Above: Syran Mbenza
KEKELE LIVE at Yoshi's, Oakland, 3 July 2006
Bay Area summer night, chilly, fog in the air. Though it's a monday night, ten p.m., there's a line round the corner from Yoshi's and up the street. More people arrive and see friends in line so the line moves out towards the pavement rather than back round the corner where I am with IJ & Yoko. Trains pass. It's sold out, so Yoko can't get in, unless I ask her to be my plus one instead of IJ. IJ looks doubtful, Who would you rather take? he asks, Frankly, I say... --Come on, I even shaved tonight... Yoko calls a friend and gets a lift. IJ knows half the people in line from his wide connections deejaying. After a long wait we move inside and grab seats at the back with a friend of IJ's who is celebrating his birthday and is already drunk on rum & cokes. I ask him if he likes this kind of music. I don't know, he says, I am open to anything. The band comes on slowly after a sumptuous meal (Yoshi's is a Japanese restaurant & you can get a great tuna tartare with wasabi on a bed of arugula if you want to eat while listening to jazz) and starts to pick up. There's a lot more oomph than on their albums and they are more polished than on their last two tours. Yoshi's have been advertising them as Cuban-derived African music, to fit in with their Salsa Mundo series, so the audience is not familiar with them (which means they gained new converts), and Loko tried to speak in Spanish between songs. It's an odd concept, but Congolese Rumba, as it's called, has nothing to do with real rumba, the ritual drum and percussive music of Cuba, but there's enough influence from Son Montuno to engage the salseros. When they do the Guillermo Portabales material from their third album, "Yoka biso biso biso," sounds so like "mi son, mi son, mi son," to convince anyone it's purely Cuban. The addition of Muzette accordion (Jeoffrey Arnone) and the legendary Jimmy Mvondo-Mvele on sax is a great idea and fattens the sound, making a connection to early OK Jazz. Syran is jamming by the second number, "Delali," playing two-fingered leads that recall Franco. It's highly reminiscent of OK Jazz and there's Wuta Mayi, who sang with OK Jazz, to sanction the pedigree. The sound is not ideal: the mikes trebly and everything a bit too loud for the small space when you take into account they have amps on stage as well as a PA system. The accordionist points at the ceiling as if to say God is listening (& can't hear me), but the engineer ignores him. The congas and accordion are lost in the mix. However, the bass (Ahmed Barry who has toured with Sam Mangwana and Kanda Bongo Man) and drums (the great Komba Mafwala who was part of Four Stars) are rocking the house. Despite missing Bopol and also Papa Noel who must be too frail to endure the tour, Fofo Vangu-Tungila, ex-Quartier Latin de Koffi Olomide, does a great job on lead guitar and has a lot more enthusiasm than Rigo who toured last year when they played a sit-down gig in Marin. There's our collectively beautiful Oakland interracial crowd jammed into a tiny dancefloor swinging and swaying and trying to shake their butts. "How do they do that?" Miri asks me. It's in the hips I tell her, but I am worn out from teaching an evening class and only mildly winding my waist. I've ditched the table because the guy who is drunk and open to anything is talking loudly and even calling people on his phone which means he is basically yelling in my ear. The lead guitar () is hotter than the previous two tours, but they should switch to electric guitars for the seben (like "Stairway to Heaven"?). In fact it's clearly an unplugged soukous show, and probably wont be long before they start doing some of their old Quatre Etoiles material, much of which is heading towards "classic" status. Just imagine: Kekele with special guest Bopol Mansiamina doing Lipua Lipua and Quatre Etoiles material unplugged. Now there's a live album to conjure up.
KEKELE IN CONCERT, Marin, January 2005
Above: Wuta Mayi, Loko Massengo, Nyboma Mwan'dido [vocalists], Deba Sungu on congas, Syran Mbenza, Rigo Star [seated], guitarists
Thursday the 20th of January 2005 was not an auspicious day. In Washington DC the little weasel was being sworn in at great expense while burning questions were asked: why did he need to spend so many millions when he could have given it to the schools or the social security system? and why was most of that money spent on security (because he has made the USA less secure than ever). And where was Osama, isn't he a cabinet member? The real question was why was there no popular uprising like in Ukraine over the election's apparent fraudulent result (and the answer to that is the American media is owned by the same Nazi pimps who control the little weasel). 7000 miles away in Mecca the Hajj came to an end with a traditional ceremony: four million muslims threw pebbles at three rock pillars representing the devil. Now if only we could have focussed their negative energy on the little weasel in Washington. But on the bright side, Kekele were playing at a community center in San Rafael. It said 7:30 start but that's unheard of for an African concert, but indeed when I arrived with my posse at 9 we had missed the first set. I was wearing my embroidered muslim hat in honour of the Hajj, though I am a devout aetheist. Turns out the concert was at a Jewish Community Center, so I got a few sideways glances. But this is Marin, not Tel Aviv or Berkeley, and we are all one big family, right? It was like a high school auditorium with candlelit tables shoved right up to the proscenium stage. The group came out in matching outfits to mild applause. Those of us at the sides attempted to dance in the aisles. Folks were leaving muttering, "I thought you said tonight was the Bulgarian Ladies choir?!" and I thought of grabbing a table down front, but I wanted to be able to move.
