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African Brass
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The San Jose Mercury News, African Brass >>
FROM WEST AFRICA'S BENIN, GANGBÉ BLENDS JAZZ, NATIVE GROOVES
By Andrew Gilbert
The nation of Benin is the land of voodoo, the religion that came to the Americas via the Atlantic slave trade and continues under various names in Brazil, Haiti, Cuba and New Orleans.
When the European colonial powers took over West Africa in the 19th century, they did some bewitching of their own, with the flashy precision of their military bands powered by a battery of trumpets, trombones and saxophones.
With the advent of independence in the late 1950s and early '60s, brass bands in West Africa adapted the instrumentation for their own ends, performing at births, weddings and funerals. Rather than adopting the European repertoire of marches and anthems, they created a new sound marked by surging horns and polyrhythmic percussion lines.
Over the past decade, the Gangbé Brass Band from Benin has honed a particularly intricate and kinetic sound, combining a love of modern jazz with traditional Beninese grooves and contemporary African styles that evolved in neighboring Nigeria, particularly the buoyant style known as juju, exemplified by King Sunny Ade, and the funk-laden Afrobeat sound pioneered by the late Fela Kuti.
The 10-member Gangbé Brass Band makes its Northern California debut in Santa Cruz on Monday, in a show produced by Zook Beat, and then performs in San Francisco on Wednesday as part of the San Francisco Jazz Festival.
The band's accomplishment in creating a distinctive Beninese style can't be overstated. In the ensemble's early years, merely equipping all the players with instruments was a struggle.
``If you've got money, you can go to Nigeria,'' says trumpeter Athanase Dehoumon by phone from Brussels, speaking in French through a translator. ``But for young people without money, the best place to buy a horn is through the army or police when they have some old instruments they don't want to use anymore.''
The musicians in Gangbé (the name means ``the sound of metal'') absorbed the Cuban recordings that were popular throughout the region, and fell in love with jazz listening to albums by Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.
Based in the coastal city of Cotonou, they encountered players from Europe and the United States, exchanging information and ideas. The musicians paid dues by going out into the countryside to learn their musical roots firsthand. The results can be heard on the band's second album, ``Whendo,'' released in the United States earlier this month on the World Village label.
``In the first four or five years, we really focused on research on the traditional rhythms,'' says Gangbé euphonium player James Vodounnon. ``Since there are no schools, we needed to learn by ourselves. We traveled all around Benin to meet the masters in each village to learn about instruments and rhythms.''
But transforming traditional chants and rituals into music for dancing in nightclubs is not necessarily an easy task. Hoping not to alienate the village elders and priests, the musicians sought dispensation for turning religious rituals into secular entertainment (a process similar to the one that Mac Rebennack describes in his autobiography, ``Under a Hoodoo Moon,'' when he was creating his voodoo stage persona, Dr. John).
``We wanted to get authorization to use these rhythms and instruments, because some of them are sacred,'' Dehoumon says. ``Usually, it's the people who can play who have the authorization for religious rituals. But we wanted to promote the music and culture of Benin, so we asked the priests for permission to play this music inside and outside the country.''
The history of Benin is as conflicted and difficult as that of any country in Africa. From the 16th century through the end of the 19th century, the territory was the center of the vast Dahomey empire, a highly centralized kingdom that flourished for centuries through the slave trade with the Portuguese and Dutch. By the time the French took over the territory in the mid-1890s, Dahomey had become widely unpopular with neighboring peoples, and most of the troops that fought against the kingdom were Africans.
Today, Benin encompasses some 50 ethnic groups, and the musicians in Gangbé seek to represent as many as possible. The band makes a point of singing in several Beninese languages, including Fon, Yoruba, Ngou, Mina and Toffin, as well as French.
The band writes its songs and arrangements collectively, and all of the musicians contribute on vocals. The lyrics reflect their concerns, with songs calling for peace, social harmony, self-reliance and for fathers to take care of their children. In ``Gdedji'' (``Exile''), Gangbé describes the crisis in rural areas, as young people leave the land seeking opportunity in the cities.
``At the same time, people in the city dream of going out of Benin,'' Vodounnon says. ``It's not good for the development of the country. We're really proud of Benin, and for us, it's really important to get experience outside and then come back to keep the richness in the country.'' 10/28/05 >> go there
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