McKennitt returns to delight Celtic music fans

There was cause for rejoicing among Celtic music fans last night. After eight years away from touring, Canada's Loreena McKennitt returned to Victoria, once again conjuring up her ethereal Celtic/world-music tapestries.

I'd forgotten how prominently atmosphere figures at a McKennitt concert. The petite, red-haired singer-songwriter - who performs again tonight at the Royal - sang from a stage set resembling the interior of a Persian palace. McKennitt appeared in a spotlight amid royal blue draperies, an exotic ogee arch and fog-machine clouds gently drifting overhead.

Dressed in a coat-gown with a faux leopard-skin peeking out underneath, she seemed in fine form despite her hiatus from the road. In particular, McKennitt's voice sounded clear and strong.

"What a great pleasure it is to be back here again," she told an enthused full house. They ultimately rewarded her 2 1/2 -hour concert with three standing ovations.

McKennitt - switching between harp, accordion, electric keyboard and grand piano - was backed by a nine-piece band reflecting the catholic nature of her musical interests. While cellist Caroline Lavelle and violin whiz Hugh Marsh tended to dominate, the group also included a Greek lute, tabla, hurdy gurdy, Celtic bouzouki and the violin-like lyra.

For those who love the side of McKennitt veering closest to traditional Celtic music, nothing topped Bonny Portmore. This old song, about Irish forests being logged for shipbuilding, benefited from her singing which - although affectingly girlish - was powerful and true. The melody of Bonny Portmore is beautiful, and the sparse cello/harp accompaniment worked wonderfully well.

Other traditional style pieces included McKennitt's song The Highway Man. Based on a poem by Alfred Noyes, it's a romantic tale with a stately Elizabethan feel. The same regal air permeated The Lady Of Shalott, a McKennitt piece based on the famous Tennyson poem.

Other compositions reflect the singer-songwriter's late-career interest in the European and Eastern influences on Celtic culture. For her song Caravanserai, from her new album An Ancient Music, McKennitt draws inspiration from a trip to Turkey, where it's believed Celts travelled around 300 BC. With the droning hum of various exotic instruments in the background, Caravanserai didn't sound like anything from British Isles - still, the soaring sound of the singer's distinctive voice made it sound her own.

At times, her music came close to the rock/world-music hybrid musicians such as Peter Gabriel have explored. Once or twice, rock-style drumming and electric guitar solos made a distinctly un-McKennitt-like appearance. Still, her arrangements consistently avoided bombast, and the integrity of her artistic vision tended to win out.

In a general sense, what this musician does is create a deeply romantic, old-world sanctuary from the electronic babble of 21st century life. If the hiss and twitter of iPods and cellphones get you down, a visit to McKennitt-land is like a trip to a new-age spa. Jangled nerves are soothed by the elemental buzz of ancient instruments.

That her show appears steeped in history makes the experience seem more profound. Close your eyes, and one feels linked to the empires of long-forgotten kings and tartan-clad nomads from thousands of years ago.

Hossein Alizadeh & Djivan Gasparyan

Endless Vision: Persian and Armenian Songs (World Village)

Endless Vision unites Armenian virtuoso Djivan Gasparyan on duduk (an eight-holed, double-reed flute made of apricot wood, derived from the regional shepherd's flute) and Iranian master Hossein Alizadeh on tar and shurangiz (new Iranian lute). Their live 2003 outdoor performance at Tehran's Niavaran Palace was accompanied by a trio of singers (in Armenian, Azeri and Persian), Armen Ghazaryan (duduk), Vazgen Markaryan (bass duduk), and the Hamavayan Ensemble (vocals, oud, shurangiz, percussion).

Listen

Born in the Soviet Republic of Armenia and trained at the Komitas Conservatory of Yerevan, Gasparyan is responsible for elevating the duduk to classical status in Armenian traditional music. His career began in 1948 with the Tatool Altounian National Song and Dance Ensemble and the Yerevan Philharmonic; some listeners may recognize his work from the soundtrack of Martin Scorcese's The Last Temptation of Christ. Gasparyan has recorded with Peter Gabriel, the Kronos Quartet, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and numerous others.

Alizadeh began his career in the late 1970s after studying Persian classical music at the University of Teheran's School of Music; he conducts the Iranian National Orchestra of Radio and Television, and enjoys an international reputation as a soloist and composer at home and abroad.

This meld of Persian and Armenian songs unfolds slowly and dramatically; the musicians and singers give one another plenty of room to explore the delicate nuances of these complementary and evocative musical traditions, whose microtonal character is accented by the plaintive duduk and the extraordinary overtone singing of Hourshid Biabani, Afsaneh Rasaei and Ali Samadpour.

Reflecting upon this remarkable performance ought to call into question the wisdom of perpetrating in Iran the militarist folly and human sacrifice that already haunt Armenian and Iraqi history. By contrast, as Gandhi observed when asked his opinion of Western civilization, "It would be an excellent idea." - Michael Stone

Rachel Z, fresh from Peter Gabriel tour, leads a trio

Music Preview: Rachel Z, fresh from Peter Gabriel tour, leads a trio

Back in 1999, Rachel Z was a relative unknown when she performed with her eight-piece band at Washington, D.C.'s Kennedy Center as part of the Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival. Since then, she has forged a career as a teacher, developed music for her various-sized groups and spent the past three years as the keyboardist for the innovative rocker Peter Gabriel.

"Working with Peter was incredible," said Z, speaking aboard a train en route to Philadelphia from New York. "He's a creative force and it was incredibly fun to work with him." With Gabriel, Z performed before crowds as large as 30,000. Another time the group traveled to South Africa for a benefit honoring former President Nelson Mandela. "Oprah was there and we had dinner with Mandela," she continued. "We performed a song called 'Biko' that Peter had written for Stephen Biko. It was awesome."

Now, the primary focus is her trio, which she'll feature Saturday night at Gullifty's. Showcasing music from her latest release, "Dept. of Good and Evil," the concert will also feature bassist Maeve Royce and drummer Bobbie Rae. "We are really excited about this project," said Z. "We have been developing this concept that mixes rock and pop with jazz." Z has been bridging genres for some time, and "Dept. of Good and Evil" continues along that path.