In their day, Les Quatres Etoiles were my all-time favourite band, so I still have high expectations for Kekele. Kekele has a deep repertoire, when you consider the Quatre Etoiles' material, not to mention their own songs from their respective careers in many mythical bands: Nyboma in Bella Bella, Negro Succès, Lipua Lipua and Les Kamalé Dynamique du Zaire, Wuta Mayi with Rock-a-Mambo, OK Jazz & Orchestre Continental, Loko Massengo with Trio Madjesi, Syran Mbenza with Somo Somo, Lovy du Zaire and Sam Mangwana's African All Stars. They are indeed a supergroup. I noticed Nyboma did one Quatre Etoiles song (I think it was "Enfant Bamileke"), but they also covered my all-time favourite Congolese song, "Infidelité Mado," written by Celli Bittshu and popularized by Franco and OK Jazz in 1971.
The sound was problematic, which was too bad for an essentially acoustic band. If you got down in front, which we managed to do at the end, you could hear the guitars from the amps on stage. The drums were too loud and you couldn't hear Rigo Star (who was sitting in -- literally -- on second guitar). Rigo sat impassively in shades and frowned the whole time, constantly fiddling with his tuning pegs. You could only hear Syran at the beginning of each tune.
The three singers (Bumba Massa had visa problems so didn't make the trip) danced and had a good time, their note-perfect harmonies a little fried by the cheap PA system. I hope they do a live album next, as their studio albums seem a little restrained. They have finally got the perfect formula and the right line-up, with Jimmy Sax Mvondo on saxophone and Sebastien Malherbe on button accordion (replacing those cheezy synthesizers that plagued Congolese pop for a decade). Vincent Hamanjian on bass did a superb job of locking down the groove with Komba Bellow's intense drumming. Rounding out the group was Deba Sungu on congas, though he was only audible during his solo at the end.
On the drive home IJ was lamenting the African music scene here in California. Since 9/11 fewer acts have toured, there has been less support in the local media and only one or two venues (notably Ashkenaz in Berkeley) willing to take a chance on a class act of this calibre that may not guarantee a sell-out. Still, we had big fun, in our middle-aged way, and hope these elder statesmen of African music keep touring into their next decade.
SAM MANGWANA
AT Yoshi's, Oakland, August 17, 1999
For a long time I've been bemoaning the death of Soukous, the vibrant high-energy pop from the Congo. Recent albums and local concerts by major exponents of the form like Diblo Dibala and Rigo Star confirmed my feeling that the music had become stale. By chance I ran into the greatest living exponent of soukous guitar, Syran M'benza, outside Rasputin's Records in Berkeley and invited him across the street for a beer. Syran now lives in Paris and unfortunately was not in town to play. I asked him why he had not recorded anything since his classic 1990 album SYMBIOSE. He explained he was waiting for the right moment to try something new, and agreed that the music had become formulaic. Syran's group, Les Quatre Etoiles (or Four Stars), are a stellar configuration of the cream of Congolese talent. There are two vocalists -- Nyboma Mwan'dido and Wuta Mayi -- two guitarists -- Syran and Bopol Mansiamina -- and, uncredited but crucial to the sound, the rhythm section of Ngouma Lokito on bass and Komba Bellow on drums. Another reason the Four Stars haven't been touring is they are all busy with other projects. Bopol is currently touring with Ricardo Lemvo, the sensational singer from Congo who started a band in Los Angeles -- Makina Loca -- that perfectly blends Cuban and Congolese rumba, and Nyboma is fronting the Soukous Stars. But the gospel of Four Stars is spreading as the music is slowly evolving.
