Percussions Assiko et danse capoeira

Percussions Assiko et danse capoeira, vendredi à l’institut français Léopold Sédar Senghor

Un spectacle dénomme ‘’Dembë’’ est prévu vendredi à partir de 20 heures 30 au théâtre de verdure de l’institut français Léopold Sédar Senghor (ex-CCF) avec la participation de danseurs de capoeira et de percussionnistes dont le tambour major Doudou Ndiaye Rose. La soirée s’inscrit dans le cadre du Miroir Festival International de Dakar Plateau (Fesmir) qui vise à ‘’revisite la culture locale du Plateau pour mettre en valeur l’ouverture sur le monde de ce quartier historique’’. Les percussionnistes feront revivre la musique traditionnelle Assiko, indique un communiqué transmis jeudi à l’APS.

Parmi eux, Doudou Ndiaye Rose qui, ‘’après cinquante ans de carrière et de nombreuses collaborations musicales — avec les Rolling Stones, Peter Gabriel, Maurice Béjart... — est devenu l’incontournable référence de la percussion africaine. Véritable phénomène sur scène, il dirige comme un chef d’orchestre ses tambours sur des musiques à la croisée des sons traditionnels et de la création contemporaine, offrant une musique inventive et moderne’’, souligne le texte. Les groupes ‘’Teaupla Siko’’, constitué de quinze tambours venus du Plateau dakarois, et ‘’Africa do Capoeira’’, basé à Gorée et alliant danse et art martial sur les rythmes effrénés de l’Assiko, sont aussi au programme de la soirée.

Black Horse Festival 2007

Tickets are now available for the Black Horse Music Festival, which this year will feature more than 30 acts of the calibre of Wilko Johnson, The Blockheads, Osibisa, Martin Carthy and Peter Gabriel protégé Daby Toure.

From Friday May 25 to Monday May 28 the festival, now in its 19th year, will be held in the grounds of the Shepherd Neame pub the Black Horse in Telham, East Sussex.

For the first time, the festival is launching "The Club in the Pub", which will return to the event's folk roots and give floor singers the chance to perform inside the bar.

Outside, there's a bar run by landlord John Wilson, selling beer from event sponsors Shepherd Neame, a barbecue and family entertainment, including jugglers, Punch and Judy, stilt-walkers, face-painting and balloon sculptures.

The festival starts on the Friday with an evening of urban sounds from Ian Dury's Blockheads and The Wilko Johnson Band, while the Saturday is dedicated to folk, with performances from headliners Waterson:Carthy, The Fold, Waking the Witch and many others.

Sunday is a day of world music, headlined by Peter Gabriel's favourites The Daby Toure Band, supported by African hi-life outfit Osibisa, roots legends Baka Beyond, Boum, from France and leTrio Perdu from Belgium.

The festival closes on Bank Holiday Monday with an afternoon of indie rock from some of the South East's most talented new bands and an evening party featuring the Cadillac Kings and a big soul band.

Tickets are £12 for Friday; £16 for Saturday; £18 for Sunday; £5 for the Monday afternoon; and £8 for Monday evening, available from www.blackhorsemusicfestival.co.uk or from Hastings Tourist Information Centre on 01424 781111. Floor singers wishing to do a spot should call festival organiser John Shotton on 01424 429840.

Rachel Z Unleashes “Good and Evil”

Sometimes the true nature of jazz is obliterated by our tendency to classify and label. Despite its “melting pot” roots and evolution, the genre is often embroiled in controversy over its definition. Enter an undeniably talented pianist/vocalist/composer whose chops shout Shorter and Hancock while her repertoire screams Sting and Stones. Such fusion of stylistic ideas has haunted popular performers from Miles Davis to the Bad Plus, and similarly, Rachel Nicolazzo—known simply as Rachel Z.