In addition to some vibrant piano playing, the recording is filled with wonderfully orchestrated and eclectic arrangements, and Z has Rae to thank for that. "Bobbie Rae is the visionary," said Z. "He can pick out some of the hippest stuff out there."

The album opens with a breezy "Soul Meets Body" before giving way to a harmonically rich "Milky Way." A nod to Sting's "King of Pain" is followed by Joe Henderson's "Inner Urge," which finds the pianist referencing some of her influences, musicians like Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner and the late Kenny Kirkland.

"I always have to tip my hat to McCoy, Chick Corea and people like Kenny because they were a major influence on me," said Z. The recording also reexamines Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine," and Wayne Shorter's "ESP" is a tour de force. "I'm really into developing my trio," said Z. "I told Peter that I am through with sideman gigs, and he announced my new CD on his Web site. I want this trio to be a force, and we want to introduce this music to a young audience."

The British Invasión

As DJ and co-founder of the band Sidestepper, Richard Blair didn't just embrace Colombian music — he went native

When Peter Gabriel coined the term 'world music,' he never meant for it to be put in a ghetto. It was supposed to be the world's music for the world, without distinctions," explains Richard Blair, the front man for the Colombia-based electronica band Sidestepper. Blair should know. He worked as an engineer at Gabriel's Real World Studios in England during the global music boom of the early Nineties, before running off to make Latin electronic music in South America.

Listen to Blair describe Bogota's steamy underground nightclubs, where his band romps out its vibrant tropitechno, and you can understand why he's never looked back. "If you're not up for joy and laughing and dancing and sweating until six in the morning, you don't go out," Blair reports during a recent phone call from his adopted hometown. "How could you possibly leave when there's an open bottle on the table? How could you be so rude?"

Manners aside, it's physically impractical to slip out of a Sidestepper show. The band's fans pack themselves in so tightly that they seem to move as one giant, pulsating body to the funky rhythms. All, of course, while belting out a chorus of wacky phrases such as "bacalao sala'o!" ("salty codfish").

While decidedly Latin in tone, Sidestepper's sound is rooted in the many cultures Blair mixed during his engineering career. The Brit first stumbled onto the global music scene back in England in 1989, when he got a job recording reggae and "Bhangla" (Indian-Anglo) music at Sinewave Studio in Birmingham.

Before long he was tweaking music from Cambodia and Senegal to Venezuela and Pakistan at Gabriel's Real World Studios in Wiltshire. "It was an extraordinary education, and I suppose the feeling that Gabriel brought to all of this was that it's all music and we're all musicians," Blair says...

Political messages embedded in new CD

Born in Quidah a coastal city of West Africa, Angelique Kidjo has made a name for herself worldwide. She has an innovative style of fusing the elements of jazz, gospel, reggae, samba, salsa and electronica without abandoning the traditional music of her homeland.

While she may have pushed traditional beyond its limits at times, her latest offering has her returning to her roots with the help of a star-studded guest list. Best translated as “seize the day” Djin Djin is sure to please all her devote fans. Kidjo’s rendition of the Stones Give Me Shelter is a tasty one featuring Joss Stone who lights it up vocally.

But it is track four, Salala, featuring Peter Gabriel that really caught my attention. I’ve had a serious hunger for a little PG, so this little teaser hit the spot with his typical haunting style. Next up is the delightful Senamou featuring her good friends Amadou and Mariam known in their homeland of West Africa for their Afro-pop offerings.

Track six is a heart wrenching remake of Sade’s Pearls featuring Carlos Santana’s trademark guitar in addition to Kidjo teaming up with Josh Groban to make this unpredictable merger of epic beauty another of the Djin Djin’s vocal highlights.

This is followed by a lighthearted splash of Jamaican style with Ziggy Marley sounding oh so Bob for Sedjedo. Track 13 ends the album on a classical note with a stunning vocal rendition of Ravel’s Bolero.

After a few listens, though, the album’s somewhat political theme of economic oppression becomes obvious. This is not an album that can be taken at face value, Kidjo’s insightful liner notes spell out the inspiration behind the selection of these songs that make this an album that delves much deeper than you first think. The only thing missing here is Paul Simon.

Still, Djin Djin is the perfect backdrop for a classy summer dinning event be it a barbeque or an ethnic dinner party.

The Afro Celt Sound System: The sound of worlds colliding

The Afro Celt Sound System's unusual blend of African and Irish beats should prove a winning festival act. Pierre Perrone meets their founder, Simon Emmerson (Published: 10 May 2007)

"Afro Celt Sound System, they do exactly what it says on the tin. That's what they told the audience when we got the Radio 3 Listeners' Award five years ago," remembers Simon Emmerson. The frontman for Afro Celt Sound System says he first thought of blending together African and Celtic music while producing the Senegalese singer Baaba Maal in 1992. "He was asking me about my roots," he explains. "I realised he was just as interested in music from the British Isles as I was in what was coming out of West Africa. Later, I had Davy Spillane play this lovely Irish whistle on a track for Lam Toro, the first Baaba Maal album I did. It worked perfectly, it was sort of an epiphany for me. I became really interested in marrying the pentatonic scales from both traditions and putting them over a techno beat to see where it led. That became the basis for the Afro Celt Sound System."

With the benefit of hindsight, album sales of 1.2 million, two Grammy nominations and triumphant appearances at Womad, Glastonbury and other festivals around the world, Afro Celt Sound System seems like a natural fusion of genres and a bankable proposition. But Emmerson is convinced that, back in 1995, most record labels would have balked at the idea of bankrolling such a venture. "If I'd said to anyone else, this is what I want to do, they would have shown me the door," he says.

"Peter Gabriel gave us a week at Real World. We had Davy Spillane, several members of Baaba Maal's band, Myrdhin, from Britanny, on Celtic harp, a piper called Ronan Browne. I already knew James [multi-instrumentalist McNally] from his work with rap band Marxman. They were neighbours of mine in Hackney. Iarla [O'Lionaird, the Gaelic vocalist] was there, Martin Russell and Jo Bruce came in to play keyboards. I saw the whole thing as a one-off project. That's why we had Sound System in the name. I'd made so many albums over the years that didn't sell for one reason or another so I didn't really plan ahead."

