Senegalese by origin and Limouge by adoption, Mangane has just released, at the age of 60, his very first record Zoom Zemmatton the prestigious Laborie jazz label. An album of youth and maturity, served by a dream team of musicians, which implicitly recounts the epic tale of this singer and balafonist. Meeting in his stronghold.
This day, like most of his mornings, the Senegalese singer Mangane, wearing a little sailor’s hat and earrings, drinks his coffee at the family tobacco bar La Tabatière, in downtown Limoges. He chats with passing friends. He watches the people parade. He takes his time, and still savors his presence in this city which adopted him 23 years ago.
When he landed there, the first time to play with his group Nakodjé, at the Francophonies festival, it was love at first sight. First for the station, he who has a passion for trains. Then for a woman. And then for everything else. An obvious love, which he describes with fervor: “ With Nakodjé, we toured everywhere: in the African sub-region, in Switzerland, in France… It was heavy, I couldn’t think anymore. When I arrived in Limoges, I felt like I was recharging my batteries. It’s a city on a human scale, far from the nervousness of capitals like Paris or Dakar, where you ultimately just follow the movement. Here, you can sit down to think quietly, concentrate… »
However, in Limoges, his career as a musician, already well launched, suffered a serious slowdown. Probably due to the railway isolation of the city. At its “average size”. To its musical ecosystem which struggles to defend African music. Mangane makes a living from odd jobs, creates a musical awareness show for children (which still continues today), works for the Francophonies, and performs concerts in local venues.
His musician friends advised him to move to Paris, Nantes, where “ it’s happening “. He resists: “ I didn’t want to run anywhere else. I had chosen my base. And that’s where I wanted to build my music and my projects. Slowly but surely. What if nothing happened? Too bad… »
And, finally, through patience, the time has come for the singer and balafon player. At the age of 60, he finally released his first record on a label, in this case the prestigious Limougeau stable of Laborie (Anne Paceo, Leila Martial, Lisa Simone, Paul Lay, Daniel Humair, Ray Lema, etc.). A “jazz” record with a big band-style formation, where his voice, as ancestral as it is modern, arises and flourishes. An album teeming like a jungle, where he reveals his unique identities. Because Mangane has always had a taste for mixtures and experiments.
Childhood trains
To understand this, you have to go back to your childhood in Thiès, 275,000 inhabitants, 70 km east of Dakar, a railway hub and Senegalese “rail capital”. In his grandfather’s Koranic school where French is taught, this son of a railway worker, from a line of farmers, frequents diasporas from Mali, Benin, Burkina Faso, who come to work in the railways. And rubs his ears to all their music as well as to that listened to by young people, his friends, in this “place of life”: Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, BB King, Brassens, Brel, Gainsbourg, Police, Salif Keita, Fela Kuti…
As a teenager, Mangane began acting on the advice of a French teacher, then enrolled at the music conservatory. He dreams of kora. Full class, it will be the balafon. A blessing. “ I was lucky enough to have as my teacher a man I had seen on television and of whom I was already a fan: Baba Doumbia. A master who transmitted to me his immense enthusiasm, the spirit of this instrument, and that of this music. “, he says.
Also at the conservatory, Mangane dabbled in classical guitar. And here he is, with a handful of friends, founding the Nakodjé group, which places instruments at the heart of music. “ When I left the conservatory, I didn’t really want to play in weddings. With a few colleagues, we wanted to put traditional instruments, often confined to the role of singing accompanists, back in full light. And create new music with them. “, he says.
In this training, Mangane gives voice, sings. And here he finally leaves Nakodjé and his dazzling success, to settle down in Limoges. Over the years here, he regularly crossed paths with another music activist who also made the bet on the capital of porcelain to develop his projects: Jean-Michel Leygonie, founding director of the Laborie label Jazz and the Jazz Éclats d’Émail festival, Marseillais arrived in Limousin in the early 1980s. It’s been more than twenty years since I met Mangane, and I love his voice which reminds me of the powerful songs of Touré Kundailluminates the latter. Three years ago, I suggested that he develop his career beyond regional borders. A year later, kick off: we did a creative residency here. »
Taste for detail
To do this, Jean-Michel and Mangane choose an artistic director in the person of the Senegalese bassist, author, composer, performer and producer Alune Wade. All together, they bring together a dream team of high-flying instrumentalists, who forge a fabulous setting for Mangane’s songs: Alune on bass, Anthony Jambon on guitar, Inor Sotolongo on percussion, Benjamin Naud on drums, Hugues Mayot on saxophone, Carlos Sarduy Dimet on trumpet , Valérie Belinga on backing vocals.
The result is around ten beautiful, mature songs that make up a very successful first album. Its title Zoom Zemmatt refers to Mangane’s habit of zooming in, taking stock of every detail. And that’s what this hand-sewn creation is about, where every detail, every sound, every rhythm, every chord counts.
Within dense improvisations, forests of Afro-funky riffs, distant South American winks, Afro-rock escapades, tender folk ballads, muscular Afrobeat legacies, the virtuoso and agile voice of Mangane slips in like an additional instrument (“ a bit removed from the Griotic tradition “, he confesses), by turns silky like velvet, rumbling like the wind, powerful and woody, high-pitched and swirling like birdsong…
But beyond just the music, finely crafted songs also emerge, stories delivered in Wolof, “ his native language with which he most easily expresses his emotions, his rhythmic language, bouncy and conducive to syncopations. “, he said. From the height of his experiences, he reveals, with the luminous force of a peaceful man, messages for the younger generations: on hasty migrations, on the family, on the word given, on respect…
At the age of 60, his first album certainly heralds a long career. And perhaps one day, the meeting of these two identities, Limousin and Senegalese: “ I swear to you that we can find commonalities between Bourrée and Mandinka music. », he concludes with a laugh.
Mangane Zoom Zemmatt (Jazz lab) 2024