Watching the Giants-Rangers
World Series, I couldn’t decide if the situation
was a win-win or a no-win.
Growing up freezing my butt off in
Candlestick Park’s infamous left-field
bleachers, I was indoctrinated with the
frustration every old-time Giants fan
knew intimately. They won just one
pennant during my years in the Bay Area
– only to lose to the Yankees in Game
7 of the ’62 World Series, when Bobby
Richardson speared Willie McCovey’s
potentially game-winning line drive in
the bottom of the ninth.
But now, the same approximate
distance that separated me from Candlestick
separates me from the Ballpark In
Arlington – home to the Texas Rangers,
who hadn’t won a pennant in their 38-year
history. So I sat glued to my TV, wearing
my Giants jersey and Rangers cap, wishing
the Series could be extended indefinitely.
I’m not going to attempt any baseball/
music metaphors; I’ll leave that silliness
to Ken Burns. But it’s worth pointing out
that unlike baseball, in music, on occasion,
you can have McCovey and Richardson
on the same team – or Tim Lincecum
and Josh Hamilton. And as the American
pastime grows evermore multi-cultural,
music remains far ahead of society’s curve
(let alone sports’) in terms of diversity,
equal opportunity, and cross-pollination.
One of the ultimate examples of the
universality of music is AfroCubism
(World Circuit/Nonesuch). It was not
only produced by Nick Gold, who was
responsible for 1997’s surprise hit Buena
Vista Social Club, this melding of musicians
from Mali and Cuba is Gold’s original
album concept that morphed into
Buena Vista. In ’96, when Mali’s Bassekou
Kouyate and Djelimady Tounkara weren’t
able to secure visas to travel to Cuba to collaborate
with musicians Gold had lined
up there, he and Ry Cooder rounded up
forgotten players from Havana’s heyday
and cut an album of son music, and the
rest is history. But Gold finally realized
his vision; in fact, he added more Malian
players to the mix – this time recording
in Spain.
Kouyate plays an ngoni – a fourstringed,
fretless ancestor of the banjo.
In addition to his collaborations with Ali
Farka Toure (sort of the John Lee Hooker
of Mali), he leads Ngoni Ba, an amazing
band composed of ngonis in various sizes
and pitches, percussion, and his vocalist/
wife, Amy Sacko (while you’re youtubing
videos of Kouyate and Sacko, be sure to
check out the jam between Tounkara and
Bill Frisell!).
Tounkara started on ngoni but
switched to guitar, and is now considered
Mali’s greatest electric guitarist – shown
to full effect on his original instrumental
“Djelimady Rumba” and “Jarabi,” a
showcase for Toumani Diabate, who
sings and plays the harp-like kora, made
from a gourd.
Add to this Lassana Diabate’s swirling
balafon marimba, the acoustic guitar and
sandy vocals of the BVSC’s Eliades Ochoa,
and the backing of the latter’s Grupo
Patria, and you’ve got one intoxicating
mojito. What’s remarkable, though, is that
the album doesn’t scream “fusion” (nor
fission, for that matter). Far from beating
you over the head with the cross-cultural component, it comes off organically,
like a high-caliber jazz session – its participants
masters of improvisation and
sympathetic accompaniment.
Possibly the best illustration is the
instrumental rendition of “Guantanamera”
that closes the CD. Attempting
any version of such an overdone Cuban
standard (from Pete Seeger folk to the
Sandpipers’ pop hit) could descend
into schmaltz, but the string-trio
format of Ochoa, Kouyate, and
Diabate elevate it, and it becomes
the perfect closer to a terrific album.
England’s Dave Holland is one
of jazz’ great upright bassists, best
known for his work with Miles Davis
and such Davis alums as Chick Corea
and Wayne Shorter. But as far back
as the early ’70s, he revealed his
eclectic side, lending his talents
to projects by John Hartford and
Bonnie Raitt. In 1975, he was
part of a Flying Fish album simply called
Norman Blake/Tut Taylor/Sam Bush/
Butch Robins/Vassar Clements/David
Holland/Jethro Burns, in which its cast
ricocheted from bluegrass to Ellington,
presaging “new acoustic” and “Dawg”
musics in the process. (Will somebody
please reissue this gem on CD?)
So it’s not surprising to see him
collaborating with f lamenco
guitarist Pepe Habichuela –
previously teamed with jazz
greats Jaco Pastorius and Don
Cherry, who likened the flamenco
master’s sound to “a
tree crying.”
On Hands (Dare2 Records),
Holland and Habichuela and
joined by various members of
the Habichuela/Carmona clan
on rhythm guitars and percussion,
including Pepe’s son, Josemi
Carmona, who co-produced the
album with Holland. In his liner
notes, Jose Manuel Gamboa details
the various branches of the
Granada family’s tree, but it’s a
mite convoluted. Suffice to say this
is a family affair.
Holland, however, is the one
stretching himself most – deftly
absorbing and conforming to
flamenco’s rhythms and rich history.
Even though he composed
two of the CD’s 10 songs,
“flamenco-jazz” this is not. What it is, though, is a beautiful,
often mesmerizing balance of technique
and emotion – of the highest, deepest
levels.
Nigeria’s Sunday Adeniyi, better
known as King Sunny Ade, is the high
priest of juju music, the danceable hybrid
of Western pop and traditional African
music. Most of the Western world discovered
him through such early-’80s albums
as Juju Music and Aura (featuring a cameo
from Stevie Wonder).
But as infectious as his music was
on record (he released more than 100
albums on his own label in Nigeria), his
first American concerts were revelations,
as his 18-piece band, the African Beats,
sometimes stretched trance-inducing
pieces to 30-plus minutes. For his first
international release in more than a decade,
Baba Mo Tunde (Mesa/Indigedisc),
Ade’s aim was to bring that energy and
freedom to the studio, and he succeeds
admirably.
With talking drums, a chorus of male
singer/dancers, and Ade’s crystalline,
staccato electric guitar, the doublealbum’s
seven songs span nearly two
hours. If your jam-band alarm just went
off, fear not. I have less patience for that
syndrome than anyone this side of Ian
McLagan (“My worst fear is that I’ll die
and come back as a member of a jam
band”), but even the half-hour-long title
song held my attention. In fact, at half
that length, hip-hop deejay King Britt’s
remix of the song (thankfully the only
such concession on the album) made me
restless two minutes in.
The only other minus is that the pedalsteel
guitar that was part of Ade’s sound
for years (originally supplied by Ademola
Adepoju, and later Biodun Fatoke) is
absent. But John Wlaysewski of New
York’s Flying Machines adds a snakey guitar
solo to “Baba Loun Sohun Gbogbo,” and Joe Doria’s B-3 gives the party a nice, jazzy touch.