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MAMA SISSOKO
DIAMOND FINGERS (one world music)
The familiar apparatus of music listening: the substantial LP cover with printed sleeve, wiping the disc, carefully dropping the needle, as well as getting up to turn the record over, are gone. Not only the physicality and tactility of the experience but the casually supplied information has largely gone too... my computer folders are full of jpegs of covers of LPs I have imported into a hard drive for ease of listening but if I click on the jpegs or PDFs I also assembled, I sometimes get error messages as my decaying system reminds me I need to make another offering to the ghost of Steve Jobs. I bought the new Mama Sissoko album on Bandcamp and I have to go back to their site if I want any information about it (The information is also on the label home page but the type there is unreadable). I learn that Mama was born in 1949 in Nioro du Sahel, 450 km north of Bamako. He grew up listening to jazz, rock and blues, as well as being steeped in the Mandingue culture with all the rhythms of the Bobo, Bambara, Peul, Songhai around him. His pedigree as a guitarist and singer was crafted through Orchestre A du Mali led by Keletigui Diabaté, Orchestre National du Bamako (an extension of the former, later known as National Badema), and Super Biton de Ségou. Fortunately for us these bands were recorded by the Bärenreiter-Musicaphon label of Germany. Mama Sissoko leads a power trio here (Mohamed Sissoko on bass and Noumou Keita on congas) and there are added synth, balafon and trap drums which are uncredited. His songs are full of irony as he criticizes the French authorities for their racism towards immigrants. (And, at this time of the world cup, we learn that all 22 members of the French football squad could play for an African country, based on their parentage. In fact every European and Scandinavian country is fielding a disproportionate percentage of African players in terms of their statistical ethnicity.) But Sissoko's songs are also lyrical and meditative. He plays in a style now known as Bambara blues from the minor keys and seventh notes we hear. The group conjure up a reggae vibe for "Nkana," which goes full stadium pomp with echo and decay to the max. I haven't heard an outro this massive since "Purple Rain"! "Douga" has a familiar groove... mayhap it's an update of an old griot hit. A couple of the songs were on his "Mini-Wheat" album (Soleil de Minuit, Buda Musique, 1999): "Commissariat," the lead track about immigration, and "Massané Cissé," a tragic tale of love and death (the lyrics are in the CD booklet, which might be considered a plus but after what I said above, even with a magnifying glass, reading tiny red type on a black background is nigh impossible, so the CD experience was a step downwards from the LP!). Traditional tunes "Douga" and "Massane Cissé," as established parts of his repertoire, are also on the outstanding LIVE album (Mieruba, 2024). The title track "Diamond Fingers" is a reprise of Franco's "Liwa ya Wech," which was made famous by Sekou Diabaté Bembeya, who is also known as "Diamond Fingers." I am guessing there is no copyright issue here as Bembeya adapted it from the Congolese hit. But it's a little confusing to have Mama claim the title from his compatriot. This is a wonderful listening experience so forget the medium and dig the message. |
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ANGINE DE POITRINE
VOL II (self)
It's not often you hear microtonal music in a rock context. You hear it in classical music like Harry Partch or the late Michael Harrison (a devotee of North Indian music who created a 24-note octave piano), but other than Zappa and Beefheart we have to look to arab-influenced bands, or groups like Altin Gün who take the quarter tone scale of Turkish folk music, or dig the entrancing tones of Javanese gamelan music via our cherished Folkways albums. Because here in the West we are stuck with our twelve-tone music (an octave of eight whole tones and five semi tones which somehow add up to 12 because 1 & 8 are synonymous), so to our western ears, anything not resolving into those familiar pitches seems dissonant. I was entranced by this band, whose name means chest palpitations, from the get-go but not initially or wholly because of the music, rather I was sucked into the mythos of their look, superimposed on their sound, which is really what popular music is about: a visual visceral appeal, recognizable from Elvis to Michael Jackson to Shakira. A small online gig four months ago on KEXP, which has now garnered 16 million views, presented this Quebecois