Be it a blessing or curse, Z’s eclectic appetite has proven a commercial success over the release of eight recordings, bridging genres and sonic sensibilities in reaching listeners from multiple generations. And assuming the diverse origins of musical ideas are simultaneously irrelevant and basic to modern jazz, Z’s newest recording should serve to place her exactly where she belongs—among the most talented and inventive of 21st century post bop magicians, one who should appeal equally to those raised on U2 and Smashing Pumpkins and those steeped in the lineage of Evans, Jarrett, Hancock and Tyner. Released in mid March on Savoy Jazz, the eponymous Dept of Good and Evil will be celebrated at the Dakota in Minneapolis (April 6-7), Jazz Standard in Manhattan (April 10-11), and Blues Alley in Washington, DC (April 12). Joining Rachel Z will be her “Good and Evil” trio-mates, Maeve Royce on bass and Bobbie Rae (also producer) on drums.

Rachel Z

Rachel Z initially seemed destined to follow her mother into the world of opera. Growing up in Manhattan, she began voice lessons at age two, then classical piano at seven; she attended her first opera at age nine. “My first doll house was a Metropolitan Opera House,” she notes. But on hearing “Miles’ Smiles” at age 15, she began improvising against the grain of her classical repertoire and was soon playing in a band covering Joni Mitchell and Steely Dan. She further crossed the classical-to-jazz divide by listening to Herbie Hancock’s interpretations of Wayne Shorter, launching a quintet named Nardis, and studying with Joanne Brackeen and Richie Bierach.

Rachel graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, where she worked with Bob Moses, Miroslav Vitous and George Garzone. Back in New York in 1988, she toured with NEC classmate Najee and co-wrote the title track to the smooth saxman’s best-selling Tokyo Blue. Throughout the 90s, she played with fusion band Steps Ahead, Al DiMeola, Larry Coryell, Special EFX, Angela Bonfil and Mike Mainieri, who produced her debut release, Trust the Universe (1993). Next Z collaborated with hero Wayne Shorter, arranging, playing acoustic piano, and directing his tour for the Grammy-winning High Life. In the mid-90s, she extensively toured in support of her album dedicated to women artists, A Room of One’s Own, before turning to more electronic-driven music via Vertu (Al DiMeola, Stanley Clarke and Lenny White). Over the past decade, her efforts have encompassed interpretations of everyone from classic jazz giants to contemporary pop and rock stars, including recorded tributes to Wayne Shorter and Joni Mitchell. A global tour with Peter Gabriel (2002-2004) as well as three more recordings brought her international attention....(more)>

more acts added to Hyde Park Calling

The Answer, Jason Mraz, McQueen, Rushmore, Reuben, & more

Hyde Park Calling 2007

More acts have been added to Hyde Park Calling happening at London's Hyde Park on Saturday 23rd and Sunday 24th June.

On Saturday, joining the line-up of musical innovator Peter Gabriel, the newly reformed Crowded House, The Feeling, and Ghosts will be Jason Mraz, Rushmore, and Under The Influence Of Giants.

Joining Aerosmith, Chris Cornell, and Jet on the Sunday are The Answer, McQueen, Reuben, and Haunts.

Tickets cost £45 for either day - click here for the Saturday or here for the Sunday to buy.

Ex-Genesis man in concert at Blickling

A rock singer famous for founding a supergroup, dressing up in bizarre costumes and starring in one of the most popular music videos is coming to North Norfolk. Peter Gabriel is the latest name on the local summer gigs programme. He will appear at Blickling Hall on Saturday, July 21. Gabriel was one of the Charterhouse schoolboys who founded Genesis in 1967.

Gabriel's madcap costumes, which included a flower and Britannia, helped to lessen his initial stage fright. When he left amid tensions in 1975 he struck out on a solo career and enjoyed chart success with Solsbury Hill in 1977, followed by Games Without Frontiers in 1980. But it was his award-winning, partly-animated video to Sledgehammer, a song which reached number four in the charts in 1986, that provided him with his biggest hit. It was followed the same year by the ballad duet with Kate Bush, Don't Give Up.

Gabriel has also been a leading figure in promoting world music, setting up Womad - World of Music Arts and Dance - in 1980 and will appear at its 25th festival being staged a week after the Blickling gig. He is also well known as a writer of music and in 1989 released an album of instrumentals, Passion, used in Martin Scorsese's film, The Last Temptation of Christ.

