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Concert Review
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www.muzikifan.com, Concert Review >>
Gangbé Brass Band Live at Great American Music Hall, San Francisco, 2 November 2005
The San Francisco Jazz Festival always has a few aces up its sleeve and, while others are reluctant to take a chance on world music, you can count on Randall Kline to bring in some quality acts for his annual shindig. And what better place to see the Kings of Benin groove than the European gilt and ormolu palace in the seedy Tenderloin district of San Francisco. The Music Hall survives from San Francisco's gilded age in the nineteenth century, filled with gold pillars and large mirrors to expand the space. Those painted putti on the ceiling have seen a lot. The audience was older and better dressed than you see at most world music concerts: jazz aficionados taking a chance on something new. Most of them were anxious to get a seat, but once the music started there was a throng on the dancefloor. The obvious reference point for the crowd was New Orleans. Intermittently, the Gangbé Brass Band sound and act like the Dirty Dozen or another of those great party bands. I suppose it's inevitable when you have seven horn players throwing down and cutting up. Of course New Orleans will never be the same again. (Typical of the New American Thinking it will be boiled down to a simple statement: "the birthplace of jazz." Congo Square will quietly disappear into condos as Halliburton cleans it up and the whole thing will suddenly be very up-market, perhaps renamed Walt Disney's Jazzworld with "official" musicians on street corners, like in Cuba.)
Dressed in fabulous bright pants and jackets with contrasting gold and purple silk vests, Gangbé Brass took us home to the birthplace not of jazz but of voodoo which so influenced music in the Western hemisphere. The drumming was prominent and, as usual, the Music Hall sound was mixed impeccably. The talking drums played by Benoit Avihoué were crisp as Juju propelled many of the tunes; the rhythms were complex and evolved as different members of the orchestra came forward to solo. Olatounou Ahouandjinou, lead trumpeter, handled most of the vocals but also gave way to his older brother trombonist Wendo Ahouandjinou who had a sly delivery. By the third number, "Glessi," their joy was palpable and everyone on the dance floor was getting into the groove. A second percussionist played a big rumba box (that's cajon, IJ, not cojones!) and a third played congas. With shekere and occasional cowbell they had the Yoruba-Fon Afrobeat underpinning everything. Their medley "Oblemou" quotes "Meet me boys on de battlefront," the essential Norlins anthem. That got the crowd really worked up. They were even better live than on their excellent albums and as an encore they paraded through the crowd. 11/04/05 >> go there
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