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Concert Pick
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Muzikifan, Concert Pick >>
KEKELE LIVE at Yoshi's, Oakland, 3 July 2006
Bay Area summer night, chilly, fog in the air. Though it's a monday night, ten p.m., there's a line round the corner from Yoshi's and up the street. More people arrive and see friends in line so the line moves out towards the pavement rather than back round the corner where I am with IJ & Yoko. Trains pass. It's sold out, so Yoko can't get in, unless I ask her to be my plus one instead of IJ. IJ looks doubtful, Who would you rather take? he asks, Frankly, I say... --Come on, I even shaved tonight... Yoko calls a friend and gets a lift. IJ knows half the people in line from his wide connections deejaying. After a long wait we move inside and grab seats at the back with a friend of IJ's who is celebrating his birthday and is already drunk on rum & cokes. I ask him if he likes this kind of music. I don't know, he says, I am open to anything. The band comes on slowly after a sumptuous meal (Yoshi's is a Japanese restaurant & you can get a great tuna tartare with wasabi on a bed of arugula if you want to eat while listening to jazz) and starts to pick up. There's a lot more oomph than on their albums and they are more polished than on their last two tours. Yoshi's have been advertising them as Cuban-derived African music, to fit in with their Salsa Mundo series, so the audience is not familiar with them (which means they gained new converts), and Loko tried to speak in Spanish between songs. It's an odd concept, but Congolese Rumba, as it's called, has nothing to do with real rumba, the ritual drum and percussive music of Cuba, but there's enough influence from Son Montuno to engage the salseros. When they do the Guillermo Portabales material from their third album, "Yoka biso biso biso," sounds so like "mi son, mi son, mi son," to convince anyone it's purely Cuban. The addition of Muzette accordion (Jeoffrey Arnone) and the legendary Jimmy Mvondo-Mvele on sax is a great idea and fattens the sound, making a connection to early OK Jazz. Syran is jamming by the second number, "Delali," playing two-fingered leads that recall Franco. It's highly reminiscent of OK Jazz and there's Wuta Mayi, who sang with OK Jazz, to sanction the pedigree. The sound is not ideal: the mikes trebly and everything a bit too loud for the small space when you take into account they have amps on stage as well as a PA system. The accordionist points at the ceiling as if to say God is listening (& can't hear me), but the engineer ignores him. The congas and accordion are lost in the mix. However, the bass (Ahmed Barry who has toured with Sam Mangwana and Kanda Bongo Man) and drums (the great Komba Mafwala who was part of Four Stars) are rocking the house. There's our collectively beautiful Oakland interracial crowd jammed into a tiny dancefloor swinging and swaying and trying to shake their butts. "How do they do that?" Miri asks me. It's in the hips I tell her, but I am worn out from teaching an evening class and only mildly winding my waist. I've ditched the table because the guy who is drunk and open to anything is talking loudly and even calling people on his phone which means he is basically yelling in my ear. The lead guitar (Foto Vangu-Tungila, someone I don't recognize) is hotter than the previous two tours, but they should switch to electric guitars for the seben (like "Stairway to Heaven"?). In fact it's clearly an unplugged soukous show, and probably wont be long before they start doing some of their old Quatre Etoiles material, much of which is heading towards "classic" status. Just imagine: Kekele with special guest Bopol Mansiamina doing Lipua Lipua and Quatre Etoiles material unplugged. Now there's a live album to conjure up. Despite missing Bopol and also Papa Noel who must be too frail to endure the tour, Foto, the lead guitarist does a great job and has a lot more enthusiasm than Rigo who toured last year when they played a sit-down gig in Marin. Catch this act wherever you can. 07/05/06 >> go there
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