His Blickling date adds to a summer line-up that also includes Bryan Ferry on July 13, Madness on July 22, and a sell-out 10-artist party marking 10 years of concerts at the venue on July 14. Tickets for the Peter Gabriel concert are £40, available on 0870 010 4900, the National Trust website www.nationaltrust.org.uk,

the Ticketmaster hotline on 0870 4000 688, or at www.summernightsonline.co.uk

Loreena McKennitt, bardée de celtitude

La discrète Canadienne Loreena McKennitt est l'une des principales forces de vente de la catégorie fourre-tout des "musiques du monde", rayon celte. Selon son distributeur français, le label quimpérois Keltia Musique, elle aurait écoulé plus de 50 000 exemplaires de son septième album studio, An Ancient Muse, depuis sa publication en novembre 2006. Les concerts de sa présente tournée affichent généralement complet.

Chez elle, au Canada, Loreena McKennitt vend jusqu'à 500 000 exemplaires de ses disques et elle a conquis le marché des Etats-Unis, où elle a vendu 2 millions de copies de The Book of Secrets (1997). Son site Internet est consultable en quatorze langues. Mais ni en gaélique ni en brittonique.

La musicienne a bâti son succès en repoussant toujours plus loin les frontières de l'imaginaire celte. Enregistré dans le saint des saints de la world music, les studios Real World de Peter Gabriel, An Ancient Muse transporte dans la Grèce antique, l'Orient des croisades ou sur la Route de la soie.

Le 15 mars à Paris, dans un Grand Rex comble, elle a pleinement justifié son surnom de "celtique éclectique", changeant sans cesse d'instrument : harpe, accordéon, piano. Sa voix oscille entre l'incantation folk et la joliesse de la variété pour les ballades. Dans un décor mauresque, ses neuf musiciens mêlent instruments électriques, violon, luth, oud, vièle à roue... Une même chanson peut avoir une assise pop-rock, une mélodie celte et une ornementation orientale.

Le propos aussi est hybride, un mysticisme new age qui se nourrit de poésie. En plus futuriste, il a fait le succès de l'Irlandaise Enya et de l'Australienne Lisa Gerrard, du duo Dead Can Dance, qui chantera le 15 avril dans ce même Grand Rex et devant une partie des mêmes auditeurs.

Le 5 avril à Roubaix (Colisée), le 6 à Anvers (Queen Elizabeth Hall).

An Ancient Muse, 1 CD Quinland Road/Keltia Musique.

LE MONDE | 05.04.07

Car-share scheme for WOMAD

Are you driving to this year's WOMAD festival at Charlton Park and have a space in your car?

Or do you need a lift? If so you can use the new Freewheelers car-share scheme.

Freewheelers is an online service which allows festival-goers to offer or request lifts to and from the event.

Sharing lifts helps to reduce traffic jams, pollution, travel costs and gives travellers the chance to make friends even before the festival gates have opened.

To find out more, visit www.womad.org

Senegal's top singerdebuts in Amazing Grace movie

Senegalese mbalax superstar Youssou N'Dour has opened a door of acting for himself with a thrilling feature in the February 23, 2007 released biopic movie entitled 'Amazing Grace'. The movie is the inspiring story of how one man's passion and perseverance changed the world. Based on the true life story of William Wilberforce, a leader of the British abolition movement, the film chronicles his epic struggle to pass a law to end the slave trade in the late 18th century.

Ioan Gruffudd plays a dynamic William Wilberforce, who was born to a prosperous family. Following the death of his father, he became a wealthy young man. His wealth allowed him to fund many charitable projects. He became a member of Parliament and an Evangelical Christian and wrestled with his conscience to pursue humanitarian interests.

But his younger close friend William Pitt (Benedict Cumberbatch), the youngest-ever Prime Minister, suggested that he use his political power to push his policies to the government.

These two idealistic young men embraced the opposition's fight. Wilberforce seeks the advice of friend and mentor John Newton (Albert Finney), a former slave trader who wrote the song "Amazing Grace" and who turned to the Church in order to atone for his earlier life. Albert Finney is magnificient as the wise old man steering these younger men in their careers.

The terrific ensemble cast also stars Romola Garai as Barbara Spooner, the beautiful and headstrong young woman who shares Wilberforce's passion for reform and becomes his wife.

