NOTE: This site has been replaced by www.to-music.ca
Go to www.to-music.ca for all news, information and events, and new features.
Go to www.to-music.ca for all news, information and events, and new features.
A terrific show and performance by Wazimbo, the great Mozambique Marrabenta singer last week.
A tremendous voice, and energetic performer, he kept the dance floor going, and also brought out the Mozambique community to celebrate his first Canadian tour. He will be back in the area this summer, hitting some of the festivals. Watch for him...
He was backed by some excellent Toronto musicians:
Tich Maredza (rhythm guitar)
Larry Lewis (lead guitar)
Sam Petit (bass)
Gordin Mapika (drums)
Ruben Esguerra (congas)
Two video samples. Click Full Screen logo to watch in that mode, or "Vimeo" to go to the original page.
Doing "Nakurandza"...
A couple of songs, featuring some of the dance action...
Last Saturday night, two excellent Toronto-based Zimbabwean bands played at Placebo Place on Bloor St. (A small, funky artist loft, located above an auto mechanic garage).
Nhapitapi Mbira opened, followed by the Tich Maredza Band. For the final set, all 9 musicians played together. The audience had long since given up the cushions on the floor, and everyone was moving to the music.
Band members:
Nhapitapi Mbira:
Mutamba (Moyo) Rainos: vocals, mbira, percussion & dance
Memory Makuri: vocals, dance & percussion
Evelyn Mukwedeya: mbira & percussion
Pasi Gunguwo: vocals, mbira, percussion
Original Vimeo video link: http://vimeo.com/38163307
A rare chance to hear some music from Mozambique tonight at the Lula Lounge.
Wazimbo (Humberto Carlos Benfica)'s musical career in Mozambique goes back almost 50 years, and he's now one of the most famous singers of the marrabenta style. This is his first trip to Canada.
Tonight, he'll be backed by some top local musicians (Tich Maredza, Larry Lewis, Ruben Esguerra -- all from the Tich Maredza Band -- plus Gordin Mapika and Sam Petit).
Wazimbo was interviewed last Sunday by Nadine McNulty on Karibuni (CIUT). That program is still online for a few more days. (Link is below). Wazimbo comes on at about 1:20. (The rest of the show focuses on International Women's Day from an African music perspective).
Listen to the program here.
Tickets are only $15 at the door. Show starts at 9pm, 1585 Dundas West. A Batuki Music Society show.
Below, "Nwahulwana", his song which was used in the soundtrack of the Jack Nicholson film, The Pledge:
A few odds and ends from the musical world recently...
See the newly updated event listings (www.events.to-music.ca), for details of these and many other shows.
A few items of note:
The Lula Lounge
has a number of interesting shows coming up:
Batuki Music Society with a couple of shows to watch for:
Coming up this weekend:
Other notes:
RIP:
Sudanese singer and musician Mohammed Osman Wardi died Feb 18 at the age of 80. More here
Live in Addis Ababa, 1993:
And halfway across the world, North Carolina fiddler Joe Thompson died Feb. 21 at 93. More here
Thompson was the prime inspiration for the Carolina Chocolate Drops who will be releasing a new album next month. As their "bio" piece on their website notes:
In the summer and fall of 2005, three young black musicians, Dom Flemons, Rhiannon Giddens, and Justin Robinson, made the commitment to travel to Mebane, N.C., every Thursday night to sit in the home of old-time fiddler Joe Thompson for a musical jam session. Joe was in his 80’s, a black fiddler with a short bowing style that he inherited from generations of family musicians. He had learned to play a wide ranging set of tunes sitting on the back porch with other players after a day of field work. Now he was passing those same lessons on to a new generation.
When the three students decided to form a band, they didn’t have big plans. It was mostly a tribute to Joe, a chance to bring his music back out of the house again and into dance halls and public places.
Here he is, with the Carolina Chocolate Drops, playing "John Henry" in 2007:
(Photo from his 2008 concert as part of the Toronto International Film Festival)
The Senegalese star's plan to run for the presidency of that country hit a major roadblock recently.
The Constitutional Council of Senegal on Friday rejected his bid, claiming he had many invalid signatures on his application.
However, it did approve 85 year old President Abdoulaye Wade's bid for a third term -- something n'Dour and other opposition figures claim is illegal and unconstitutional.
From the Vancouver Sun, Jan. 28:
N'Dour described the outcome as a "takeover by force" by Wade, who was first elected in 2000 for a seven-year mandate, and re-elected in 2007 under a new constitution for a five-year mandate.
