 |
| Return to Previous Page |
|
|
On the Road in Griot Time: Part 4
Hustlin' in the Heartland
November 8, 2002
Hear Djelimady Tounkara, Bamba Dembele and Banning Eyre on KEXP, Seattle
Cherif Keita has been a professor at Carleton College, a highly respected, progressive liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota, for eighteen years. Prior to that, he grew up south of Bamako, Mali, in a branch of the same family that produced Mali's greatest popular singer, Salif Keita. In his writings about the West African historian and philosopher Amadou Hampate Ba, about Salif Keita, and other subjects, Cherif has explored his own cultural history with the perspective of a scholar. But he has a firm belief that his students should understand African realities in ways that no book can convey. With that in mind, he has taken many students to Mali to experience life there first hand for extended periods of time. He has also made extraordinary efforts to bring West African cultural figures to Carleton. Djelimady Tounkara and his group became the latest beneficiaries of Keita's tireless efforts, arriving in Northfield for a concert, a workshop, and a series of social encounters organized by Cherif.
No sooner did we get to town, having driven from the Minneapolis airport an hour to the north, than Cherif shepherded the whole group to a Chinese buffet for a small feast. I had met Cherif once in Mali in 2000, but at the time, I had not fully grasped what a dynamic and engaging fellow he is. Whether describing his ambitious teaching programs, expressing his pride and pleasure in Carleton and its superior students, reminiscing about the time when a band he played drums for opened for the Super Rail Band during the 1970s, or translating Chinese fortune cookies into Bambara--with apt references to Malian proverbial wisdom--Cherif is a consummate and passionate performer, as fine a host as foreign musicians could ever hope to find in a university setting.
It was the eve of election night, and many Minnesotans were still in shock over the recent death of Senator Paul Wellstone in a plane crash. "I taught with him for four years," Cherif told us, "Way back, before he was a Senator. He was a great man."
Even Wellstone's political enemies were mouthing such words at the time, but Cherif plainly spoke from personal knowledge, and Djelimady, who takes a keen interest in world politics, was impressed, although the names Wellstone and Mondale proved pretty much impossible to pronounce. That "l" sound just doesn't come up in Bambara or French.
The next morning, Fode had his first glimpse of snow, although it lasted barely an hour. Our busy spin through the Carleton campus began at noon with an unusual luncheon in a room just off the main cafeteria. Cherif had called together a large group of students--between 20 and 30 of them--whom he had accompanied to Mali in the past. For the visiting musicians, it was impressive enough that these students spoke French, but when they started speaking Bambara and introducing themselves as Keita, Diallo, and Coulibaly, the effect was dramatic. Over pizza, soup, sandwiches and salad, one young man engaged Djelimady in a discussion about whether the Peul were the most powerful ethnic group in the region.
This was the sort of banter that Malians routinely exchange, part of today's living remnants of the social custom called sanangouya, "joking cousins." Since the 13th century rule of Sunjata Keita, members of certain clans and ethnic groups have enjoyed the right to verbally harass one another without consequence, a kind of sanctioned pressure-release mechanism aimed at preventing ancient animosities from boiling over in contemporary times. Djelimady seemed a little stunned at first, but soon joined in heartily, laughing as he traded barbed remarks with this gangly undergraduate.
Djelimady and I then did a workshop for a group of students. After a couple of run-throughs with this presentation, we were getting our routine down. I would give a few introductory remarks, and then translate for Djelimady as he told his story about growing up in a griot enclave in Kita with a father who wanted him to play balafon and ngoni like his ancestors and cousins, and a mother who wanted him to study the Koran and become an Islamic cleric. "I didn't want any of that," Djelimady would say with a chuckle before launching into the tale of how he discovered the acoustic guitar in the hands of a vacationing cousin. Djelimady first angered his father by choosing the guitar over the ngoni, and then pleased him by figuring out how to reproduce the triolé (trilling or ornamentation) of Manding traditional instruments on the guitar.
Djelimady would demonstrate this, and then move onto the story of how he came to Bamako in 1963 with the music of Django Reinhart and Chuck Berry ringing in his ears. In the capital, he discovered the electric guitar and the pachanga (as well as other Latin pop forms), and his career as an electric guitarist took off first with a state-funded neighborhood band, Misra Jazz, then with the Orchestre National, and ultimately in 1971 with the Rail Band. Along the way, we would play a couple of songs together, and take questions from the audience.
After the workshop, there was little time before we scurried off to sound check, and then out to Cherif's house, where his wife had prepared an African feast--rice and peanut sauce with meat, and the ubiquitous bowl of fried chicken, Djelimady's well-advertised favorite. This time, the Keita's rice and sauce won out by a mile. Cherif's kids rallied around, and we had a small party, with Djelimady holding forth on a classical guitar. From there, it was straight to the gig in a big hall on the Carleton campus.