Michael Gambon is Lord Fix, a member of Parliament who joins Wilberforce's group. Rufus Sewell plays Thomas Clarkson, another ally in the reform, and Grammy winning Senegalese singer Yousou N'Dour is Olaudah Equiano, an African sent as a slave to the Colonies who bought his freedom and made his home in London where he became a leading figure in the fight to end the slavery of his fellow countrymen.

Aside from a noteworthy script that tells a meaningful story with exceptional acting by all, this film gives a good account of historical facts surrounding horror of the slave trade.

Meet Olaudah Equiano (played by Youssou N'Dour)

A central figure in the abolitionist movement in Great Britain, Olaudah Equiano (c.1745- 1797) wrote an eyewitness account of his life as a slave and of his work in the anti-slavery movement: The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa the African. Though born in what is now Nigeria, Equiano was kidnapped and sold into slavery in childhood and taken as a slave to the New World. As a slave to a captain in the Royal Navy, and later to a Quaker merchant, he eventually earned the price of his own freedom by careful trading and saving.

Equiano, like Wilberforce, stood for more than just abolition. Equiano was an African, a slave, a sailor, an Englishman, an abolitionist, a Christian, a writer. He used his many titles to show how slavery brutalizes society as a whole.

He wrote: "Is not the slave trade entirely a war with the heart of man? Such a tendency has the slave trade to debauch men's minds and harden them to every feeling of humanity! For I will not suppose that the dealers in slaves are born worse than other men…it corrupts the milk of human kindness and turns it into gall. Surely this traffic cannot be good, which spreads like a pestilence and taints what it touches!"

ABOUT YOUSSOU N'DOUR

Grammy Winner Youssou N'dour is one of Africa's music pioneers. He has put African music on the world map over the past fifteen years. Born in Senegal, his mother taught him the music and songs of the Wolof people, to whom his family belongs. He began to perform with music and drama groups at an early age in his home town in Daker, making his first public performance with a modern band in 1973.

In 1975 he joined the Star Band, the house band at Dakar's most popular night club. With them, he experimented, melding Wolof music with western instruments, in a style called mbalax. In 1979 he formed his own band Etoile, revamping and renaming them Super Etoile de Dakar in 1982, and continuing to introduce new elements to his music, with lyrics from Wolof mythology and elements of contemporary life in Dakar.

In 1982 he released his first cassette for sale, and his popularity grew in Dakar as more cassettes were recorded. His albums Immigres and Nelson Mandela provided him with an international breakthrough and led to his collaboration with Peter Gabriel. Together they toured in 1987.

Youssou N'Dour now records for the world market, but holds onto his African roots by continuing to live in Senegal with his family, recording music specifically for his African audiences. Amazing Grace marks Youssou's film debut and he also collaborated with David Arnold to provide music for the film's soundtrack.

That is why we need to Echo our own story. We acknowledge the other African media partners in the struggle such as OBE TV, BEN TV, Passion TV, Eagle media, The Trumpet and the various radio stations that joined us to tell the African story.

Peter Gabriel's April 'Full Moon Club' video

In this month's update Peter talks about WOMAD, tour dates, song lists, cello playing birds and the sounds of Rabbit Proof Fence. The Elders and Witness catch a break and spring is in the air.

Music is from Martyn Bennett's remix of 'Sky Blue', 'Crossing The Salt Pan' from Peter's soundtrack to 'Rabbit Proof Fence' - 'The Long Walk Home' and 'Salala' from Angelique Kidjo featuring Peter's vocals.

• Watch the Full Moon Club update.

Peter Gabriel se produira le 30 juin au festival de Werchter

BRUXELLES 02/04 (BELGA) = Le chanteur et musicien britannique Peter Gabriel se produira le samedi 30 juin au festival de musique de Werchter. Peter Gabriel s'était déjà produit en 1983 à Werchter. Il y avait notamment interprété son titre "Biko" qui avait pour thème l'apartheid. L'artiste effectue une tournée dans le cadre du 25e anniversaire du festival de musique Womad (World Of Music, Arts & Dance) dont il est le fondateur. D'autres grands noms tels que Marilyn Manson, Björk, Pearl Jam et Metallica se produiront également durant le festival de Werchter qui se déroulera du 28 juin au 1er juillet. (CLA) ./.