In 2008, the constitution was changed again to allow for two consecutive seven-year terms from 2012, which Wade said did not take into account the terms he had already served.
The story also reports stories of violent protests in the capital Friday night, leaving one policeman dead.
n'Dour is appealing the decistion.
Meanwhile, another story claims n'Dour got in a scuffle with police when he tried to enter a police station in Dakar in support of an opposition leader and human rights activist being held there by police.
Here is an interview on TIME magazine's blog with n'Dour on why he wants to be President.
Amazing colour film footage from 1942 of Sonny Boy Williamson II (Rice Miller) and Robert Jr Lockwood playing on the front porch of an Arkansas grocery store in 1942.
It also features some shots of Williamson playing with his band in 1952.
No sound, but as one YouTube commenter wrote, "The music is there! You just can't hear it".
This is quite an amazing artifact. It was apparently shot by Max Moore, the owner of the King Biscuit Flour company which sponsored the now-legendary (an overused word, but in this context, highly appropriate) King Biscuit Time radio show on KFFA in Helena Arkansas, where Sonny Boy hosted a live music show. In fact, it was at this time that Moore convinced Williamson to change his name from Rice Miller, copying that of fellow harmonica player Sonny Boy Williamson (I) then playing in Chicago. Today, it's SBW "the second" who is best known, in part because SBW "the first" died in 1948, and also because "the second" recorded for years with Chess Records in Chicago before his death in 1965.
Apparently there is a total of 4 minutes of film from 1942, and 12 from 1952. Below is a two-minute clip:
For some more information on SBW II, see http://www.sonnyboy.com/ or http://www.mnblues.com/review/2002/sonnyboywilliamson2-3-02-cr.html
And for Sonny Boy WITH sound (and with the great Otis Spann on piano):
It's been more than a week since the deaths of those two giant figures of American R&B: Johnny Otis, and his greatest discovery, Etta James,
My initial comments on Otis' death are in a post below, and they've both received significant media coverage, especially James. Although Lynn Crosbie in the Globe & Mail this week wondered why it took her death for James to receive such wide recognition. "But if she is such a legend, why was she not pushed forward more in her life?"
There was nothing simple, or easily mainstreamed, about the way James sang. Pure soul is not easy to listen to; it is an emotional assault
And there was her constant pain, a terrible byproduct of drawing – as her admirer Amy Winehouse did – so deeply from the heart.
At fifteen, my professional recording career had begun.
Johnny Otis turned out to be much more than a promoter and a musician. He's a guru, a man with an encyclopedic knowledge and appreciation of black music. He sees its wholeness, from gospel to blues to jazz... Add to his cosmic vision a street hustler's sense of how to sell and you have some notion of his stature. Johnny's finger was on the pulse. Some people have accused him of stealing songs -- and I do believe there's a little larceny in all of us -- but basically Johnny loved the artist more than he loved the money...
I dug how Johnny Otis reinvented himself as a black man. People took his Greek shading as Creole, but Johnny took it even further; he viewed the world -- and especially the musical world -- through black eyes. His soul was blacker than the blackest black in Compton.... He had a genius for hip names. Johnny could name a person in a minute. Sister Soukee. Handsome Mel Walker. Little Esther. Young John Watson. Shorty Long. The Mighty Flea.... He also rechristened me. [Jamesetta Hawkins]. He was the one who flipped everything around.
Two NPR features on Etta:
NOW review & photo of her 1992 Harbourfront concert
For some more of Etta on You Tube:
JOHNNY OTIS
Growing up in the 1950's, my sister and I were only allowed to buy one record each every other month. I only remember one record my sister bought that I liked. It wasn't like anything else I heard at the time, but a great song by "The Johnny Otis Show". I couldn't figure that out... the only "show" I could think of was a TV show. Was there some TV show with someone named Johnny Otis?
It was of course, the great travelling R&B show that Otis had been touring with since the 1940's. I had no idea who he was or his significance. The song has remained a favourite of mine all my life, and I eventually grew to learn a bit about Otis's signficance.
Here's the label of that old 78RPM record. (It's from the Internet... I haven't kept it all these years!). I didn't remember what record label it was on, but I clearly remember the purple label.
Otis's appearance at the 1970 Monterey Jazz Festival helped bring him back into the (musical) public eye. And what a great performance they gave, with Johnny, son Shuggie, plus Big Joe Turner, Little Esther, Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, Ivory Joe Hunter, Roy Brown, Pee Wee Crayton, Roy Milton, and more.
See www.johnnyotis.com for a big selection of his music.
THIS SITE HAS MOVED TO www.to-music.ca
