In this issue:
1. Event notes: whatever your
style (almost), it's coming to town
2. Luminato notes: That June 12 concert!
3. Desandann: set for success? (finally)
4. Updates from last newsletter: Hattie Carroll, Staff Benda
Billili
5. Big news from Texas
1. Event notes
As noted in the last newsletter, because of the
length of the event listings, I'm now marking listings that are new
or have been updated in the previous couple of weeks in red.
What kind of music are you looking for? There are
some terrific performers playing in town in the next week or two
across a variety of styles:
- Americana roots? Check the Avett
Brothers June 1 at The Phoenix.
- Drumming? This is the week! The
Muhtadi International Festival offers two free days of drumming
groups from around the world Jun. 5 & 6 in Queen's Park, and a
launch event June 3.
- Cuban? Arnaldo y Su Talisman, an
11-piece Havana-based band makes its first Toronto appearance,
on June 3 at the Lula
- Japanese taiko drumming? Toronto taiko
stars Nagata Sachu play a free noon-hour gig at the the Four
Seasons Centre, June 3.
- Ethiopian? An excellent group of
Toronto musicians -- who were very impressive at the April
tribute to the late Ethiopian legend Tilahun Gessesse play a
free gig Friday night (Jun. 4) in the Melody Bar at the
Gladstone Hotel. The group includes vocalist
Ermias
Assebework along with top Ethiopian sax player Girma Woldemichael.
Check them in
a couple of video clips from that tribute show.
- Afro-Cuban? One of the world's top
performers, Ricardo Lemvo (photo), is in town this
Saturday playing the Lula Lounge. Lemvo was
born in the Democratic Republic of
the Congo, of Angolan
ancestry, now based in Los Angeles, his music is deeply rooted in
Cuban clave, and sings in English, French, Spanish,
Portuguese, Lingala and Kikongo. This show will mark the
Canadian release of his 6th CD, Perspective. Video
clip here.
- Blues? The free Waterfront Blues
Festival is on all weekend at Woodbine Park, featuring Lil Ed &
The Blues Imprerials and many more acts.
- Persian? Small World Music brings back
the great Persian classical singer Mohammad Reza Shajarian this
Sunday, June 6, at Roy Thomson Hall.
- Soukous? Quartier Latin Academia, a
rumba/soukous group from the Democratic Republic of Congo,
founded in 1998, play the Opera House, with Njacko Backo and Kalimba Kalimba
opening.
- Something else? Something more? Check
out the event listings...
this is just a partial list covering the next couple of weeks.
One upcoming show I mentioned in a recent
newsletter is the June 24 performance by Australian
Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu
at the Enwave Theatre. A highly distinctive voice, he's
eceived a huge amount of
critical attention in the past year or two. He has a large and enthusiastic following; others aren't as
convinced. You should check out his music and decide yourself. A
video clip
here; and a strong endorsement of him in
this
article by Eric Thorn on Roots Music Canada.
And, then there's Luminato...
2. Luminato notes
No doubt most people reading this have heard a
lot about the great free African and other music performances
during the festival, but it's worth again highlighting some of
the treats we can enjoy during the 10 day festival.
Foremost of course, is the amazing free June
12 concert at Queen's Park. This would be a "don't miss no
matter what" just for the first Toronto appearance of
Bassekou Kouyaté and his group, Ngoni Ba. Bassekou is
truly one of West Africa's great musical masters, and by all
accounts, the group puts on one of the best live performances on
the world music scene today.
They'll be playing with American banjo master
Béla Fleck who won a world music Grammy this year for his
African Project, of which Bassekou was a part. (See my notes
here from Bela's 2009 Nashville
concert with some of the other performers in that project
including Toumani Diabaté and D'Gary).
See film note below for another view of Béla's
project.
Here's a very nice
video clip of Bassekou; my
Dec.
13 (2009) newsletter has some more clips and notes about
him. And of course, the Béla-Bassekou performance is just the
final treat of truly memorable day:
- Tony Allen, one of the core components of
Fela Kuti's sound, has received great accolades for his
newest CD, Secret Agent, and makes what is apparently
his first Toronto concert appearance. Secret Agent video
here.
