Jazz fans jam to an African beat in Senegal
Thu May 5, 2005 2:10 PM GMT-04:00
By Nick Tattersall
SAINT LOUIS, Senegal (Reuters) - They may have played in New York, Paris and London, but for the jazz musicians who flock to Senegal's sleepy second city each year nothing quite beats the vibe of jamming in Africa.
Saint Louis, a town of crumbling colonial villas and dusty backstreets, hosts what is billed as the continent's biggest jazz festival and everyone from teenagers in baggy jeans to old men in boubous -- long robes -- wants to be in on the action.
"Everyone here knows how to dance. They get jazz, because it comes from here," said Richard Bona, 37, a Cameroonian bass player and singer who lives in New York and tours regularly in Europe with his quintet.
"Even if jazz music has changed and taken another direction, it still has African roots," he said on Thursday, after headlining Wednesday's opening night with a fusion of funk and scat singing.
At night in Saint Louis, the sound of a muted trumpet or a burst of drumming wafts out from under wrought iron balconies as visitors jam with locals in bars long after the concerts end.
Few of the Senegalese who walk in off the street to jam have had formal training, banging out centuries-old rhythms learned from their parents and grandparents.
For those artists who fly in for the festival, the impromptu sessions serve as a reminder that jazz, often criticized in Europe as overly intellectual, had more humble roots.
"The people I was always most impressed by were the blues-rooted pianists who were always self-taught," said Philippe Lejeune, 51, a French pianist who has recorded with U.S. boogie-woogie piano legend Memphis Slim.
"Although I had a classical training, I was always fascinated by these guys who had strange fingering, their own way of playing ... In Europe, intellectuals consider blues low-down music, they don't feel the vibrations," he said.
JAZZ ACADEMY
The organizers of Saint Louis's festival say it attracts tens of thousands of music fans each year, mostly from Senegal and neighboring Mauritania but also from other parts of Africa, Europe and the United States.
The aim is to use the money to set up a jazz academy in Saint Louis in 2006 where young African musicians will have access to instruments and coaching by local and foreign artists.
"It's really about promoting young talent from around Senegal," said Amadou Sy Ndiongue, one of the organizers.
Musicians also hope the academy will provide a forum for an exchange of ideas between different musical traditions.
"Jazz is about a mix of cultures. We know it comes from black Africa and grew up in the United States, but we're from neither," said singer Mariano Zamora, whose Quintet La Chanca mixes Spanish flamenco with North African jazz.
"It's good to be on a different continent to show people how we work our way -- a bit Spanish, a bit Arabic. We break traditional rules and if people like it, fair enough," he said.
For some musicians, the ultimate ambition is simply to keep children in Africa -- where much of the jazz scene is largely uncharted territory for big Western record labels -- playing music for their own enjoyment.
"My grandfather died when he was 103. He played music his whole life. He never went on stage in New York, but he kept playing," said Bona, packing his bags for the next stage of his African tour.
"Once you start thinking about business, the music dies where the business starts."
http://www.reuters.ca/locales/c_news...toryID=8401548
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