In a previous life, as Simon Booth - "I picked the most boring pseudonym I could think of" - Emmerson had been a member of Scritti Politti. He then formed Weekend, and then the British jazz group Working Week in the early Eighties. "In Weekend, we tried to play like Brazilian musicians. With Working Week, we had Robert Wyatt singing 'Venceremos'. To me, it's all the same music."

The guitarist, bouzouki player and programmer was at the birth of acid jazz. has produced Manu Dibango and Femi Kuti and remixed Peter Gabriel. But the 1995 experiment nonetheless had a profound effect on him and McNally, O'Lionaird and Russell, the four core members of the collective. "We all look back at that as being the defining moment," Emmerson says. "We did 'Sure' ['Sure-as-Not/Sure-as-Knot'] and I got shivers down my spine. We felt this incredible responsibility because we had made this connection between Ireland and Africa."

He says the Irish musicians involved also saw the potential, as well as relative outsiders such as Jamie Reid, the graphic artist famous for his Sex Pistols artwork. "He'd decorated the studio with all these Celtic symbols and when I sent him a tape, he did a little sketch of a lion and unicorn with 'Afro Celt Sound Magic - from the light continent' incorporated into the drawing. We called the first album Volume 1: Sound Magic. Jamie Reid was really important. His paintings gave us a visual identity."

Emmerson is fond of comparing the ever-evolving line-up to the cast of Star Trek, with him not so much as Captain Kirk but "the weird-looking baldie alien. After the second album, I stood back a lot more. I'm not the leader. The others never get the credit they deserve."
While acknowledging the influence of Songhai, the late-Eighties World Music project centred around the Malian kora player Toumani Diabaté and the English bassist Danny Thompson, and drawing parallels with "fellow traveller" Jah Wobble, Emmerson is adamant that the Afro Celts have forged their own path - and avoided the blandness of Deep Forest, Sacred Spirits and other World Music-lite acts. But they have still managed to rub British critics up the wrong way. "Some journalists just wouldn't look me in the eye. This only happens here, and not in continental Europe and in the US, where we've been welcome and much better accepted," he reflects.

Indeed, the word-of-mouth success of the Afro Celts started in Germany. "We'd sold 30,000 albums before we'd even been there. Real World and Virgin [the label's distributor] had to sit up and take notice," he says. "What happened is we became a kind of monster. The last thing that I expected was to have a touring band. But it has worked, it's been incredible."
The band nonetheless struggled to follow up their debut, after the death of Jo Bruce - their keyboard player and son of legendary Cream bassist, Jack Bruce - in October 1997. "He was like a younger brother to us. Volume 2: Release was a really, really difficult album to make. But Sinead O'Connor came in and co-wrote the title track and we were away again," he says.

The band then collaborated with Gabriel and Robert Plant on Volume 3: Further in Time. Sensing a coffee-table crossover, Virgin sent Canadian rock producer Bob Ezrin to the studio. "He walked in and said: 'I've worked with Pink Floyd, I've worked with Alice Cooper, you should get a rock star to front this'," Emmerson says, in a passable impersonation. "We've always had trouble getting airplay and he felt we could have radio hits. His attitude was great but we thought: Why don't we do this ourselves? There's nothing to stop us doing four-minute songs. We got a lot of stick for it but Plant has got a big Celtic heart. You only have to listen to [Led Zeppelin song] 'The Battle of Evermore'."

In July 2001, the Afro Celts and Gabriel performed "When You're Falling" on the Late Show with David Letterman, and the track made serious progress on US radio. Following the events of 11 September, however, the title and lyrics were deemed too sensitive. The single disappeared from the airwaves and the video from television screens. Always an expensive proposition to take out on the road, the Afro Celts had no choice but to cancel their US tour. When they eventually played a concert in New York's Central Park in 2003, around the time of the release of their fourth album, Seed, the warmth of the reception took them by surprise. "They all had tickets for the cancelled concerts and here they were. It was an Irish audience, it was a World Music audience. We reflect Britain as a multicultural society so it made sense."

Unloved by critics but adored by festival-goers, the undeterred Afro Celts soldiered on to release Anatomic at the end of 2005, and continue to make occasional forays on the festival circuit. "People who don't really like us grudgingly say: Afro Celt Sound System, they're a great festival band," Emmerson says. "It's a bit of a backhanded compliment but we don't care. Other groups from the Nineties can sound really dated but, for some reason, we don't. One minute, it sounds like you're in a folk club, the next minute, it's slamming techno. We're unique. If there's a genre for us, it would be the eight-minute ambient-dub-eclectic-World fusion kind of thing. I'm surprised we got this far."

Afro Celt Sound System play the Wychwood Festival at Cheltenham Racecourse on 3 June (www.wychwoodfestival.com)

Growing Up: A Tour of Peter Gabriel. Part 3 of ?

Peter Gabriel’s third and fourth albums came out in ‘80 and ‘82 respectively. His next studio album, So, would come in 1986 and mark the crest of his commercial success. If you don’t know the album by the title, some tunes that might ring a bell are Sledgehammer, Big Time, Red Rain, and In Your Eyes.

Not until I began to think about today’s post did I ever realize I’ve always grouped the first four albums together, as if there were an unseen rift separating them from So. Part of it may be as simple as the name scheme: So was the first Peter Gabriel album not named simply Peter Gabriel (though Peter Gabriel 4 was titled Security here in the states). It might be that the gap in time between Peter Gabriel 4 and So is double that of his previous albums. And though I’m at a loss on how to describe it, there’s a difference in sound between So and Peter Gabriel 3 and 4, just as there was between those albums and 1 and 2.

I’ve always wondered: what was he doing for those four years? What experiences, influences, and collaborators were involved in shaping his next album? I may never know, but sometime in those four years, Gabriel found the time to score a film.

Well, about a weekend, actually.

