THU., NOVEMBER 30, 2006
In This Feature
Magazine Archives:
All That (Bembeya) Jazz
by Richard Gehr
The plan was to sing the praises of Senegalese producer Ibrahim Sylla, whose Syllart label is a hullabaloo of afropop delights, including hallmark releases by Baaba Maal, Tabu Ley Rochereau, and Thione Seck. But as so ridiculously often happens on the web in general — they should have called it the Distractonet — and places like eMusic in particular, my ears were hijacked almost immediately by the site's most frequently downloaded Syllart release: Bembeya Jazz National's 10 Ans de Succès, a live album recorded in April, 1971, at the Palace of the People in Conokry, Guinea, in celebration of the band's tenth anniversary. Two tracks in, I knew I'd be listening to these hard-working purveyors of "neoclassical modern African song" — as they were introduced to the Palace's screaming throng — for at least the rest of the day.
Who says socialism can't produce great art? In 1958, Guinea declared its independence from France and elected the music-loving anticolonial activist Sékou Touré as president. The humiliated colonizers left Guinea in a huff, damaging as much of the newly impoverished nation's infrastructure as they could before the door slammed into their collective ass. To bolster national pride, the Marxist president embarked upon a program of cultural authenticité, declaring that all new music should be informed by African traditionalism. The resulting mixture of Cuban and European sounds with the folkloric drums, balafons, and guitars of the region's Mande people made for thrilling and deeply rooted new dance music.
After disbanding groups throughout the country (and what fool would want that gig?), Touré's government commenced hand-picking groovy new musical civil servants. In 1961, the Orchestre de Beyla, in southeastern Guinea, became the region's official "modern orchestra," recorded a well-received album, and changed its name to that of a local river. After winning national competitions in 1964 and '65, Bembeya Jazz were designated the first regional National Orchestra and moved to the capitol city of Conakry, where they joined such peers as Keletigui and his Tambourinis, Les Amazones de Guinée, and Bala and His Baladins. In addition to a monthly paycheck (for performing six nights a week), Bembeya Jazz National's benefits included access to instruments, recording time in the Voix de la Révolution studios, and releases on the state-owned Syliphone label.
The dazzling Bembeya Jazz anthology The Syliphone Years reflects the group's evolution from rumba-rhythmed regionalists to something new and different altogether. From 1962 through 1973, the eleven-member group's stars included a pair of Cuba-crazed singing carpenters, Salifou Kaba and Aboubacar Demba Camara, a jolting and jarring horn trio, and drummer Mory "Mangala" Condé. Its key bandmember, however, was — and remains — lead guitarist Sekou "Bembeya" Diabaté.
Known as "Diamond Fingers," Sekou Diabaté plays something remarkably distinctive on nearly every track Bembeya recorded. He's a conceptually inventive soloist who would not be out of place in a contemporary improv-rock band. (The 1977 track "Petit Sékou," which concludes The Syliphone Years, could be the hidden track on Quicksilver Messenger Service's 1968 acid-rock debut.) Diabaté worked his magic over rhythm lines by Mamadou "Vieux" Camara that frequently echoed traditional Mande melodies played originally on a balafon, West Africa's rosewood xylophone.
Released in 1969, a quality year for music nearly everywhere, the Bembeya single sides "République Guinée," "Sabor de Guajira," and "Armée Guinéenne" reflect Guinean music's griot past, Cuban-tinged present, and neoclassical future. They're as momentous as Beatles singles and do they ever swing. On their thirteen Syllart albums, Bembeya would record a song about a female water demoness ("Mami Wati"), demon alcohol ("Dya"), and the antisocial(ist) evils of polygamy ("Sina Moussa"). Their ambitious and enthralling album-length "Regard Sur le Passé" (1970), the first album of griot music by a modern band, was an afropoperatic tribute to Almami Samory Touré, founder of the Mande kingdom.
Bembeya flourished until 1973, when a car accident on the way to a concert in Dakar, Senegal, killed singer Demba Camara and plunged Guinea into mourning. Camara sings like an angel on the traditional love song "Moussogbe" from Parade Africaine, his final album with Bembeya and a more than worthy epitaph. Camara sings in the Cape Verdean morna style (taken international by Cesaria Evora) on "Sou," which also boasts a head-spinning muted-string Diabaté solo.
It would be three years before Bembeya Jazz International would release new material featuring its first griot singer, Nagna Mory Kouyaté. A few months prior to his death in 1984, Sekou Touré gave the group its own independence, staking them to instruments and their own Club Bembeya in Conakry. With Syliphone soon out of business, Bembeya Jazz recorded a glitzier, more Congolese-soukous flavored version of its sound for various African and Parisian labels. Classic Titles collects some of these mid-'80s tracks, which are much more enjoyable than some Bembeya boosters would have you believe. For proof, download "Montagne" (Mountain), an eighteen-minute epic solo vehicle for "Diamond Fingers." I'm telling you, he would have been huge on the Haight.
