, nice horn arrangements, a piano solo from Viv and some tasteful harmonica from Alex Cockle - all good stuff but my least favourite track so far. I feel that it's a little bit too busy and slightly overproduced. In this case, less would be more.
6. All Blues (Miles Davis - Oscar Brown Jr).
This track is everything that the previous one is not. There is a beautifully 'spare' feel to it - a great sense of space appropriate to the classic Miles tune. Kris delivers the lyric with great authority. To paraphrase the late Lord Buckley - "When she lays it down it stays there!". This is an outstanding track with great contributions from Paul Heywood's soprano sax and Damian Rodd's bass.
7. 8. 00 am (Viv Rodd - Kris Gayle)
This original composition sits extremely comfortably with the rest of the more well known numbers and features a thoughtful tenor solo from Marc Hadley. If there is any justice the song will be pounced upon and covered by any singer looking for great material that hasn't already been done to death by other artists. I'd like to hear Meredith d'Ambrosio's take on this one, which is not to say that this performance isn't exquisite!
This original composition sits extremely comfortably with the rest of the more well known numbers and features a thoughtful tenor solo from Marc Hadley. If there is any justice the song will be pounced upon and covered by any singer looking for great material that hasn't already been done to death by other artists. I'd like to hear Meredith d'Ambrosio's take on this one, which is not to say that this performance isn't exquisite!
8. The Song is You (Jerome Kern - Oscar Hammerstein II)
This is taken at a cracking pace, reminiscent of the Jimmy Giuffre Three version from the eponymous 1957 album. Kris's voice is as assured as ever, but I'm not quite so certain about the bass line and, for me, the synth solo doesn't work. There's nothing wrong with the choice of notes but I feel that it would have worked much better with a more percussive sound. It has a 'muscular' quality to it that I associate with pianists like Eddie Costa from Tal Farlow's 1957 line-up.
9. Gravy Waltz (Ray Brown - Steve Allen)
By contrast this next track is a totally relaxed and swinging performance, with Viv's 'Hammond Organ' playing perfectly matched to Kris's voice.
10. Bird Tribute (various).
This Charlie Parker tribute opens with a terrific piano and voice duet on Leonard Feather's 'I Remember Bird' which is unequivocably world class - the communication between Viv and Kris seems almost telepathic. When the count-in takes the tempo up for the arrival of Paul Heywood's alto sax on Charlie Parker's 'Ornithology' it comes as quite a shock to the system, as indeed Bird was to the musical establishment of his day. 'Ornithology' segues into 'How High the Moon' (Morgan Lewis - Nancy Hamilton), with Kris scatting the line in unison with the sax before returning to 'I remember Bird' for the conclusion. An excellent arrangement by Kris's husband, Goudie Charles.
11. Some Other Time (Leonard Bernstein - Betty Comden - Adolph Green).
We're back in lush ballad territory and as always with Kris, you recognise that it is the song that is the important thing to her. She breathes life into a lyric in a way that only very few singers can. Viv's arrangements and piano solo really shine here.
12. I'm Old Fashioned ( Jerome Kern - Johny Mercer).
The last track is a swinging mid-tempo version of this classic song and Kris gives a faultless reading of it. Viv's synth 'big band' is augmented to good effect by Paul Heywood and trumpeter Monty Ray.
Overall this is a great album that demonstrates quite conclusively that we have a pair of world class talents in Kris Gayle and Viv Rodd. Why aren't they better known? Maybe 8. 00am is the breakthrough album. Go and buy it now: you know it makes sense! ****½
8. 00 am is on the Big Milk label. It was produced and mixed by Damien Rodd.
Kris's website is http://www.krisgayle.com/
Viv Rodd's web site is http://www.trurojazz.com/
Damien Rodd is at www.myspace.com/damianrodd
Thursday, 3 July 2008
Maria Rita at the Barbican
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I have been a fan of Maria Rita (see Keeping it in the family) ever since heard her first CD being played in a restaurant during one of my trips to Brazil a couple of years ago. I didn't recognise the singer or any of the songs but I was impressed with her, the material and the band so asked the waiter what the music was. He went and fetched me the CD cover to read. I made a note of the details and was subsequently able to purchase a copy before returning to England. Thus began my enthusiasm for Maria Rita, who made her UK debut at the London Barbican last Saturday night.
I arrived early at the venue accompanied by my wife, my daughter and my grandson and stopped off at the bar before we took our seats. As is so often the case at London gigs by Brazilian musicians, the predominant language that we heard was Portuguese: London has a large Brazilian community these days and a visit from a top artist always produces a big turn out. This generally makes for a great atmosphere but the downside is that even when the artist is a fluent English speaker, there is a tendency for the audience to request - somewhat vociferously - that announcements are made in their native language. Some - such as Gilberto Gil - are seasoned enough performers that they resist this and make sure that those who only speak English are catered for. Maria Rita proved to be not quite in this category.