According to my sources at IMDB, Gabriel recorded 35 minutes of soundtrack in one weekend. I don’t know if that means if the whole process was completed in a weekend, or just the recording of new materials, but either way this impressive stat is likely due to the fact that much of the material on Birdy is reworked from Gabriel’s 3 and 4. That, and after watching that BBC documentary about his recording process, I’m sure he had all sorts of leftover synth sounds to play with.

On one hand, recycled material seems to be a bit of a cop out, but when the source material is this good, even a cop out can sound compelling. All the tracks are instrumental, and many of them are minimalist in nature. Quiet and Alone and Slow Water sound like distant relatives of Aphex Twin’s ambient tracks. Floating Dogs sounds downright eerie to me, and I love the rhythm it works into at the end.

Birdy’s Flight has the quickest pulse of the bunch, and borrows from and builds on the breakdown at the end of the song Not One of Us. Powerhouse at the Foot of the Mountain is a moody ambient track that reuses my favorite moment in Peter Gabriel: the ending of San Jacinto. If there’s one track there that stands on its own, it’s Slow Marimbas. Its sound is classic Gabriel, and the brooding mood it creates is and amazing.

If you need a tune with a bpm greater than your pulse, these might not be for you. Personally, these tracks all make it into my writing playlist, and they are great candidates to serve as an interlude to class up any mix CD. Enjoy the ambiance while it lasts, because next we’re going to hit the Big Time.

Thomas Dolby, Peter Gabriel build hit software

Musicmakers develop new ways to deliver tunes

Would you rather be famous for a pop song that helped define an era? Or would you prefer fame because you developed the software for listening to that song on a mobile phone?

If you're Thomas Dolby, you don't have to make that choice, even if Dolby is happier being a pop icon than the software entrepreneur whose little piece of code is loaded on more than 500 million mobile phones.

"Someone would have done that eventually," he said of his Beatnik Audio Engine. But only one person could have written "She Blinded Me With Science," a song people are likely to start humming after reading the title. (You're welcome.)

Dolby is not the only '80s pop star who has had a technical influence on our gadgets. As I write this, I am listening to a playlist on my iPod that Peter Gabriel helped me create.

Gabriel was lauded as a music-video innovator (check out "Sledgehammer" and "Shock the Monkey" at YouTube.com; they have aged well), but now is one of the creative and financial minds behind The Filter (TheFilter.com), a nifty application to create playlists based on the music you already have.

Gabriel tinkered with recommendation engines prior to the success of iTunes. Eventually, he began working with an old business partner who had a similar notion on how to manage the excessive amount of choice technology is providing.

"We want all these options filtered, focused and meaningful to us," Gabriel said in an e-mail interview. "We want to be surprised, excited and entertained by a variety of systems that help us through the maze of possibilities. For example, I don't want to sit down at a restaurant and be presented with a hundred-page menu when I am hungry."

Gabriel and Thomas Robertson, Dolby's real name, are true geeks.

The Beatnik program "is a mixing board for sound on a phone," Dolby said during a visit to Chicago last week. That means every chirp, ring and catchy pop song that emanates from most mobile phones is handled by Beatnik.

In a nutshell, Beatnik has become the phone's standard audio operating system, much like Windows has become the operating system for most personal computers.

While Gabriel's innovation is not so widespread, it serves an extremely useful purpose: winnowing the digital clutter.

Why would someone need The Filter? Well, if you have more than 3,000 songs in your collection, as I do, you sometimes forget what you have. With The Filter, you seed a new playlist with three songs from your iTunes music folder and then the software generates a group of similar songs lasting up to three hours. You can keep the playlist on your computer or move it onto your iPod. Every time you plug your iPod into your computer, the playlist will refresh with a new list of your songs.

"I find I often can't be bothered to go searching through stuff and really want to be able to be presented with interesting material that matches my mood and activity and has the right balance of familiar and unfamiliar," Gabriel said.

I've created two filters, one with catchy pop songs for when I need a little motivation and another with jazz influences, when I need to be more contemplative. The recommendations are interesting, such as the jazz mix that includes songs from Wilco, Tom Waits and John Coltrane. I quite like it, actually, and it is not a combination of songs I would have considered. It's familiar yet unexpected.

Gabriel (gray hair) and Dolby (no hair) are on the road again, reconnecting with fans and creating new music. Dolby couldn't be happier.

"Now that Beatnik is this enormous business, I'm not needed," he said. He still is on the board, listed as founder, but he has turned in his business suits for the funky techno-gear he wears on stage.

"I've spent too long away from music. It's a passion and much more gratifying for me," he said.

The time away has provided a unique perspective on how the music business has changed -- for the good, in Dolby's mind, despite concerns from record labels about declining sales and still-rampant piracy.

For one, he controls his own sales today.

f you want a copy of "The Sole Inhabitant," a live CD he recorded last May in Chicago, go to ThomasDolby.com. It's sold through a partnership with CD Baby, a music distributor for independent artists.

"Today, you're not dependent on someone else [like a record label] to be a kingmaker. I wanted to be an active participant before, but I was a passive observer," he said of the process that made him famous but left him without any control.

"Now I'm back on the road, and I made my own live album," he said. He pressed it and sells it himself, keeping most of the proceeds.

"I feel closer to my fans," Dolby said of tools like blogs and MySpace profile pages. "When I write a new song, I can hit a button and put it on the Internet. The fans can hear it right away."

One coming new song is called "My Karma Hit Your Dogma," and it was inspired by Kevin Federline's unauthorized use of a sample from "Science" and Dolby's battle to get the father of Britney Spears' children to stop playing the song.

"It was [bad]," Dolby said of K-Fed's song, "America's Most Wanted." "I wanted to stop it -- it had like a half-million downloads," but he didn't know how to get a hold of Federline.

"So I went to apply as a friend of K-Fed on his MySpace page," he said. When K-Fed accepted the friend request, Dolby posted a "cease-and-desist order" in the page's comments area.

"That didn't work," he sighed, even though a settlement was ultimately reached. "But it did inspire a new song."

One that may become a ring tone on a half-billion mobile phones.