- Rachid Taha, the Algerian "rai-rocker",
headlines the "Rock the Casbah" portion of the day, and will
do just that.
Here's
a video taste of some his rootsier sound.
- Lo'Jo, a French group whose music is
strongly North African-oriented (they were one of the key
founders of what is now the Festival in the Desert which
takes place in the Malian Sahara) makes only their second
Toronto appearance. (YouTube
video of them at the Festival in the Desert).
- More: Karim Saada, Maryam Toller
Ensemble, plus Mr Something Something.
And prior to the start of the concert, there's
an opportunity to see the excellent documentary, Throw Down
Your Heart, about Béla Fleck's musical travels in Africa,
working with African musicians -- both famous and little known
-- from several countries. Béla and Bassekou will attend the
screening and will be available for a Q&A session afterward.
("Throw down your heart" was apparently a phrase used by East
Africans captured for the slave trade, describing what they
would do when they realized they would be torn forever from
their homes).
Details of the screening are
here.
There's so much more during the Luminato
festival, much of which has already been noted on the website
and in earlier newsletters, and all of which is available on the
Festival website. Many of the other African and other
world music-related events are noted on my event listings.
No doubt there will be more notes coming in a
future newsletter. (Of course, there are two more excellent free
concerts on June 19 (headed by Salif Keita) and June 20). Check
the event listings here and on the
Luminato website. Also, see the Luminato
"African events" flyer.
3. Desandann: set for success?
Readers
of this website and newsletter will know that I'm a huge fan of
the Haitian-Cuban 10 member acapella group, Grupo Vocal
Desandann.
They play Toronto periodically, and are known
here because of the long backing of flautist/saxophonist Jane
Bunnett who has recorded with them on a few occasions (including
for her recent Juno winning CD, Embracing Voices. Jane
and her husband/bandmate Larry Cramer recorded a CD of Desandann
last year, Pwan Dife, which sadly seems to have received
little if any distribution.
However, things may be looking up for the
group. Last summer they played some dates in the U.K, including
the WOMAD and Edinburgh Festivals, arranged by a long-time
English supporter of theirs. On this tour, they connected with
Peter Gabriel, who, understandably, was highly impressed, and
they have now recorded a new CD for his Real World label.
They were back in the UK last month, and did a
series of live radio and TV appearances. The CD is scheduled for
release in September, and they will be doing some international
touring to support it.
I'm of course very happy for their
long-deserved success. I was able to visit the director of the
group, Emilia Chavez at her home in Camaguey, Cuba this past
January, and she was quite happy about how things had gone in
England.
Some links about them: (They're known in the
UK as The Creole Choir of Cuba)
4. Updates / additions from last newsletter
A couple of notes to add to some items in the last newsletter:
a) Bob Dylan & "The Lonesome Death of Hattie
Carroll"
The
last newsletter
noted an excellent 30 minute BBC documentary (no longer online)
about the famous 1963 Dylan song concerning the killing of a
black Baltimore barmaid by a young wealthy tobacco plantation
owner. As it turned out, both families continue to harbour a
deep resentment towards the singer. (William Zantzinger, the man
who was found responsible for Carroll's death called Dylan "a
scum bag of the earth" in the documentary, but as it turns out,
Carrolls's children and grandchildren also resent Dylan, who
gained wide recognition early in his career over the song, but
who never contacted anyone in the family, or ever offered any
help to them despite their great needs.
A very extensive accounting of the killing,
the song and their aftermath is on
this
website.
b) Staff Benda Billili
I noted in the last issue, the highly
acclaimed Congolese group is playing July dates in Ottawa,
Montreal and Quebec City, but sadly it appears not in Toronto. A
documentary about this remarkable group and their story was
recently shown in Cannes (and reports indicate it was greeted
with a standing ovation). See
this account in The Times of London.
5. Last note: big news from Texas...
...Willie
has cut his hair
