Ragga, sound system, balafon, trombone, Bengue and Taïro are the guests of the #SessionLive. Taïro releases his 9th album 360 and Bengue started his career with a first self-titled album, a musical utopia with “Afropian” authors.
Our first guests are called Bengue. They came as a quintet in the #SessionLive.
Bengue, seen from the South, is the North. On its own, this word that we often hear in West Africa is synonymous with Europe, and evokes the migrations that carried the footsteps of those who sought a better life there. It is to them, and to their children of mixed culture, Afropeans, that wanted to pay homage Fidel Fourneyron, who loves nothing more than making jazz travel by rubbing it against music that defies local ears and whets their appetite. This is how he had already explored, with his gang of jazzmen friends, the paths of Cuban santeria, embodied by incredible Havanese percussionists, on the excellent What Vola? (No Format, 2019).
This time, at the invitation of the Festival Jazz sous les Pommiers where he continues a long residency, he was going to rub shoulders with the music of West Africa, in the same spirit of encounter, of taste for crossings. The idea: to offer young and experienced authors from the Afro-Caribbean diaspora the opportunity to write texts on migration, exile, and to make other words heard than those that European politicians exploit as so many ticking time bombs. He would take care of setting them to music, where musicians from here and elsewhere dialogue in joyful curiosity. The sound of wood fascinated him, and the balafons of the sisters Ophelia and Melissa Hie, perpetuating the rich musical traditions of Burkina Faso, imposed themselves on him. With the desire that they meet the marimba of Vasilena Serafinova, to build a bridge on both sides of the Mediterranean, thus bringing together two instruments linked by a distant and deep kinship. This melodic and rhythmic base offered him, therefore, an ideal playground to establish a discussion with his trombone, and install a groove more feminine in its sensitivity, more solar in its climates. He was going to associate it with that of the double bassist and tireless improviser Thibaud Soulas who once opened the way to Cuba for him. To complete the crew of this unprecedented ship, the violinist Clément Janinet, who dipped his instrument in the colors of the Malian strings (listen instead Foyer), and the alto voice ofEmma Lamaji fed on gospel, forged on the rhythms of Afrobeat, and subdued by her singing companionship with the Malian diva Oumou Sangaré. In other words, this meeting of musical personalities was in itself an invitation to travel, and Fidel Fourneyron, as a sensitive captain, would spur on the possibilities.
Since its creation, Fox’s Song in the form of an opera, the trombonist has taken a liking to working with authors, transmitters of words, stories and ideals. Bengue’s texts, each in their own way, resonate like calls that spread the pains, the joys and the hopes of the heirs of a long and tortuous history, which Fidel Fourneyron has dressed in singular colors and climates with this equally mixed than their authors. Whether it’s Fiston Mwanza Mujilla (author, among others, of Tram 83 who signs here the detonating We will withstand the flood), by Penda Diouf whose show he loved Tracks (we owe him here My steps are footbridges), or the Haitian poet James Noël (Amwe), whose poetic work in the collection The migration of the walls germinated in Fidel the spark that gave birth to the idea of Bengue. To these is added the poem by Vhan Olsen Dombo (Kotiko Koko) which, inspired by a nursery rhyme from Central Africa, joins the chanted rhythm that is the trademark of its author, or the nostalgic sweetness ofHo’o lo signed by Cameroonian singer Blick Bassy. Without forgetting the science and the poetic license of Djeudjoah (Foyer). Emma Lamadji’s voice gives life to the texts that make up Bengue. Like an alter ego of the trombone, of which she is the best playmate.
The singer has not only lent her voice, since she also signs the lyrics of the two songs that open and close the album. They resonate the music of Sango from the Central African Republic, his mother tongue, and I Goué Na Dawan – the first single to be released – marvelously sums up, in its last verses, the spirit of the entire record.
Scattered children of life,
Stronger and united,
” Person” and multiple at the same time,
We are your brothers and sisters.
far from home,
We will be your fathers and mothers
We are tomorrow.
Bengue is first and foremost a journey, a journey through his imaginations that are just waiting to be shared. All you have to do is let yourself go.
Titles performed at the big studio
– Molengue ti mawa Live RFI see the clip
– Anmwe (text by James Noël) Help
– I goue na dawan Live RFI see the clip.
Line Up: Fidel Fourneyrontrombone and musical direction; Emma Lamajivocals & percussion; Thibaud Soulasdouble bass & vocals; Melissa Hie & Ophelia Hiepercussion & vocals.
His Jérémie Besset & Mathias Taylor.
► album (No Format 2023)
– New Morning concert March 28, 2023
– Youtube channel Fidel Fourneyron.
Then we get the French reggaeman Tairo for the release of 360 volume 2.
The singer-producer returns once again to the front of the stage with his 9th LP. If his name means the apprentice, Taïro has laid the groundwork for a music that has marked its eras. Those of the ragga sound system, the golden age of French rap, reggae and more recently the trap scene. Beyond the generations, Taïro has entered for good into the soundtrack of the lives of an audience as composite as his universe.
Citizen fighter, lover, formidable entertainer, the singer’s new album once again holds the promise of a killer sound to consume without moderation at home and in concert.
If the production is still that of its time and the talent and sensitivity have not wavered along the way.
With a free spirit, assured and serene, Taïro unrolls an even renewed playlist. From Caribbean waves to ballads, from drill beats to Jamaican setbacks, the production is resolutely modern, ethereal and terribly effective.
Titles performed at the big studio
– Believe in your dreams Live RFI
– Make them move Feat. Amadou & Mariam see the clip
– Eternal Love Live RFI see the clip.
Line up: Tairosinging, Kubixguitar
Sound: Fabien Mugneret & Mathias Taylor.
► scrapbook 360 (Frenchtown / Baco Records 2022)
Olympia Concert March 25, 2023.