Daby Touré:’’Rencontrer d’autres musiciens est pour moi une forme d’injection’’

(APS) - Les voyages et les rencontres lui servant de source d’inspiration, Daby Touré, fils et héritier d’un des frères du groupe ‘’Touré Kounda’’, a expliqué que les rencontres artistiques sont pour lui ‘’une forme d’injection’’ qui lui permet de se retrouver à travers sa musique.

’’C’est toujours pour moi une vraie chance de rencontrer des personnes, musiciens’’ divers adeptes du jazz, de la pop. ’’Pour moi, c’est toujours une forme d’injection dont j’ai besoin en un moment donné pour me sentir’’ à travers la pratique de la musique, a-t-il confié sur la chaîne francophone TV5.

’’A travers mes voyages, je fais toujours de me retrouver face à des gens qui peuvent un moment donné m’inspirer ou échanger quelque chose avec moi parce que c’est ce que j’ai appris étant petit’’, a-t-il dit au cours de l’émission ’’acoustic’’ de la chaîne francophone. ’’J’ai pas mal voyagé, mon père m’a envoyé un peu partout au village, dans les grandes villes, au Sénégal, en Mauritanie, au Mali. Et j’ai toujours eu cette tendance à me déplacer, à ne jamais m’arrêter. C’est peut-être ce que je reproduis dans mes concerts’’, notamment, a indiqué l’artiste qui vient de sortir Stereo Spirit, son deuxième album solo. Après une enfance passée entre le désert mauritanien et la Casamance, au sud du Sénégal, Daby Touré s’est engagé dans une carrière solo depuis ’’Diam’’, son premier album signé en 2004 par Realworld (label du chanteur anglais Peter Gabriel).

’’Je suis né en plein désert, mais c’est réellement à Djéole, en Casamance, au contact des cultures soninké, toucouleur et wolof, que s’est forgée ma personnalité. A l’adolescence, je suis revenu à Nouakchott avant de m’envoler en 1989 pour la France avec mon père’’, Hamidou Touré, avait-t-il confié sur le site Internet de RFI. Son père, médecin de formation et musicien, devait alors rejoindre ses frères Sixu et Ismaël au sein des déjà légendaires Touré Kunda. ’’Très jeune’’, Daby avait ‘’baigné dans un environnement traditionnel, bercé par les instruments’’ ancestraux, mais c’est à partir de cette épisode française de sa vie qu’il avait commencé à s’intéresser aux autres musiques et ’’à jouer avec des musiciens d’autres cultures’’.

Qualifiant de ’’spontanée’’ la démarche artistique qui l’a conduit à sortir Stereo Spirit, Daby Touré a soulignant qu’il a mis ’’beaucoup’’ d’expérience, ’’beaucoup’’ de sa vie dans cet album dont il est l’auteur, le compositeur, et dont il a assuré les arrangements et la réalisation. ’’Les gens que j’ai découverts, les voyages que j’ai faits, tout le parcours que j’ai eu jusqu’ici’’ se retrouvent également à travers cet album. ’’En fait, la musique me permet d’unifier ou plutôt de mettre en relation, de faire le pont entre les différentes cultures qui sont les miennes. Stereo Spirit reflète tout à fait cela’’, explique Daby dans cet interview paru sur le site Internet de RFI.

L’auteur compositeur Daby Touré a justifié la fidélité qu’il voue à certaines langues ouest africaines qui lui servent de véhicule, assurant qu’il ne sait pas ‘’encore’’ chanter en français.

’’J’essaie de rester fidèle à ce qui me fait vibrer le plus. J’ai appris à travailler avec’’ le soninké, le pulaar, le wolof, le hassania notamment ‘’depuis des années. Ça le reste’’, a-t-il dit samedi sur la chaîne francophone TV5.

La langue française, ’’c’est une belle langue’’ et ’’une culture’’, a ajouté Daby Touré au cours de l’émission ’’acoustic’’. Cependant, chanter en français ‘’est une façon de faire que je ne sais pas encore faire’’. ’’J’en ai forcément envie parce que je parle cette langue. J’ai l’impression qu’en parlant français, on me comprend mieux, en tous cas dans les pays dans lesquels je vis’’.

’’Donc, je ne vois pas pourquoi je ne chanterai pas en français’’, a poursuivi Daby Touré qui vient de sortir Stéreo Spirit, son deuxième album solo dont il est l’auteur, le compositeur, et qu’il a arrangé et réalisé.

‘’La seule difficulté’’, c’est de chanter en français, ‘’parce que parler une langue est une chose, la chanter en est une autre. J’ai grandi avec les langues avec lesquelles je chante’’, a fait observer Daby Touré...

Angélique Kidjo /«Le micro, c'est mon arme»

«Le micro, c'est mon arme»

Angélique Kidjo revient avec «Djin Djin», un album détonnant aux invités prestigieux

«La quête du pouvoir à tout prix met en danger cette fragilité humaine qui peut s'exprimer par la musique et par les arts» s'exclame Angélique Kidjo,

Peter Gabriel, Joss Stone, Alicia Keys, Carlos Santana, Ziggy Marley, la liste est longue des invités de renom sur «Djinn Djinn», le nouvel album audacieux d'Angélique Kidjo. Audacieux car la chanteuse béninoise, qui ne s'en laisse pas compter, ne se contente pas de donner une part d'africanité à ces grandes voix, elle tend un pont entre l'Afrique et la musique classique en interprétant «Le boléro» de Ravel a cappella. Rencontre avec une femme bouillonnante, qui sera très bientôt en concert aux Docks à Lausanne.

Vous avez invité des stars sur votre album, quel est leur point commun?
L'Afrique, c'est l'Afrique partout! Ecoutez la voix de Joss Stone, fermez les yeux et dites-moi si elle n'a pas une voix noire, une âme noire. Tout le monde a une âme noire. L'Afrique est le berceau de l'humanité, tout le monde a dans son génome quelque chose de l'Afrique. Les musiciens africains, on nous catégorise, ça réconforte, ça donne du pouvoir, mais pourquoi on a besoin de pouvoir? C'est le problème de l'humanité. La quête du pouvoir à tout prix met en danger cette fragilité humaine qui peut s'exprimer par la musique et par les arts.

