What a great summer for lovers of African Music
in Toronto. On the last week-end of the Toronto Jazz Festival, I saw the
Okavango African Orchestra, an all-star assembly of great African-Canadian
musicians. Donne Robert was playing some great guitar and I was happy to meet a
young percussionist/kora player called Sadio Sissokho who lives in Montreal. Always happy to meet a kora player.
Then right after jazzfest, it was Afrofest, just
down the street from me. Great that it was simulcast on CIUT because I could
listen to the radio and if it sounded interesting just walk down to Woodbine
Park and see it live. I had no expectations Afrofest would be sticking to
the schedule and in fact they were running consistently a half-hour
behind. At one point they were asking "Pierre, the piano player" to come to the stage so they could start. Then there was a big intro from the band, vamping on an afro-groove and with great fanfare they announced "and here she is....." except she does not appear. The band continues vamping until it disintegrates. The bandleader makes some excuse and they start another instrumental, and eventually the star of the show appears from the sidelines wearing an elaborate feather headdress (I can see why I took a while to set up...)
I missed the Saturday night because I had a gig and was underwhelmed with most of the acts I saw but just watching the drum circle was amazing (earlier in the day they attempted to break a world record for the largest drum circle ever. I don't think they quite achieved it.) Later that night, when I expressed how happy I was to see stacks of folding chairs on site I was informed it was only because they had to rent 1000 chairs for the djembe players (they only got 740 or so). Anyway, it was never so easy to get a seat at Afrofest. The park was packed, and I don't think it was ever packed like that for the rest of the summer - at least not any of Beaches Jazz (more on festivals in my post "on Festivals".
I missed the Saturday night because I had a gig and was underwhelmed with most of the acts I saw but just watching the drum circle was amazing (earlier in the day they attempted to break a world record for the largest drum circle ever. I don't think they quite achieved it.) Later that night, when I expressed how happy I was to see stacks of folding chairs on site I was informed it was only because they had to rent 1000 chairs for the djembe players (they only got 740 or so). Anyway, it was never so easy to get a seat at Afrofest. The park was packed, and I don't think it was ever packed like that for the rest of the summer - at least not any of Beaches Jazz (more on festivals in my post "on Festivals".
Then it was down to Harbourfront (via TTC
because parking down there has become ridiculous - it would have been nearly
$50 to park for the afternoon and evening). I was knocked out by Sona Jobareth,
a fabulous kora player who was making her first appearance in Canada as part of
Nadine McNulty's Habari festival. A couple of weeks later, on the same
stage, I saw the wonderful Vieux Farka Toure as part of Small World Festival
and later made a run to the Kitchener Blues Festival to hear the "desert
blues" of Tinariwen.
I remember back in the 90s when Vieux's father, the
legendary Ali Farka Toure, cancelled his North American tour (with Ry Cooder)
so that he could stay home and defend his home town (where he was mayor) from
the Tuareg rebels, including members of Tinariwen (who look as comfortable
holding an AK-47 as a Fender Stratocaster).
I was mesmerized by all these afro-grooves and you might even hear a bit of that influence in some of the new tunes I'm working on.