Thursday, November 30, 2006
Out of Asheville?
Two bands, both from that hip little N.C. city, bring two styles of West African music to the region this week.
Asheville, N.C., may not seem a likely hotbed for West African music, but two bands from that mountain city may just prove otherwise.
Afromotive, an 11-piece Afrobeat ensemble, and Toubab Krewe, an instrumental quintette that fuses Malian and American music, will both be performing in the Roanoke area for the first time.
Afromotive
Style: Afrobeat music, which developed in Nigeria during the 1970s when Fela Kuti mixed American jazz with West African highlife music. The result: danceable music with heavy beats and strong social messages.
Hear them: 9 p.m. Saturday
Where: Sun Music Hall, Floyd
Tickets: $10 in advance; $12 on Saturday
Call: (540) 745-7883
Toubab Krewe
Style: Southern rock blended with traditional and melodic Manding music. Toubab is a word that means "foreigner" in several West African countries. The band has been described on National Public Radio as "the place where Led Zeppelin and Ali Farka Toure come together."
Hear them: 10 p.m. Wednesday
Where: Awful Arthur's, Towers Shopping Center, Roanoke
Tickets: $8 in advance; $10 at the door
Call: 777-0007
Net: www.toubabkrewe.com
So what's the Asheville-West African connection?
A love for rhythm and drums, a growing West African community in Asheville and perhaps an old musical connection between the two areas may be part of the answer.
Serendipity and cross-continental friendships also played a role in inspiring these musical toubabs.
Toubab Krewe formed in January 2005 after band members Drew Heller and Justin Perkins -- longtime friends from the fifth grade in Asheville -- returned from a four-month trip to Mali. Perkins studied the kora, a 21-string harp lute, while Heller concentrated his energies on the guitar in Mali.
"They just called and we're like, 'Yo, it's time,' " said Luke Quaranta, who plays percussion instruments such as the West African djembe, or healing drum, and calabash, a hollowed-out gourd surrounded by seeds or shells that make noise.
Quaranta and Toubab Krewe drummer Teal Brown developed a love for West African music while studying at Warren Wilson College just outside Asheville. During college, they founded Common Ground, a 14-member group of drummers and dancers.
With Common Ground, Quaranta and Brown went to Guinea and Ivory Coast to study drumming and dancing for two months in 2001. In Ivory Coast, the two met up with Kevin Meyame, an Ivorian who sings and plays the djembe.
In January 2004, Meyame moved to Asheville to perform as the lead dancer of Ballet Warraba, a dance and drumming troupe composed of three Africans and eight Americans.
The scene started to take off.
More people from Mali, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Gambia and Guinea began settling in Asheville, a city known for its openness and burgeoning arts scene.
"It was really beautiful how the community blossomed," Quaranta said.
During the fall of 2004, Ryan Reardon, a bass player, moved to Asheville. Months earlier, he was in Ghana studying the djembe and the gyil, a curved African xylophone.
"I realized that there was this huge African scene," Reardon said about his move to Asheville. "It was sort of fate. It was astonishing."
In Asheville, Reardon met Meyame.
"We realized that we were on the same page musically," Reardon said.
Both shared a passion for Afrobeat music.
Soon, Afromotive was born.
"The music is really about developing layers," Reardon said. The band has evolved with the addition of a few "jazz cats," a four-piece horn section and some funk influences.
When describing Afromotive, Meyame, who is from a family of nine children, said, "They're like a family for me. ... I take care of them like my brothers."
Meyame also performs with Avec la Force, the third major West African-inspired Asheville band.
And the mountain music connection?
Members of both Afromotive and Toubab Krewe recognize some connection between Western North Carolina's mountain music and traditional West African music.
During Toubab Krewe's June 21 appearance on NPR, Perkins talked about the two regions' musical connections by mentioning his arrival in the Atlanta airport after his first trip to Africa.
"I had my kora, and I got asked what kind of banjo that was. So, it's interesting for us, being from Western North Carolina and the local music here -- old-time mountain string music and its relationship to West Africa, especially the banjo in particular."
Musicologists have suggested that Malian music provided the roots for American blues and possibly jazz music. Many see the ngoni, a Malian plucked lute, as the ancestor of the banjo.
CDs including the Putumayo collection "Mali To Memphis" and "Talking Timbuktu," the 1994 Grammy award-winning collaboration between Malian guitarist Ali Farka Toure and American blues guitarist Ry Cooder, add further credence to such claims.
Members of both Afromotive and Toubab Krewe point to other similarities, such as the ensemble nature and string picking of both musics.
"There is definitely an inherent connection and roots to both of the music," Quaranta said.
AFRICAN INSTRUMENTS
Djembe: Healing drum
Calabash: A hollowed-out gourd surrounded by seeds or shells that make noise
Ngoni: West African plucked lute
Kora: 21-string harp lute
DID YOU KNOW? Mamadou Diabate, a kora player who lives in Durham, N.C., was nominated for a Grammy for his solo kora album, "Behmanka." In fact, three of the 10 CDs nominated for a Grammy in the 2006 world music category were produced by Malians.