Mais vous êtes toujours là pour décloisonner les choses, non?
Moi je refuse d'être mise dans une camisole de force. Je ne peux pas accepter ça puisque mes parents, quand j'étais gamine, m'ont dit «Le monde t'appartient, l'émotion est universelle». J'ai commencé gamine à me dire qu'il n'y avait qu'une planète, qu'une humanité.

Finalement, vous êtes devenue l'avocate que vous vous rêviez enfant...
Oui, avec mon micro que j'appelle mon arme d'amour massif. Je reçois tellement d'amour avec ma musique, le public, c'est un partage.
Vous faites une reprise de «Gimme Shelter» des Rolling Stones, pourquoi ce choix?
Parce que le texte de cette chanson est toujours d'actualité. On parle de plus en plus d'immigration mais si les pays riches veulent vraiment arrêter l'immigration, ils n'ont qu'à arrêter de financer la corruption qui existe en Afrique. Aucun pays d'Afrique n'a encore eu la chance de se gérer lui-même et d'apprendre de ses erreurs. On a tous été maintenus sous tutelle économique. On refuse à des êtres humains d'avoir une vie digne, on se sert de nous pour des discours politiques. Si des musiciens anglais le disaient déjà dans les années 60, c'est qu'il y a un problème.

Vous n'avez jamais voulu faire de la politique?
Jamais de la vie! Faire de la politique aujourd'hui n'a plus aucun sens.

Le titre «Pearls» parle des femmes, vous pensez toujours que la femme est l'avenir de l'homme?
Si je ne pensais pas ça, il n'y aurait pas d'humanité. Les hommes font tout pour que la femme ne soit pas leur égale, pour la rabaisser, pour se sentir forts. Un homme sûr et bien dans sa peau n'a pas besoin de ça pour avoir une partenaire digne de ce nom à ses côtés. La femme a autant de droits que l'homme et celui qui ne respecte pas sa meilleure moitié n'est pas un homme. S'il n'a pas besoin d'une femme qui a une tête, qui peut parler, être en désaccord avec lui et bien qu'il mette un chien dans son lit!

D'où vient votre personnalité très forte?
Des femmes qui m'ont élevée, des femmes indépendantes, mariées mais qui ne se sont jamais laissées marcher sur les pieds. C'est possible.

Isaac Hayes : Soul legend joins WOMAD line-up

Soul legend Isaac Hayes has today been added to the list of stars appearing at the WOMAD Festival in Wiltshire in July.

He is one of 10 acts from around the world added to the bill for the 25th festival which takes place at Charlton Park near Malmesbury on July 27-29.

This year, festival organiser Peter Gabriel will also be appearing on stage. Also joining the bill are Tinariwen (Mali), Seth Lakeman (UK), Calexico (USA), David D'Or (Israel), Young Zulu Warriors (South Africa), Afrodisiac Sound System (USA), Dream Engine's 'Heliosphere' (UK) and Hocus Pocus (France).

More than 70 world-class artists from 40 countries will perform over the festival weekend. WOMAD Charlton Park will welcome an audience of 20,000 and will feature seven stages and workshop areas, including a children's village, many more activities and festival features, all in the idyllic environment of Charlton's open lawns and rolling fields.

Rachel Z : Dept. of Good And Evil

Brooklyn-based pianist Rachel Z has won her fame for thinking outside the box when playing jazz, often looking for material outside the genre’s realm to make her music. On previous discs, she has transformed the music of Kurt Cobain, U2 and Kate Bush.

On this new release, she includes, among a handful of originals, personal readings of tunes by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Sting and Bill Withers, alongside material by Wayne Shorter and Joe Henderson with very positive results. Listeners unfamiliar with the rock tunes presented here would never know that the originals featured electric guitars and (in some cases) screaming vocals.

On the original version of “Maps,” vocalist Karen O sings the chorus with a certain jaded feel backed by a cacophony of guitars and drums; Rachel Z translates this into the piano, turning the song into a jazz-inflected pop tune. Legendary bassist Tony Levin (King Crimson, Peter Gabriel) and trumpeter Erik Naslund join Z’s trio for Sting’s “King of Pain,” where Naslund freely improvises and Levin plays on his twelve-string Chapman Stick, filling in with odd high octave notes as Maeve Royce plays a more conventional bass line.

One of the key tracks on the disc is “Moon and The Sun,” an original penned by Z and drummer Bobbie Rae, that features rare vocals by the pianist, delivered with plenty of feeling.

The closing song is the poignant original, “Saint Of New Orleans.” The tune almost has a prog-rock feel at times and this is where the pianist really cuts loose, playing with amazing speed during a few moments and then shifting to a softer mode. It is one of the greatest moments of a disc that deserves repeated hearings, for every spin brings fresh discoveries to the listener’s ears.

Peter Gabriel's filter opens windows

The pioneering music recommendation site the 'Filter' launched last year, and backed by visionary musician Peter Gabriel, is now ready for roll out across more formats, including Windows Media Player and Nokia mobile phones.

Originally launched for iTunes through Windows XP, the Filter creates playlists from your music library depending on your mood, activity, likes and dislikes. The free to download software uses Artificial Intelligence to generate playlists, scanning your MP3 collection, learning what you like to listen to in the process.

As well as now being available on Mac systems as well as PC, the Filter has also re-launched it's website to include artists' biographies and links to their youTubes and networking sites. It aims to give you everything you need to get the most out of your own collection as well recommending additions.

The new versions of the Filter launch this Friday, May 4 for Windows Media Player 10 and 11. It is also available for Windows Vista. The Filter is also available for iTunes on Mac and PC and the following Nokia mobile phones - Series 60, Nokia E60, N93 and N80.

For more information and to download the intuitive software, click here for thefilter.com

Quays date for Harper

RUSHOLME-born folk legend Roy Harper is returning to Greater Manchester. He will perform at The Lowry on May 7. Harper’s career is now in its fourth decade. He has famously worked with some of the world’s biggest bands, such as Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. He has also proved to be hugely influential over the years, with Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel among his many admirers.