(Research props to Graeme Counsel's excellent Syliphone Years liner notes, Banning Eyre's 2002 interview with Sekou Diabaté for Afropop Worldwide, and Eric Charry's book Mande Music.)
Who says socialism can't produce great art? In 1958, Guinea declared its independence from France and elected the music-loving anticolonial activist Sékou Touré as president. The humiliated colonizers left Guinea in a huff, damaging as much of the newly impoverished nation's infrastructure as they could before the door slammed into their collective ass. To bolster national pride, the Marxist president embarked upon a program of cultural authenticité, declaring that all new music should be informed by African traditionalism. The resulting mixture of Cuban and European sounds with the folkloric drums, balafons, and guitars of the region's Mande people made for thrilling and deeply rooted new dance music.
After disbanding groups throughout the country (and what fool would want that gig?), Touré's government commenced hand-picking groovy new musical civil servants. In 1961, the Orchestre de Beyla, in southeastern Guinea, became the region's official "modern orchestra," recorded a well-received album, and changed its name to that of a local river. After winning national competitions in 1964 and '65, Bembeya Jazz were designated the first regional National Orchestra and moved to the capitol city of Conakry, where they joined such peers as Keletigui and his Tambourinis, Les Amazones de Guinée, and Bala and His Baladins. In addition to a monthly paycheck (for performing six nights a week), Bembeya Jazz National's benefits included access to instruments, recording time in the Voix de la Révolution studios, and releases on the state-owned Syliphone label.
The dazzling Bembeya Jazz anthology The Syliphone Years reflects the group's evolution from rumba-rhythmed regionalists to something new and different altogether. From 1962 through 1973, the eleven-member group's stars included a pair of Cuba-crazed singing carpenters, Salifou Kaba and Aboubacar Demba Camara, a jolting and jarring horn trio, and drummer Mory "Mangala" Condé. Its key bandmember, however, was — and remains — lead guitarist Sekou "Bembeya" Diabaté.
Known as "Diamond Fingers," Sekou Diabaté plays something remarkably distinctive on nearly every track Bembeya recorded. He's a conceptually inventive soloist who would not be out of place in a contemporary improv-rock band. (The 1977 track "Petit Sékou," which concludes The Syliphone Years, could be the hidden track on Quicksilver Messenger Service's 1968 acid-rock debut.) Diabaté worked his magic over rhythm lines by Mamadou "Vieux" Camara that frequently echoed traditional Mande melodies played originally on a balafon, West Africa's rosewood xylophone.
Released in 1969, a quality year for music nearly everywhere, the Bembeya single sides "République Guinée," "Sabor de Guajira," and "Armée Guinéenne" reflect Guinean music's griot past, Cuban-tinged present, and neoclassical future. They're as momentous as Beatles singles and do they ever swing. On their thirteen Syllart albums, Bembeya would record a song about a female water demoness ("Mami Wati"), demon alcohol ("Dya"), and the antisocial(ist) evils of polygamy ("Sina Moussa"). Their ambitious and enthralling album-length "Regard Sur le Passé" (1970), the first album of griot music by a modern band, was an afropoperatic tribute to Almami Samory Touré, founder of the Mande kingdom.
Bembeya flourished until 1973, when a car accident on the way to a concert in Dakar, Senegal, killed singer Demba Camara and plunged Guinea into mourning. Camara sings like an angel on the traditional love song "Moussogbe" from Parade Africaine, his final album with Bembeya and a more than worthy epitaph. Camara sings in the Cape Verdean morna style (taken international by Cesaria Evora) on "Sou," which also boasts a head-spinning muted-string Diabaté solo.
It would be three years before Bembeya Jazz International would release new material featuring its first griot singer, Nagna Mory Kouyaté. A few months prior to his death in 1984, Sekou Touré gave the group its own independence, staking them to instruments and their own Club Bembeya in Conakry. With Syliphone soon out of business, Bembeya Jazz recorded a glitzier, more Congolese-soukous flavored version of its sound for various African and Parisian labels. Classic Titles collects some of these mid-'80s tracks, which are much more enjoyable than some Bembeya boosters would have you believe. For proof, download "Montagne" (Mountain), an eighteen-minute epic solo vehicle for "Diamond Fingers." I'm telling you, he would have been huge on the Haight.
(Research props to Graeme Counsel's excellent Syliphone Years liner notes, Banning Eyre's 2002 interview with Sekou Diabaté for Afropop Worldwide, and Eric Charry's book Mande Music.)
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