Via Wrath of the Grapevine, South African guitarist Derek Gripper plays arrangements of Manding kora music from Mali, notably the music of Toumani Diabaté, as well as Ali Farka Touré and others. Beautiful. Derek is very informative on the music, the process of arrangement (which involved choosing different tunings to make the different pieces playable on guitar), and the recording of the album here. You can stream it all for free in the player below, but I urge you to download it if you like it; you can choose your own price, no minimum.
Monthly Archives: May 2012
The Genuines--- Goema / Offsides
A couple of posts ago I mentioned meeting Hilton Schilder of the 1980s Cape Town rock / pop / punk band The Genuines, at the District Six museum's film series. I downloaded their 1986 album Goema, along with the short outtakes/B-sides compilation Offsides, at their bandcamp.com page. I chose the lossless FLAC format, which won't play in e.g. windows media player but sounds great in a free player like foobar2000; foobar can also convert it to other formats; I converted it to .wav and ripped a CD in WMP, which sounds great blasting on a real stereo---the way music should be really listened to although it sounds great on headphones too. You can stream mp3s of every track on the albums at bandcamp to decide if you like it or not, but it's definitely worth the $9 for Goema and $4 for Offsides to have the high-fidelity versions, and to support these great musicians. Herewith a review of this essential piece of South African music history.
The Genuines' album "Goema" melds jazz, classic rock, punk, hints of R&B, reggae, ska and latin music and a big dose of Cape carnival music and goema, seamlessly and to excellent musical and lyrical effect. The result is not pastiche but a style that is The Genuines' own. The songwriting is sophisticated but not fussy, the instrumental solos are excellent but usually quite short, rather than long-winded, becoming part of the form as in e.g. an Ellington composition. Excellent playing from everyone. Hilton Schilder's voice is very recognizable, with smoothness and flexibility needed but also a slighty dark, honeyed character, and a very effective throatiness or growliness at times. He sings with ease, and perfect control of pitch. Good lyrics, lots of positive messages, but also humour, sometimes dark. Most of the pieces show some jazz influence, whether in a solo or in the chord changes on a bridge, or some Steely-Dan-ish harmonic touches (6/9 chords?). Several tracks are absolute classics, certainly Goema, Struggle, and Do it Right, which integrate carnival-party musical influences with other musical elements (notably punk in the case of the first two) but I'm also big on the mellow but funky Troubled Dreams and Pictures, the peppy lounge jazz of Let's Walk, and the alternating classic rock and jazzy pop of Observations. The lyrics work well with the music, and the album is sequenced very well; the sound quality in lossless format is really excellent. Overall the album is very well mixed, with interesting instrumental and vocal detail easy to hear but not obtrusive. It may be just slightly smooth for my taste but that works great on many tunes---and you can always turn it up louder if you want more distortion.
The album kicks off with a perfect piece of pop-inflected slow-groove R&B in "Troubled Dream", mellowish but with Schilder's vocal ranging from burnished smooth to an open-throated growl. "Pictures" is another medium slow
groove with a reggae-ish basic beat, latin-inflected melodies, and lush production, making good use of synthesizers or electronic keyboards, and occasional backing vocals. It seems to be continuing, from the previous cut, the story of a---romantic?---obsession. There follows a more uptempo "Shadows", and then you're hit with a blast of "Goema", your basic melding of Cape carnival beat with uptempo thrash. Great tune, nice guitar solo. "Observations" turns down the tempo again, starting out in a classic-rock radio kind of groove but then segueing into a jazzier kind of bridge. Positive vibe inspirational lyric works well. We're back in classic rock territory again for the guitar solo, then another vocal bridge, and then a surprise...new material, double-tempo and also jazzy, with vocals and then a jazz keyboard solo into the fade. Another great cut. Uptempo again for "Struggle"---an Afrikaans language song about anti-apartheid action, melding upbeat almost Veracruzana party or carnival music with punky thrash. Great bass breaks and fours between exchanged with guitar, keys. An instant classic. "20th floor" is solid moderate-tempo punkish rock. "The Edge" is quirky, reminiscent of smooth jazz and---both lyrically and musically---Steely Dan. "On the edge... it's the only place to be. The edge was designed for you and me." Not the meatiest track on the album perhaps, but fun. And humorous: fades with some good advice for those on the edge: "don't let go." "Let's Walk" kicks up the tempo a bit while maintaining the jazzy Steely Dan-ish feel. Nice short guitar solo, nice organ work. "Narrow Escape" is a bit of an odd interlude, kind of gothic, with low-pitched sprechstimme (great voice!) and a police-show kind of theme. Probably not to be taken too seriously. "Three murderers chasing you....why did you have so many scotches with that girl?". But then again street crime is a serious issue in the Cape Flats. "Dancer" interweaves interludes of arabian-sounding vamping with bits of foursquare punkish stuff, not my top track but still interesting. The album ends on a high note with "Do it Right": great vocal harmonizing, a simple but effective lyric over a peppy latin carnival beat. The banjo (an essential element of Cape Klopse carnival bands) is a great touch.
The live "Offside" is a bonus track with the download of Goema; originally included on the B-sides/out-takes compilation "Offside" (it's also duplicated on that download). It's an excellent medium-tempo ska-ish track about taking care of your karma. Hilton is in beautiful form on vocals. The other tracks on "Offside" are also definitely worth having, especially if you like, as I do, the jazzier side of the Genuines.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Numbers are kind of silly when it comes to art and such, but since I've started in with a 10 point scale, I'll say 9 out of 10. Top notch stuff, and fun to listen to.