Lepage honoured with European theatre prize

Quebec filmmaker, theatre director and playwright Robert Lepage was honoured in Greece on Sunday, winning a prestigious theatre prize worth more than $90,000. Lepage and German theatre director Peter Zadek were both named winners of the 11th Europe Theatre Prize, worth €60,000 (about $91,000 Cdn).

Over the years, Robert Lepage has brought a variety of productions to stage and screen.Over the years, Robert Lepage has brought a variety of productions to stage and screen. According to organizers, which took place in the northern Greek city of Salonika, Zadek was unable to attend the ceremony because of theatre commitments in Berlin.

Established in 1986, the prize honours individuals or drama institutions whose dramatic works have "furthered understanding and insight between peoples." Last year's winner was British playwright Harold Pinter. The jury for the European-centred award is made up of representatives from the world of theatre and art.

Lepage, one of Canada's best-known artists and an officer of the Order of Canada, started out in Quebec's theatre community, where he debuted plays like The Dragon's Trilogy. He also served as artistic director of French theatre at the National Arts Centre.

n the mid-1990s, Lepage founded a multidisciplinary production company called Ex Machina and spread out into filmmaking, with his credits including Le Confessional and Far Side of the Moon.
More recently, he has brought other types of productions to the stage, from the operas Erwartung and Bluebeard's Castle for the Canadian Opera Company to the Cirque du Soleil's KA to concert tours for Peter Gabriel.

Ampco installs sound for WOMAD

As the World of Music, Arts and Dance (WOMAD) prepares to celebrate the 25th anniversary of its first UK festival, with co-founder Peter Gabriel among this year's headliners, its long-standing audio supplier Ampco Pro Rent is gearing up to provide the sound for all nine venues at WOMAD's new UK home.

This year's UK WOMAD Festival, (27-29 July), will be the first to be staged in the picturesque setting of Charlton Park, near Malmesbury in Wiltshire, and marks the first UK festival for WOMAD's new events director Chris Smith.

Peter Gabriel will headline the Friday night lineup as part of the anniversary celebrations. Other artists on the all-star bill include Baba Maal, Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba, Bill Cobham, Chota Divana, Clube Do Balanço, Daara J, Kronos Quartet, Mariza, Steel Pulse and Tools & The Maytals.

Ampco Pro Rent, founder member of the Synco Europe Network, has provided sound for WOMAD festivals worldwide for over a decade and the expertise of its team, led by production manager Dieter van Denzel, has become an intrinsic part of the 'WOMAD experience' for the event's global performers.

The various venues are served by Synco by Martin Audio line array systems, Renkus-Heinz STS systems, exclusive Synco stage monitor systems and an array of consoles headed by the Midas Heritage series.

WOMAD artistic director Thomas Brooman says: "We believe our festival audience will be as enthusiastic about the new, much more rural location as we are, even though there's a huge technical challenge for us to make a festival of this size work completely successfully in a new place. It's a momentous step after 25 years but we're going forward on this new road with Ampco in the absolute belief that in five years' time and more we'll still be working together. This is a dynamic partnership, not just a contract for the supply of audio systems."

Un "Rake's Progress" décalé, virtuose, poétique

C'est en officialisant les brillants débuts du metteur en scène québécois Robert Lepage dans The Rake's Progress, de Stravinsky, que le directeur de la Monnaie, Bernard Foccroulle, aura tiré sa révérence, avant de s'en aller présider aux destinées du Festival d'Aix-en-Provence dès l'été 2007. Une réussite qui parachève une ligne artistique tenue dix-sept ans durant : goût pour la pluridisciplinarité (qu'illustre la compagnie Ex Machina du Québécois) et désinvolture à l'égard du star system.

Car la vision décalée, virtuose et poétique à la fois de Lepage colle à cette fable douce-amère concoctée par les librettistes Wystan Hugh Auden et Chester Kallmann d'après la série de tableaux de William Hogarth (La Carrière du libertin) qui inspira au Stravinsky néoclassique une musique impertinente et désabusée, évitant le pastiche pour mieux convoquer le Mozart de Cosi fan tutte et le Bach des Passions.

En transposant The Rake's Progress dans l'Amérique des années 1950, entre Hollywood et Las Vegas, Lepage a pris en compte l'époque où Stravinsky composa son opéra, créé par ses soins à la Fenice de Venise en 1951. Références cinématographiques (westerns et films noirs) et iconographie hollywoodienne participent du fameux "rêve américain". C'est ainsi que le jeune Tom Rakewell, sous la maléfique emprise du "diable", connaîtra la fulgurante ascension des stars non moins que leur chute.

INVENTIVITÉ

Décors (Carl Fillion), costumes (François Barbeau), lumières (Etienne Boucher) et vidéo (Boris Firquet) sont au service d'une inventivité qui fait de la mise en perspective, tant visuelle que signifiante, une vertu cardinale. On retrouve avec bonheur la patte du Lepage qui griffa le délirant Growing up Live de Peter Gabriel en 2002.

Sous la baguette de poète de Kazushi Ono, Stravinsky est un musicien de chambre enchanté. Quant aux solistes, ce sont avant tout des musiciens. La belle aura satanique de William Shimell en Nick Shadow, la pureté angélique de Laura Claycomb en Anne Truelove nimbent d'ombre et de lumière l'édifiant destin de Tom Rakewell, Andrew Kennedy émouvant jusque dans la folie et la mort.

The Rake's Progress, d'Igor Stravinsky, avec Laura Claycomb, Andrew Kennedy, William Shimell, Julianne Young, Dagmar Peckova. Robert Lepage (mise en scène), Orchestre symphonique et Choeurs de la Monnaie, Kazushi Ono (direction). Théâtre royal de la Monnaie, à Bruxelles, le 2 mai. Prochaine représentation le 6 mai à 15 heures.