Cherif's students had occupied the first few rows, and after the group finished its stately, Flamenco-Manding opener, "Mande Djelilou," and broke into the lilting, tuneful "Gnima Diala," students immediately rose to dance on the wooden floor before the stage. This was more than Bamba Dembele, the group's percussionist and all-around animateur could resist. He stepped forward with his djembe drum and began thrashing away in an effort to feed the dancing frenzy. This normally happens near the end of the show, not on the second song, and I wondered if it might be a little over the top. I looked at Djelimady, and at exactly the same moment, we mouthed what has to be his favorite Bambara word: "cojugu."
Cojugu means "too much." It is a strong word, and has countless applications, some of them humorous. The comic effect is particularly good when you combine the word paradoxically with the French diminutive un peu, or "a little," as in a-little-bit-way-too-much. The show settled down nicely from there, allowing time for a long, slow "Sunjata," with solos by Djelimady, Fode on ngoni, and both Samba-2 (Diabate) and I on guitar. With this dance-happy crowd, that cooling out time was most appreciated, especially by Cherif, who really wanted to savor the artistry of Djelimady's guitar and Fode's ngoni. "Sunjata" hit the spot, but it wasn't long before the dance frenzy took over again, and the show ended on a high-spirited note with most of the room on its feet, clapping and boogying. This was probably the most willing and rowdy audience we encountered on the entire tour. Note to bookers of African music tours: Don't pass up Northfield, Minnesota!
A word on the set. Every show began with a set of songs from the Sigui album. "Mande Djelilou," Djelimady's Manding/Flamenco guitar feature was always the start, followed by the lilting, Guinea sound of "Gnima Diala," the slow, prayerful "Sigui," a song for the buffalo mother of Sunjata, and the celebratory "Aibo." From there, depending on whether it was a one-set or two-set program, things could vary widely. After rehearsing in Seattle, the group had a new version of "Sada Dialo," the old Rail Band song I had so loved at the second Evergreen show. Another old Rail Band number from 1981, ""Wali Numa Lombalia," ("Ingratitude"), made it into one show. Djelimady's moody arrangement of "Keme Burema" turned up in a number of the earlier shows, but by this point in the tour, Djelimady was favoring the traditional song "Tiramakan," in longer shows. If there was just time for one purely traditional tune, it was always "Sunjata." Near the end, there always had to be at least one blowout dance number. The wedding-like version of "Diaouwara" that had gone over so well at Evergreen did not seem to please Djelimady, so this final kicker was usually either "Senelalou" or "Makan Djan Oulé" from Sigui, or else "Sada Dialo."
Back at the Country Inn in town, revelry continued as Cherif arrived, overjoyed, and bearing gifts for the musicians. But joy turned to shock as the television sets in our rooms began to deliver the results of the elections. Walter Mondale's defeat seemed inconceivable to Cherif. Republican control of the government did not bode well for the country's openness to places like Mali, for support of the arts, or for immigration policy. For Djelimady and Bamba, the politicians in the group, the issue was war with Iraq, which they both feel will be a public relations nightmare for the U.S. worldwide.
"Explain this to me," Bamba would say frequently over the next few days, to anyone who would listen, "How is it that everywhere we go, Americans are friendly and courteous to us? They open their homes to us. They treat us with respect, humanity, and warmth. And yet they vote for war, a war that will make them hated everywhere in the world. How is that possible?" As far as I know, no one ever gave Bamba a satisfactory answer to his question.
Cherif left the hotel that night with the Puffy guitar given to Djelimady in Seattle by Marc Connelly. At the Seattle sound check, we had discovered two problems with it. First, its pickup did not work consistently across all the strings. The high and low E strings were noticeably quiet. This was a simple problem to fix. More troublesome was the fact that the guitar was not perfectly intoned up the neck. When playing on the high frets, Djelimady could hear tuning problems. With Cherif's help, we had made contact with Willie's American Guitars in St Paul, one of the most respected acoustic guitar specialty shops in the Midwest. Our man Woody there had agreed to look at the guitar while we drove to Chicago for our next gig. We would recover it before our gig in Minneapolis the next day.
Cojugu in Chicago
The fact that I stayed up doing accounting work, watching election returns, and drinking beer did not go over well with the band. They could see that I was tired and glum as we set off for Chicago in our 15-seater rental van early the next morning. It also did not help that I did not have all the information I needed as to where we needed to go, that I had never driven in Chicago, and that our contact there was proving hard to reach by telephone. The cell phone I was given by the tour producer in Seattle was running out of minutes, so I kept stopping to use pay phones, a practice that made Djelimady and Bamba increasingly nervous.
I did my best to keep spirits up with recorded CDs. The new Music in My Head compilation of West African classics was a welcome diversion. The eight-plus hour drive also left time for the new Orchestra Baobab album, the new Wendo Kolosoy album, and an airing of the album I produced for the late Zimbabwean mbira player, Ephat Mujuru, Journey of the Spirit. That certainly pricked up Malian ears, but the hands-down winner was Wendo, whose sweet, simmering rumba revival project Amba awakened waves of nostalgia. "Le vieux," the old man, as Djelimady called him, still had the touch.