The band took to the stage and sorted themselves out, then Ms Rita, clad in a midriff-exposing, split-skirt ensemble, emerged to rapturous applause and sailed into the first number. It quickly became apparent that the mix was not right, and although the band were obviously playing their socks off and the singer was giving her all to the performance, the mix just got worse as the concert went on. I glanced up at the mixing desk several times (we were sitting a few rows in front of it) but was somewhat surprised to see no sign of dissatisfaction on the face of the sound engineer. On the contrary, he looked very relaxed and happy, despite the fact that the percussion was drowning out almost everything else. Every now and then he would seem to become aware of an imbalance but made the fundamental error of continually raising the volume of the other instruments and the voice, rather than bringing the offending instrument's levels down. As the evening went on this 'volume chasing' continued as the engineer, having turned everything else up to the point where the percussionists were not so prominent in the mix, then decided that their levels needed to be brought up more and so ad infinitum until distortion began to set in...
I'm sure that the actual performance was great: they were musicians of a very high calibre and Maria Rita is a damn fine singer who was obviously giving her all to a rapturous crowd, who in turn were on their feet dancing within a very short time and greeting each song with a howl of recognition. They seemed to enjoy it all despite the sound quality and the atmosphere was generally fairly joyous. Alas, I could not share the enthusiasm, much as I wanted to. I'm happy that everyone had a good time - a fact confirmed by the repeated encores that led to the repetition of some of the set as they had obviously run out of rehearsed material - but for me sheer atmosphere was not enough. I wanted to hear what the individual instruments were playing. It was a seven piece band - piano, bass, drums, cavaquinho, seven string guitar and two percussionists. The pianist was the excellent Jota Moraes, who I know from his great work with the group Cama Da Gato (of whom more in another posting) but you would never have known.
No, on the whole it was a great disappointment but I point the finger solely at the sound engineer. I have seen DVDs of several live performances and I would still urge you to check out Maria Rita if you get the chance. Try this for a start. There's lots more where this came from!
Friday, 27 June 2008
Strike up the bandolim
Hamilton de Hollanda (see yesterday's post) is only one of a number of younger Brazilian musicians who have revitalised interest in the bandolim. As you can see from the picture, the main difference between a mandolin and a bandolim is the name and the body shape. Otherwise, both instruments have similar scale lengths, tuning and stringing.
Jacob do Bandolim was probably the first musician to bring the instrument to prominence, and is responsible for one of the most well known and frequently recorded choro tunes, Noites Cariocas (Rio Nights - 'Carioca' is a slang trem for a person from Rio de Janeiro). Here it is played by another superb bandolimist, Armandinho, with the late, great Raphael Rabello on 7 string guitar (another instrument that deserves a posting of its own - watch this space...).
Another young musician working in the choro field is Dudu Maia. His speciality is the 10 string bandolim which as the name implies has an extra course of strings, thus extending the harmonic range. here he is seen in a choro club in Brasilia, playing another Jacob do Bandolim composition, Vibrações (Vibrations). Hamilton de Hollanda, whilst retaining a great love and respect for the older musical forms has, in recent years been taking the bandolim in a more jazz-oriented direction. Here he is with his quintet in 2006. I can't name the tune but I did notice that de Hollanda is also now playing a 10 string instrument.
I have a couple of Déo Rian albums but know very little about him other than the fact that he's about the same age as me, was much influenced by Jacob do Bandolim and is another great player. There are very few YouTube clips of him and most of them have not been uploaded very well, but here is his version of Vibrações. Another player of similar vintage is Joel Nascimento, whose work I first encountered on a double CD devoted to the compositions of Jacob which was released on the Biscoito Fino label in 2003. Unfortunately the quality of the YouTube material is not good - mobile phone videos and TV news clips with the presenter talking over most of the performances, but his recordings are well worth seeking out.
Finally, to bring this particular strand full circle, here Mike Marshall performs in Brazil, with Hamilton de Hollanda, singer Zelia Duncan and an unknamed guitarist. The song is Doce de Côco (Coconut Candy) and is yet another classic composition by Jacob de Bandolim.
I shall be returning to the subject of choro again at some point, but for now I'm off up to London for a few days. My next posting will be a revue of tomorrow night's Maria Rita concert at the Barbican. Maybe I'll see you there...
Thursday, 26 June 2008
Mandolin windows
When my brother 'G the D' and his wife returned from a protracted trip to the U.S.A at the beginning of the 80's, he gave me a tape of an album called 'Hot Dawg' by a mandolin player called David Grisman. They had been to see Grisman's group at a concert in California, mainly because Stéphane Grappelli was a featured guest. G the D and I had first come to hear Grappelli through an enthusiasm for Django Rheinhardt's music But this stuff from Grisman was something new. Yes, it had elements of 'Gypsy Jazz' in it, but it also contained a large helping of Bluegrass and more than a hint of modern jazz influences. It was a knock-out mix and I loved it.
