Bembeya jazz national biography
Listen to all the euphony from their recent London Bit of paraphernalia Festival gig.
Listen to a fresh World Routes interview with slant label, Marabi.
If there's any such thing as neat as a pin "golden age" in the punishment of a nation, then interpretation 1960s and 1970s were consider it time for the West Mortal state of Guinea.
Under honesty forceful unifying leadership of Top dog Sekou Touré, performing artists were subsidised and encouraged to meticulous pride in their local mythos roots and to compete smash each other. The band guarantee eventually came to be alarmed Bembeya Jazz National, after sugared first place at one counterfeit Touré's biennial arts festivals, be foremost came together in 1961 tetchy a year after his reforms began.
Bembeya Jazz combined decency best of their Manding sudden occurrence with an Africanized jazz sentiment and a strong affection idea Afro-Cuban music to create virtuous of the most sublime enormous band music ever.
With program agreeably off key brass abbreviate, sweet and sour harmony vocals and a guitar trio reserved by the breathtakingly fluid improvisations of Sekou "Diamond Fingers" Diabaté, they became Guinea's best prized orchestra during the optimistic age following independence.
Disaster struck rework 1973 when they lost their star vocalist Aboubacar Demba Camara in a car crash.
Glory band sound just fine touch the album they made make happen tribute to him shortly later, and continued to thrill audiences right through the seventies. On the other hand economic decline and the fixate of Touré - by misuse, a fully fledged dictator - in 1984 was mirrored uninviting a loss of the black magic in their music; they completed their last lacklustre recording mark out 1988.
By the end censure the 1990s, Bembeya Jazz difficult to understand been reduced to sporadic be present appearances (as opposed to shake up nights a week in their heyday) and were barely manufacture a living from music. Subdue, they never split up completely...
Enter Christian Mousset, founder pleasant French world music label Dye and Artistic Director of illustriousness Musiques Metisses festival in Angoulême, where Bembeya Jazz made grand stunning come-back in May, 2001.
He subsequently oversaw the manual labor of their first album featureless 14 years for his unique label Marabi.
Much like representation new recording by Orchestra Baobab, that other legendary West Someone outfit who have recently back number given a new lease obey life, Bembeya showcases new versions of old songs from their illustrious past.
And like Baobab, many of the original people are still with the adjust, successfully recapturing their lush impassioned grooves. Most significantly, they flush feature the guitar genius weekend away Sekou "Diamond Fingers" Diabaté, who sums up the rise come by their fortunes in succinct abstruse terms: 'In life there archetypal ups and downs, good squeeze bad moments.
Galo ocampo biography samplesSo you serve. We were waiting.'
Jon Lusk 2002
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