As we came into Chicago, on target for hotel arrival and soundcheck, the cell phone rang. It was Woody at the guitar shop, and he had detailed analysis of the problems with the Puffy guitar. He had built a new saddle and made things "almost" perfect, as good as he could do without moving the bridge. I confirmed our rendez-vous for the next day, but soon after I hung up, I saw that I had missed our exit. From there, things went downhill fast. We turned around into a stand-still traffic jam. The cell phone ran out of minutes and died while I was talking with the tour presenter figuring out what to do. After slogging through traffic, we went straight to the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, arriving nearly thirty minutes after the soundcheck was to have begun. The van was too big to fit in the nearby parking lot, so I had to back out into busy traffic and circle the block, eventually being rescued by the presenter, waving a cell phone, and not happy.
Once inside the huge, dome-covered performance space, more surprises. My day-sheets had the gig starting at 7:30. It started at 7:00. The sound crew had some bad direct boxes in their rented gear, which slowed down the sound check when we could least afford it. The show began with frazzled nerves all around, and more problems to sort out in the sound. Suffice it to say, this was not our smoothest performance. At the point in the show where I spoke, I went on for too long. I also played too much in the show, as the set included all four of the songs I had played with the band up to that point. And to make matters yet worse, I kept having to crawl on stage and clamor under Fode's chair trying to figure out why he had no sound! "This microphone is fine," he protested. "It's their equipment." The sound folks were little help, insisting that the problem with Fode's rig. As it turned out, a cord was wrapped around a chair leg, and each time Fode moved, he was unplugging it.
For all that, the crowd responded well; Djelimady rose and soloed to applause as always; Chicagoans willingly danced to Bamba's drum; and CD sales were quite respectable. Chicago was a favorite stop on both of the recent Super Rail Band tours, so it was a little disappointing to whisk through town in such a hurried and harried way. But such is life on the road. When we checked into the hotel around midnight, I was ordered to bed. "No politics!" said Bamba. "You did that last night." I complied.
We booked for seven hours back to Minneapolis the next day for a gig at the Cedar Cultural Center. But first, we had to swing by Willie's American Guitars in St. Paul to see how Woody had made out with Djelimady's new guitar. At first, all seemed well. The sound was even across the strings, and the new saddle had greatly improved the instrument's intonation. Bamba bargained mercilessly with a salesman there, trying to get him to slash prices New York style. I explained to Bamba that this was a specialty shop, not the place to go for deals, but he failed to grasp the distinction. "Wait for New York and Boston," I kept saying. This was becoming my music store mantra.
On stage for soundcheck at Cedar, Djelimady struggled to tune his new guitar, finding that even with the new work, he could still hear problems as he moved up the neck. It soon became clear that the bridge would have to be moved, something we could not arrange in the context of the tour. The last chance had passed. The Puffy went into its case, and once again, Djelimady took up my Larivee. "You did all you could," he said, thanking me. "I have bad luck with guitars." It was sad. Djelimady genuinely loves the look, feel, and sound of this guitar. But as a player who uses every fret on every string, and who has an ear for even the most minor discord, nothing short of perfect intonation would do. Tuning three guitars and two, seven-string ngonis was already the most challenging aspect of every gig. In its present state, the Puffy just wasn't going to work.
Minneapolis produced a small, but spirited audience. It was a Tuesday night, and the show had been scheduled too late to allow for the center's usual aggressive publicity. But those who did come were treated to one of the best sound mixes of the tour. In an unusual twist, the center had asked for a brief, first-set workshop with Djelimady and I before the band performance. There were a number of students and university people there, so this worked out, although I wouldn't recommend it for a general audience. This goes to the point of "talking too much" in the shows. It's a tough call. At every show, I would get at least one person who said, "Why don't you explain what each song is about?"
At the same time, it had come back to me through the tour producer that my overkill participation in the Chicago show had drawn comment. This was my worst nightmare. As honored as I was to be asked to play in Djelimady's show, and as much as I wanted audiences to get some idea of the meaning of the music they were hearing, I dreaded being perceived as grandstanding or distracting attention from Djelimady. The Chicago adventure had served as a kind of trigger test. I had found the line between "okay" and "cojugu."
The hardest stretch of the tour was almost over, but there was one more ordeal. We had to leave at 4:00 in the morning to return the van and fly to Hartford, Connecticut. The faces I found in the hotel lobby as we saddled up for this last, grueling run were as close to ashen as any to be found in black Africa. No one even had strength for jokes. Having had trouble with all the guitars in the airplane cabin on earlier flights, I got us to the airport gate early and requested permission to board with the "special needs" passengers.
One problem: because they carry Malian passports and were flying on one-way tickets, my six musicians were automatically flagged for an extra inspection before boarding the plane, every time. So, as all the other passengers boarded, Djelimady and his band were vigorously searched and x-rayed. Fode and Mariam chuckled over the aggressive procedure, and Djelimady smiled faintly and uttered the requisite, "Est ce que c'est cojugu?" But when the zipper on his over-packed hand bag popped in the hands of one of the checkers, Djelimady shook his head unhappily. "Bush's program has already begun," he muttered. We were the last people to board the plane.
|
||
Copyright © 2001-2008 World Music Productions. All rights reserved.
Do not duplicate or redistribute in any form without permission.