Not long after this I opened a specialist guitar shop in partnership with 'Fingers' Bartram, who by now was better known as Richard Bartram and was an accomplished Luthier (see my links). As well as selling instruments and music we decided to keep guitar records, so I set about building a varied stock that featured every possible aspect of guitar playing except the rock side of things (on the grounds that was already covered in depth by every other record shop in the known universe). My thoughts turned to the Grisman album, which had featured a superb acoustic guitar flat-picker by the name of Tony Rice. I soon found other albums by Rice and was led in turn to the world of bluegrass and also to the new acoustic music movement that was getting underway in the States. This clip of Grisman, Rice, fiddle player (and, incidentally, also a great guitarist) Mark O'Connor and bassist Rob Wasserman playing a tune called 'E.M.D.' should give you an idea of the impact that this stuff had on me and why the mandolin was now also engaging my attention. Pretty soon I picked up on Sam Bush - now known as a stalwart Nashville session player but capable of transcending the genres and playing all kinds of music. Here are two clips. The first shows him with another great musical 'genre bender', 5 string banjo player Bela Fleck (I will be coming back to him in a later posting). This is part of an American TV documentary about Fleck from the mid 90's and features one of his original compositions, 'Cheeseballs in Cowtown'! The next shows Bush, splendidly over the top, playing a tune called 'Funk 55' on a 4 string electric mandolin (same tuning but only one course of strings instead of two).
Another stalwart of Grisman's circle of musicians was Mike Marshall, who I have mentioned before as one of my favourite guitarists (see The twang's not the thang). In fact, mandolin is his first instrument. Here he shows off his bluegrass chops with 'Psychograss' at The Old Settler's Music Festival 1n 2007. In recent years and in common with one or two other musicians from the North American acoustic music scene, he has turned his attentions to choro and has recorded with a number of Brazilian musicians. Here we see him with the great bandolim player, Hamilton De Hollanda. They start with a bluegrass classic and segue to a choro favourite.
My next posting will follow the line back into Brazil, but for now we'll conclude with a clip of Mike in France last year, playing Ravel's 'Laidronette Imperatrice des Pagodes' with Nov' Mandolin Sextet . Another classic example of what can happen when the barriers come down and it's all just about the music!
Not long after this I opened a specialist guitar shop in partnership with 'Fingers' Bartram, who by now was better known as Richard Bartram and was an accomplished Luthier (see my links). As well as selling instruments and music we decided to keep guitar records, so I set about building a varied stock that featured every possible aspect of guitar playing except the rock side of things (on the grounds that was already covered in depth by every other record shop in the known universe). My thoughts turned to the Grisman album, which had featured a superb acoustic guitar flat-picker by the name of Tony Rice. I soon found other albums by Rice and was led in turn to the world of bluegrass and also to the new acoustic music movement that was getting underway in the States. This clip of Grisman, Rice, fiddle player (and, incidentally, also a great guitarist) Mark O'Connor and bassist Rob Wasserman playing a tune called 'E.M.D.' should give you an idea of the impact that this stuff had on me and why the mandolin was now also engaging my attention. Pretty soon I picked up on Sam Bush - now known as a stalwart Nashville session player but capable of transcending the genres and playing all kinds of music. Here are two clips. The first shows him with another great musical 'genre bender', 5 string banjo player Bela Fleck (I will be coming back to him in a later posting). This is part of an American TV documentary about Fleck from the mid 90's and features one of his original compositions, 'Cheeseballs in Cowtown'! The next shows Bush, splendidly over the top, playing a tune called 'Funk 55' on a 4 string electric mandolin (same tuning but only one course of strings instead of two).
Another stalwart of Grisman's circle of musicians was Mike Marshall, who I have mentioned before as one of my favourite guitarists (see The twang's not the thang). In fact, mandolin is his first instrument. Here he shows off his bluegrass chops with 'Psychograss' at The Old Settler's Music Festival 1n 2007. In recent years and in common with one or two other musicians from the North American acoustic music scene, he has turned his attentions to choro and has recorded with a number of Brazilian musicians. Here we see him with the great bandolim player, Hamilton De Hollanda. They start with a bluegrass classic and segue to a choro favourite.
My next posting will follow the line back into Brazil, but for now we'll conclude with a clip of Mike in France last year, playing Ravel's 'Laidronette Imperatrice des Pagodes' with Nov' Mandolin Sextet . Another classic example of what can happen when the barriers come down and it's all just about the music!
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