duo to the world. They look like characters drawn by Alfred Jarry, and in interviews never deviate from the weird personae of non-earthling beings who have somehow arrived here with a little French and some caricature martian dialect. They are seemingly a male (Klek on drums) and a female (Khn on guitars); although they are fully costumed it is apparent to me the guitarist "Khn" is a woman and, despite the body paint, they are white. But this doesn't really matter. They are beasts on their instruments. They sample "Train kept a rollin" by the Yardbirds, and there's a famous run from "Pipeline" by Dick Dale. But these are riffs any aspiring rocker has to master, you argue. But that is merely the familiar: it's what's not obviously apparent that is engaging. Check out the scorching asymmetric riffs which are the appeal of this band. Khn plays a double-necked Gibson and starts by laying down a bass riff and, with deft twinkle-toed application of foot pedals, creates a loop, then doubles up on guitar. Once it's percolating, she can improvise over her own bass and rhythm set up while brother/partner gets to jam along on some crazy free-form yet very tight drumming. "Mata Zyklek" is the stand-out track but everything they play is intense, and never quite resolves harmonically so you are waiting ("where's that confounded bridge?") in vain. The beauty is in hearing stuff you've never heard anywhere and on top of that comes the joy of watching them perform. Or you can simply listen and get into the sheer head-banging joy of "Sarniezz" which even has vocals as it spirals out of control. You can also get their single "Sherpa" at name your price as a swell bonus track. |
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LOS ORIENTALES DE PARAMONGA
1972-1976 (Analog Africa no 45)
In the late 60s and early 70s, Peru was abuzz with the psychedelic sounds of wah-wah (gua-gua) guitars channeling surf rock and rockabilly riffs through big Fender amps feeding back with echo and reverb. The Northern coastal city of Paramonga had its own band, Los Orientales, and their debut single, "Lobos al Escape (wolves on the loose)," topped the national pop charts. But the bandleaders fell out, split the group in two and both continued using the name. One half went to Lima and signed with a label who issued a couple of albums by them in the 1970s which have been sampled here, showcasing electric cumbia and incorporating Cuban rhythms such as salsa and guaguancó. However they couldn't tour at first to promote their album because they were mostly minors and their parents would not let them quit school to play rock. The best of their two albums plus a dozen singles have been assembled by Samy ben Redjeb and the Analog posse. Most tracks are less than three minutes but are packed with congas, bongós, timbales, bass, piano (a classic salsa line-up) plus those bristling guitars. Vocals are minimal. The keyboard player switches to an electric organ for the Spaghetti-Western track "Chiquilla en Onda." "Guajira Caliente" also has a guitar lead straight out of Ennio Morricone. They add vocals and snappy clapping to "Guajira Oriental" which is a remake of "Guantanamera." The classic Peruvian cumbia sound comes to the fore on "A-chi-li-pu," but it's most interesting when they create a hybrid with this warbly guitar and classic Cuban riffs, as on "Siempre contagiando," a kind of wobbly cha-cha/guajira. |
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GRAEME EWENS
ETERNAL RHYTHM: CONVERSATIONS & TRAVELATIONS WITH DON CHERRY (Ars Nova Workshop)
Don Cherry was a Renaissance man: a musician's musician who transcended all genres. Best known as a jazz trumpeter he also made a name gigging with musicians from all over the world. In the mid-1990s he lived in San Francisco and was a frequent visitor to Round World Music (where I worked as the grumpy Sunday guy): his good friend DJ Cheb i Sabbah (Serge el Beze) also worked there, so Don would hang out, listening to Malian cassettes before selecting which ones he wanted to take home. We sold what was loosely called "World music" or "World beat" though Serge preferred to call it "Trance dance music," but it was also fusion of many types. Don said "In record shops I was having that problem of where to classify what I was doing. Was it jazz or was it ethnic music, or was it 'contemporary classic' or was it 'Noise'?" It might be all of those, because whenever there was a concert that fit into the loosely described "World" category, from Indian to African to local groups like the Hieroglyphics Ensemble or Jai Uttal, Cherry would pop up on stage with his pocket trumpet and peal off a few magic riffs.
