Oh Bembeya!

Photo: Banning Eyre
Sekou Diabaté, Angoulême Festival, May 2002

Much credit for all of this goes to Musiques Métisses Artistic Director, Christian Mousset (fR211/212), who is launching his new label, Marabi, with an emphasis on what he calls "the patrimony of urban African music," including new recordings by the Super Rail Band from Bamako, 77-year-old Wendo Kolosoy from the Congo, and Bembeya Jazz. Mousset's high-minded phrase belies the rambunctious zeal of this music, and makes an almost comic contrast with the reality that most of these musicians have been neglected both at home and abroad for far too long, languishing in inactivity and near poverty while music with far less originality, punch and imagination has been marketed to worldwide audiences. They say life provides few second chances, but here's one, and thank God, Mousset, and the European Commission (who are supporting his work) for it.

Speaking of God, Mousset made the interesting choice of housing the mostly Muslim musicians of Bembeya Jazz in a Catholic monastery in Angoulême, "with the priests," as he put it merrily. "This is a prison," groused percussionist Papa Kouyaté - perhaps the band's most cheerless member - upon seeing a sign that read, "Silence after 10:00," posted in the dormitory hallway, but I had the impression that most of the musicians appreciated the peace and quiet. On our first morning with the priests, I entered the humble dining room and was surprised find the musicians drinking coffee out of porcelain bowls. Unaware that this is routine in France, I asked, "Don't they have any coffee mugs?" "Shhhhh!" replied veteran Bembeya vocalist Salifou Kaba, adding with a nervous look, "We are near to God here. We mustn't ask questions."

The religious humor had begun. By the end of the week I spent with the band, the musicians were engaging in lively repartee with the matronly woman who served us breakfast, shocking and titillating her in any way possible, as by confiding, falsely, that Sekou Diabaté had seven wives. Salifou is the Bembeya's chief joker. One morning, he told the story of the greedy marabout and the generous 'fetisheur' who died on the same day and were buried on two floors of the same tomb. When ants swarmed into the marabout's tomb, and a fountain of cold water sprang from the fetisheur's, people objected and the tombs were switched. "But now," said Salifou, "the ants came to the low floor, where the marabout had been moved, and the fountain reappeared above where they had put the fetisheur." "That's justice," laughed Sekou. "God's justice."