Okay, here’s an apparent no brainer for you: what 1960s guitar-driven pop group known for its efficacy in driving people  into frenzied dancing mode blew into Ontario last week to do a rare Canadian performance?  If you think I’m speaking of Her Satanic Majesty’s septuagenarians- AKA the Rolling Stones- well, you’re only half right.  A couple of days before the Strolling Bones cavorted in front of a gargantuan crowd in Toronto, a group  of similar vintage dosed a smaller, albeit no less enthusiastic Ottawa crowd with an infectious blend of pop, funk, R&B and jaw-dropping polyrhythms indigenous to the African continent from which the 10 members of Bembeya Jazz hail.  And while those sticky fingered old boys have now returned to their respective châteaux, the legendary Bembeya Jazz- which the venerable British magazine Roots described as “one of the greatest bands in the history of the planet” –has continued west to play their first ever Victoria gig.  Or, as the group’s lead guitarist and founder, Sekou “Diamond Fingers” Diabate tells me, “You people should come in great numbers, because those who don’t show up are gonna regret it!”

Bembeya Jazz was formed in Guinea back in 1961, the first year of that country’ independence and their exuberant, high energy music perfectly reflected the optimistic and joyful spirit of that young nation.  For the next 27 years, they galvanized both African and international audiences with their unique and dynamic brand of Afro-pop, which largely defined what is now regarded as the golden age of West African dance bands.  In 1988, the group decided to take a break from recording and touring, a hiatus that ended last year with the release of a new album (Bembeya) and a world tour. 

Their music still retains the same remarkable energy, complexity and joie de vivre  that it possessed  30 years ago and continues to be marked by the remarkable and uncanny rhythmic and melodic interplay between its four guitarists, three horns and vocalists, and two percussionists.  This interplay might be likened to the inner workings of a Cartier watch: a multitude of precision parts designed to mesh into a single piece of sophisticated machinery.

Unlike the fragile innards of a Cartier, however, Bembeya Jazz’s sound is a robust, solid and sensual juggernaut which not only keeps perfect time but is guaranteed to make pulses race and limbs flail.  There is no mystery, Diabate explains, in how he and his band evoke this response from their audiences.  “From the first note the audience will understand what we are doing,” he says.  “We like to make our public very hot so we can then energize them like multivitamins!”

Ron Forbes-Roberts