Graeme Ewens came by the store one day and I arranged to meet him for a chat over a pint of beer as he was producer of the RETROAFRIC label, and author of the renowned biography of Franco, Congo Colossus (Buku Press, 1994). He was in town to interview Cherry, which seemed like a big leap from the intense work he had just completed on Africa's best-known songwriter and guitarist. He was in fact following Cherry around the globe, from London to Sweden to California for an ongoing series of conversations about his life, documented on cassette tapes. Now 30 years after the trumpeter's death, we have this engaging and thorough account of his life and work. It's beautifully realized with drawings, photographs and ephemera and truly sings the story of this remarkable artist. Cherry was born in Oklahoma in 1936. His grandmother was a Choctaw woman and his grandfather was a black man. His father Ulysses opened a cafe and hired Charlie Christian to play. Times were hard and due to the Dust Bowl the family moved West to Watts, Los Angeles. He learned to tap dance and to play the trumpet (studying with Clifford Brown) and joined high school bands, playing Latin, Mexican, R&B, pop, anything! And then he met Ornette Coleman. His jazz career from this point on is well known, starting with The Shape of Jazz to Come by the Ornette Coleman quartet, 1959, with the rhythm section of Charlie Haden and Billy Higgins. A year later the same band, with Coltrane replacing Coleman, recorded The Avant-Garde (also on Atlantic). Haden was an asset: as the white member he could front the band with club owners, or they might get gigs if another white musician like Paul Bley was in town, but otherwise no one wanted to hear them. They went to Texas where Ornette's sister, a singer, would take requests for country and western songs or R&B hits from the audience. But the audiences were thin: one day a patron left and came back with a shotgun, yelling "Stop!" Undaunted they returned to LA and spent a whole year rehearsing for a promised gig at the Five Spot in New York, the Mecca of jazz clubs. They studied harmolodics and would play Charlie Parker tunes forwards and then backwards. New York loved them and they were the first band to have a long stand at the club.
Later, Cherry and other former Ornette sidemen created Old & New Dreams with Dewey Redman on tenor, Haden on bass, and drummer Ed Blackwell, to perform Coleman compositions. This was not just a cover band, they were all top notch musicians. He gigged with everyone from Sun Ra (4 albums) to Steve Lacy to Lou Reed (The Bells). With his jazz trio CoDoNa he performed at the first WOMAD festival, while his daughter Neneh Cherry appeared with her group Rip, Rig & Panic. CoDoNa saw him team up with Brasilian percussionist Nana Vasconcelos and Collin Walcott, a New Yorker who had studied sitar with Ravi Shankar and tabla under Alla Rakha! Cherry played on Carla Bley's 1971 Escalator over the Hill, performed with the Jazz Composers Orchestra and Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra, as well as recording with Terry Riley, Abdullah Ibrahim, Sonny Rollins. He toured the world, being inspired by the music of Turkey, India and Africa, even appearing as a runway model in Tokyo for Pour des Garçons (with Dennis Hopper and William Burroughs sharing the catwalk!), before settling in Sweden (because he loved the cold, and the fireside). He studied in India with L. Shankar and after a tour through Africa took up the donso ngoni. There was no one like Don Cherry. Miles Davis put him down on first hearing but then begrudgingly admired him when he heard him perform and asked to try the tiny trumpet. I knew Cherry dabbled in pop but did not know he was friends with Ian Dury and had toured with the Blockheads! I have found the video of the 1980 Xmas Eve gig which was shown on the BBC. This book is a breath-taking deep dive into some of the highlights of the music of the late twentieth century. And for fans of his music, the rare 1972 Copenhagen recording of a live concert with Abdullah Ibrahim and Carlos Ward will be reissued by WeWantSounds in September. |