Tél. : (00-32) 70-23-39-39. De 8 € à 100 €. Reprise à l'Opéra de Lyon, les 24, 26, 28 et 30 mai, 1er et 3 juin. Tél. : 08-26-30-53-25. De 10 € à 84 €. www.opera-lyon.com

Darfour: Youssou N'Dour veut mobiliser les artistes

Le chanteur sénégalais Youssou N'Dour veut mobiliser les artistes africains sur la question du Darfour, région de l'ouest du Soudan où sévit une guerre civile, rapporte vendredi l'Agence de presse sénégalaise

«Youssou N'Dour va prendre l'initiative de mobiliser toute la communauté artistique africaine autour de la question du Darfour», a déclaré Malick Mbaye, chargé de communication du chanteur, cité par l'APS. «En tant qu'artiste et leader d'opinion, l'artiste estime qu'il a un rôle à jouer auprès de tous les peuples d'Afrique, surtout ceux en difficulté», a indiqué M. Mbaye, sans préciser la forme de l'initiative envisagée.

Youssou N'Dour, qui vient d'être cité parmi les 100 personnalités les plus influentes au monde, selon la liste annuelle établie par le magazine Time, a une discographie de plus de 20 albums et de nombreuses collaborations avec des artistes internationaux tels que Peter Gabriel, Neneh Cherry, Axelle Red ou encore Wyclef Jean (ex-Fugees).

Il est également ambassadeur de bonne volonté du Fonds des Nations unies pour l'enfance (Unicef) et du Bureau international du travail (BIT) et a mis sur pied diverses structures dont la maison de production Jololi, le studio Xippi, et le groupe de presse Futurs Médias.

Le conflit qui sévit depuis plus de quatre ans au Darfour a fait 200 000 morts et 2 millions de déplacés, selon l'ONU, des chiffres contestés par le Soudan, qui parle de seulement 9000 morts.

Peter Gabriel fait payer la musique aux annonceurs

Peter Gabriel, ex-chanteur de Genesis, star britonne de la rock music et co-fondateur d’OD2 (plateforme de distribution de musique en ligne qui fut vendu à l’américain Loudeye, lequel fut racheté à son tour par Nokia) vient de dévoiler le principe de We7 : un service de téléchargement de musique financé par la publicité (Information Week, The Register, TechWeb, communiqué).

Le principe est assez original : une annonce publicitaire (facturée entre 0,30 livre et 0,70 livre à l’annonceur pour chaque téléchargement) est diffusée en amorce de chaque titre. Au terme de quelques écoutes, l’auditeur acquiert le droit de télécharger une version sans publicité du fichier.

We7 va se lancer en bétatest en juillet prochain avec quelques milliers de titres indés au catalogue. Pour l’instant, les majors ne semblent pas disposées à suivre. Ce serait pourtant un excellent moyen de monétiser les échanges peer-to-peer. Mais tout le monde n’a pas la comprenette aussi aiguisée que Peter Gabriel…

Le funk tonique d'Angélique Kidjo pour réveiller l'Afrique

Angélique Kidjo a intitulé son nouveau disque Djin Djin, un mot qui n'existe dans aucune des langues dans lesquelles cette Franco-Béninoise installée à New York chante : ni fon, ni mina, ni yoruba, ni anglais, Djin Djin est la transcription phonétique du son de la cloche métallique très utilisée dans le golfe de Guinée.

"J'utilise cette image pour dire : réveille-toi, nouvelle Afrique !, explique l'artiste. La jeunesse africaine ne doit pas se laisser vaincre par le découragement, ni tenter coûte que coûte de partir. Plus je vais en Afrique, plus je suis témoin d'une volonté de changement. Mais c'est dur de se battre contre un mur. Il faudrait un changement profond de nos gouvernements pour que les choses évoluent." Comme Tiken Jah Fakoly, Youssou N'Dour, Oumou Sangaré et beaucoup d'artistes africains, Angélique Kidjo s'est intensément mobilisée contre l'injustice, les guerres, la maladie, pour l'enfance...

Sur le livret de Djin Djin, elle appelle à soutenir l'Unicef et des ONG dans lesquelles elle s'investit (Oxfam, Keep A Child Alive, Batonga Foundation For Girls Education). Elle a chanté à Cape Town, en 2003, pour la fondation Mandela, à Rome en 2004 pour sensibiliser à la cause des enfants soldats, à Dakar, en 2005, à l'appel de Youssou N'Dour, contre le paludisme, puis au Live 8 organisé par Bob Geldof et Bono contre la dette africaine. On la retrouve sur la compilation No Child Soldiers, ou encore sur l'album réalisé par Amnesty International pour le Darfour (Instant Karma : The Campaign To Save Darfur, à paraître en juin chez Warner).

Le 30 mai, Angélique Kidjo chantera pour Oxfam à Berlin et le 7 juillet, elle participera à Live Earth, une série de concerts donnés le même jour sur tous les continents pour alerter sur les menaces du réchauffement climatique, organisés par Al Gore, l'ancien vice-président des Etats-Unis, héros du documentaire écologique Une vérité qui dérange.

UN CORTÈGE D'INVITÉS

La source de cet instinct qui l'aimante vers de justes causes remonte à son adolescence, au Bénin, à l'époque du régime marxiste de Mathieu Kérékou. "Un jour, les autorités m'ont demandé de faire un concert pour le sommet des chefs d'Etat de l'Afrique de l'Ouest. Je n'ai pu y échapper." Au final, cet exercice imposé n'aura pas été juste une corvée. "Cela m'a permis de rencontrer Jerry Rawlings (président du Ghana), qui a appelé tous les participants au concert pour les remercier. Au cours de cette rencontre, il nous a fait toucher du doigt l'importance du rôle de l'artiste. Il nous a dit de ne jamais oublier d'où l'on vient, d'utiliser sans relâche notre voix pour éveiller les consciences, chez nous ou ailleurs."

La voix conquérante et ardente, Angélique Kidjo traduit sa philosophie par un afro-funk tonique à base d'éclectisme musical, sans oublier les rythmes de ses racines. Réalisé par Tony Visconti, une référence (David Bowie, T. Rex, Morrissey...), enregistré à New York, Djin Djin voit défiler des invités célèbres (Alicia Keys, Branford Marsalis, Joss Stone, Peter Gabriel, Amadou & Mariam, Carlos Santana, Ziggy Marley), mais n'oublie pas les percussions traditionnelles tirées de la fanfare béninoise Gangbé Brass Band.