Sam Mangwana came to the San Francisco Bay Area and made a huge impact at Stern Grove and then did two nights at Yoshi's where I got to see him on August 17th with his current band. Sam is one of the key players in the evolution of African music. He has the unique distinction of having fronted two of the greatest bands in Zairean music history: Rochereau's African Fiesta National (when he was 18), and Franco's OK Jazz. In his thirties, Sam set up a base in Abidjan and with the African All Stars (including at one point Syran and Bopol) began touring widely in Africa, introducing musical elements from Martinique and Cuba, as well as from other African countries, into the traditional soukous sound. In his fifties, he continues to be a major innovator in African pop music.
Komba Bellow was holding down the drum kit and Sam had taken the first step to liberating Soukous from the hegemony of Parisian synthesizer players by bringing along an accordeonist. Viviane Arnoux grew up in the French provincial tradition of Musette, learning on a double-button accordeon.
At the break I asked her how she got into African music and she told me that the 1993 recording ACCORDEONS GO TO ABIDJAN by Le Zagazougou opened her ears to the possibility. There are fewer notes than in musette, she said, but she knew she had found a new passion.
Mangwana has also teamed up with another giant of Congolese rumba, Nedule Papa Noel, one of the most gifted guitarists in the history of African music. Noel was recruited from OK Jazz to replace the legendary Dr Nico in African Jazz in the mid-sixties. His career took him acros the Congo river to join the Bantous of the Capital in Brazzaville in the 1970s, and when he left, they had to hire two guitarists to replace him! Papa Noel has a solo career (with four superb solo albums, including most recently HIGH TENSION and NONO) but was onboard with Mangwana and playing acoustic guitar which was a pleasure to hear, though that night he was feeling under the weather and so only played one solo.
Mangwana opened his Yoshi's show with the title cut from his new album GALO NEGRO, on Putumayo, a song in Portuguese about war and starvation in Central Africa. The music flowed beautifully back and forth across the stage as the accordeon and acoustic guitar traded riffs. Sam sang "Manjani" in Lingala and even gave us what sounded like yodelling at the end. Mangwana speaks many languages and switched to Spanish for "Linda Mujer," a classic rumba. "My songs are dreams," he explained to the audience, then taking a professorial role, he gave a short explanation of the spread of High-Life music throughout Africa in the sixties. It was brought by traveling salesmen, he laughed, and elaborated: While the different countries within Africa are struggling with the ethnic strife caused by the borders arbitrarily drawn by the European colonists a century ago, the artists within Africa have informally created a United States of Africa.
This is a wonderful notion, and Sam makes the best ambassador for this country: the USA of the next millenium.
Sam urged the sedate audience to get up and boogie. "We are not a movie," he joked. "I never saw tv growing up, but here you have tv everywhere, even in restrooms!"
I can't figure out why Yoshi's doesn't have a dancefloor and why they don't have a deejay before and after the show, it would be lucrative and the patrons would have a more enjoyable evening, rather than being shunted out at the show's end, but we made the most of it as the zouk influence came out in one of Sam's classic songs, "Georgette Eckins" from 1978 (recently reissued on Sonodisc CD 7002), for which Noel switched to electric guitar. Despite the awkward arrangement of tables, people were dancing in the aisles, and the ten-minute groove segued neatly into the outro of "Maria Tebbo," Sam's biggest hit, which he covered in 1980. Drummer Komba Bellow got to do a little toasting as they rocked the joint. The party ambiance was so high that my pal Big Steve (an ardent Francophone) jumped on stage and dashed the accordeon player, Viviane, pasting a $5 bill to her forehead in appreciation of her virtuosity! (White-on-white dashing, that has to be a concert first!)
Next Sam performed "Minha Angola" (from his album RUMBA MUSIC) about the civil war in his native Angola (his father was an Angolan worker in Congo when Sam was born in Kinshasa in 1945). If you've read Ryzard Kapuscinski's ANOTHER DAY OF LIFE you'll understand the irony of this futile war where Cuban mercenaries defend American corporate oil rigs from American-backed South African guerillas. "I wrote this in 1975," Sam said, "and they are still fighting."
Mangwana switched to Kiswahili for "Kabibi," his 1987 song about a beautiful six-year-old girl he met while learning that East African trader language. In her he saw the natural beauty of all Africa and composed the song.
The show ended with "Nakupenda," a rumba in Swahili from the new album. "You must enjoy it," joked Sam, "It's a love song." Again the group demonstrated the confluence of musical styles that meet in their music. In the guitar alone I could spot R&B chording, flamenco flourishes, the finger-picking influence of likembe, or thumb piano, and tres styling from Cuban son. "Sukuma" which Sam shouts as encouragement to the band, means "push push" in Lingala and they really push the boundaries of music.
