Music has charms to soothe the savage breast
…. Like many people, I always thought that this was a quote from Shakespeare, but it isn’t - it’s William Congreve (1670-1729). Anyway, our savage breasts were more than soothed between May4th to May 11th.
The Coutances Jazz Festival in Normandy has been a top annual event for 32 years, and Wendy and I have attended quite a few between 1990 to the present. I feel guilty almost for ‘exposing’ this festival’s existence because it’s a kind of treasured secret. Despite the high international profile of the artists each year, Coutances’s Jazz Sous Les Pommiers (Jazz under the apple trees) never seems to figure on those hip, clever round-ups of festivals in the broadsheet papers or music magazines. But over the years we’ve seen everyone there from Carla Bley and Taj Mahal to Duke Robillard, John Hammond Junior, Larry Garner, 5 Blind Boys of Alabama, Youssou N’Dour, Salif Keita, Tinariwen, Orchestra Baobab, Buena Vista Social Club with Omara Portuendo, gypsies like Taraf de Haidouks, ethnic Georgian music from The Shin … the eclectic list goes on and on. The big jazz names always lead - John Surman sells out, Andy Sheppard, Gary Burton, many top US names, but we always take pot luck with the esoteric stuff and we’ve never been disappointed.
This year we were blown away on the final night by Ladysmith Black Mambaso. How nine men with no instruments can hold you in the palms of their hands for 120 minutes is amazing. They were delectable, moving, funny, and inspirational, with harmonies which poured out like warm honey.
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| Ladysmith in full action |
For me, the high point was Fela Kuti’s son from Nigeria, Seun Kuti, fronting his late father’s brilliant 15 piece band, Egypt 80. Is it Jazz? Is it rock? Is it Soul? It’s all three, but most of all, it’s AFRICAN - and there’s nothing quite as infectious as Afrobeat. I wish I’d been ten years younger and not so physically decrepit because I would dearly like to have been down at the foot of the stage with the kids, but when you hit 70, you gotta sit down to enjoy yourself at a gig … brilliant, punchy brass, relentless percussion, pelvis-stirring dance routines by Kuti’s ladies … I’m in danger of flirting with sexism here so I’ll stop.
The Soul Rebels from New Orleans are an 8-piece brass band and in an odd way, the cultural time-wave between Kuti and them represented where African music went to on its long journey since the days of Slavery. They were loud, rocky, even without guitars or the substitution of electric bass by a mighty sousaphone. It was also notable that their diet was American and not African; Kuti’s band were mainly slim (barring their rhythm guitarist) whereas some of the Soul Rebels were the size of an Eddie Stobart truck. Every soul riff you needed was in their first 35-minute offering - Curtis Mayfield, Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, they had it all, plus some obligatory rap.
For a real eye-opener on North African musical culture blended with Indian music, the concert by Naghmain the theatre was superb. We’d seen Oud player Driss El Maloumi before in 2008, but this time he had his brother Said on percussion, plus India’s slide guitar man Debbashish Bhattachary and his brother Subhasis on tabla. Watching these men play across a whole musical range from emotional, romantic sensitivity to contagious dance rhythms provided an unforgettable experience.
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| Debbashish Bhattachary,with his self-built guitar which incorporates additional features to provide a distinctive Indian sitar sound. His family can be traced back through 75 generations, and he told us "None of my family all the way back have ever done any other jobs but play as professional musicians". |
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| Driss El Malmoudi, Morocco's finest giving it what for on the wonderful Oud. |
There were plenty of acts we missed simply because they were sold out. But as ever, what we saw yet again confirmed that what’s out there beyond the transatlantic crap mainstream of modern pop, with its techno voice enhancement machines, unintelligible rapping and tortured melisma masquerading as ‘soul’ is a whole world of genuine talent which can never fail to restore your faith in what music will always achieve- love, a meditation on eternity, and an electric prod in our flaccid old limbs to make us want to dance. Eat your heart out Rihanna, take a rain check, Beyonce. And in the great wide world of real music, where ‘boy bands’ and Simon Cowell never tread, there is still genius and utter creativity. Check out all of the above names on YouTube and be amazed. If I’m still standing, I’ll be back next year!