Tete Mbambisa "Black Heroes" CD release concert, University of Cape Town
At the showing of "Mama Goema: the Cape Town Beat in Five Movements", I was alerted by Calum MacNaughton to a concert concert by South African pianist Tete Mbambisa, celebrating the release of his new solo piano CD "Black Heroes", on April 22nd. We missed the first few numbers, as we were driving up from Cape Point after a day spent watching surfers at Muizenberg, watching penguins at the Boulder Beach unit of Table Mountain National Park, and walking to Diaz Beach and the Cape of Good Hope. And finding the school of music at UCT took a little while. What a finish to a fantastic day, though. Tete wrapped up a number with a crack rhythm section consisting of Ivan Bell on drums and Wesley Rustin on bass, and then his wife Vuyiswa Ngcwangu/uMambisa joined the band, in great voice, singing a standard whose name I've let slip, then Key Largo, then an excellent blues with refrain "I need a mellow man", really rocking the place.
It was great to talk to Calum, Gregory, and Vuyiswa at intermission, and Gregory gave me the info about the local jam Monday night jam session at Swingers' in Wetton. After intermission Tete came back on solo piano, playing a beautiful piece made up on the spot and titled "Gregory" for Gregory Franz, who has been photographing and blogging about the Cape jazz scene recently. Tete lamented the fact that since he had just made it up, he might not remember it---so he played it again. (Someone had been doing a video, so the tune is probably recorded.) More excellent solo piano including selections from the new CD, and then the rhythm section, along with saxophonist Sisonke, joined for Emavundleni, from the new CD, dedicated to his ancestors ("not mine", Tete's wife had earlier joked). Then a sanctified-sounding tune, with excellent sax work, segueing toward the end into a fantastic free-bop kind of interlude.
Mbambisa's piano style seems to me to mix mostly straight-ahead bop/hard bop with a bit of a more African sound, maybe influenced a bit by the repetition-with-slowly-evolving changes and additions of Mbira music. He has a very solid, round, ringing touch that can also be delicate when needed---and the sound he got from the Steinway (I think it was a D, the 9 foot concert grand) on stage was superb. He also has a good melodic sense, and tends to avoid cliche, often putting together short bits of melodic line in surprising but logical ways, leaving space, varying and developing rather than always running on.
A very informal concert, with very high-calibre music-making. At one point Tete was calling out the changes, teaching the bass-player one of his tunes on the spot---it sounded great as this went on, and after a chorus everything was locked in.
The last two were a slow, very pretty song, with lovely sax work, and (on the insistent request of, I think, relatives in the audience) Paul Desmond's "Take Five", the sax player sitting out. This was absolutely the most cooking version of that tune I've ever heard---with its ostinato in 5 (or a measure of 3 followed by a measure of 2) laid down in hard-rocking, hard-swinging style with changing harmonic colors, and piano lines and chordal interludes reminiscent of McCoy Tyner or mid-1960s Herbie Hancock (but all Mbambisa's) spun out over it, building a long, rollicking solo. Lines ringing out, then repeated up a half step, then punctuated by some block chords. I had never realized that Take Five was basically a hard-charging 1960s modal rave-up avant la lettre (well, barely), but Tete, playing with power but still relaxed, left no doubt about it. A fantastic closer. I bought the CD, which I will review in more detail soon; it's highly recommended and you can buy it at the link at the top of the post, and listen to excerpts here.
To wrap things up, from Youtube here's Inhlupeko from the out of print 1969 record of the same name by the Soul Jazzmen, Mbambisa on piano with Duku Makasi, saxophone, "Big T" Ntsele, bass, and Mafufu Jama, drums.
Mama Goema: the Cape Town Beat at District Six
On April 21 I caught a screening of "Mama Goema: The Cape Town Beat in Five Movements", at the District Six Museum in Cape Town. Here's the trailer:
Part of a hip-hop film festival (schedule and more here), which casts its net rather broadly, including the musical roots of Cape Town hip-hop. Two of the three directors, Sara Gouveia and Calum MacNaughton, were present for a Q&A session after the screening, as was musician Hilton Schilder. Goema seems to be a type of drum, and a type of music growing from certain musical traditions of the Cape Carnival, but exactly what it is appears to be a bit fluid. Calum is quoted in Cape Town Magazine saying "Carnival culture is the Goema blueprint and Cape Jazz is its link to modern sound..." Possibly, it's especially associated with a certain beat, found also in some Brazilian carnival music, as claimed here. Common influences on Brazilian and Cape Carnival culture and music can, I think, be ascribed in part to connections between the two areas via the slave trade. The Cape Carnival is more commonly known as Kaapse Klopse, or---no offense intended, this is one of the most common local names for it---the Coon Carnival. The latter name may derive from the strong influence of minstrel troupes---whether black or white in blackface is not clear---that visited Cape Town in the late 19th or early 20th century. Besides the Carnival music and dancing, there were a couple of revelations for me in the movie---firstly, the music of Xhosa musician Madosini (who was participating in a performance of a Goema symphony by Mac MacKenzie, and was further featured in the film to represent black African influences on Cape music), and secondly, the music of The Genuines, a 1980s thrash/pop/rock/jazz group of which keyboardist Hilton Schilder and bassist Mac MacKenzie were members and vocalists.
I talked with Hilton and Calum a bit after the event. Calum hipped me to Tete Mbambisa's CD release concert the next day at the University of Cape Town. You can stream---or better, buy---the music Hilton and Mac made with the Genuines at their bandcamp.com page. Here's their track "Goema" from the album of the same name: