Afroblue

Who says that you have to be African to play Afropop? Except for a Zambian singer, Afroblue, a NYC-based band, consists entirely of non-Africans: a white New Yorker guitarist, a keyboardist of Dominican descent, an Israeli drummer and a bass player from St. Kitts. Furthermore, they reject the notion African music has immutable laws that one should not defile. While their style is akin to the township jazz-pop of South Africa, they are happy to throw in soukous guitar, reggae and Afro-Cuban montuqo as the spirit moves them. In other words, they are true to the spirit of African popular music, the most assimilationist and internationalist music in the world.

Sid Whelan, Afroblue's guitarist, describes the band's outlook: "African music is specific to its environment and Africans always adapt their musical values to their surroundings. Afroblue is a New York band through and through--it could have happened here in this tremendously complex multi and intercultural mosaic. We represent a few of the Pan-African stones which make up that mosaic."

"Mudiwa Wangu" from Afroblue's upcoming CD is a great example of their eclectic approach. A guitar introduction by Sid Whelan lays down some sweet, plangent, Soukous melodies and just when you ready for a vocal in the style of Tabu Ley, you get a surprise. Tutu Tutani sings in English, "On my way again, down that stormy road...". At this point, the style then shifts almost imperceptibly into the South African "marabi" style that Hugh Masakela and Miriam Makeba popularized. Marabi, better known as "township jive," has roots in American jazz, church hymns and local African rhythms. It relies on major keys and has an "upbeat" quality that makes you want to get up on your feet and march--or, better yet, dance. Keyboard player Arnaldo (Naido) Vargas' keyboard accompaniment is the glue that holds everything together. His electronic keyboard is analogous to the accordion in Marabi bands, with their chugging, nonstop rhythms. It is also suggestive of traditional Cuban bands, where the keyboard provides the central melodic and harmonic thrust. This is the music that Vargas grew up listening to in Washington Heights.

While the interplay between Vargas and Whelan sounds relaxed and confident, it took four years of hard work to produce. Whelan says that guitar and piano are two of the hardest instruments to use together in African music, or any other popular music for that matter. When he recently asked one of his jazz guitar teachers how to play with a pianist, he said "stay out of the way." Combining Vargas' Afro-Cuban piano style with Whelan's soukous guitar has been a big success and no other band blends the two styles together the way they do.

So how do you categorize this surprising and fresh new approach to Afropop? Is it soukous or marabi or son conjunto? Is it Congolese or South African or Cuban? The answer is that it is all of these things at the same time. African music rejects the exclusive "or". This is a music of inclusion, and Afroblue ties things together better than anybody around.

Guitarist Sid Whelan's roots in African culture, including the music, revealed themselves in a recent phone conversation. He was first introduced to African rhythms while growing up on Manhattan's patrician upper Fifth Avenue. Most high-rise denizens regard the Black and Latin percussionists of Central Park as a nuisance, but young Sid Whelan loved these sounds. Also, his father was a financial officer at the Museum of Natural History and visits there were often an occasion for exposure to non-Western cultures and an invitation to learn more.

When he arrived at Oberlin College in 1984, he decided to major in African-American studies. One day as a professor explained the connections between boogie-woogie piano styles and the African kora, Whelan decided to learn as much about African music as he could. He had already mastered the jazz guitar and this seemed like the next logical step in his artistic evolution. As a deejay at Oberlin's radio station, he spun African and Caribbean records on a popular show and educated his own ears as well as his audience's.

It was only after moving to North Carolina, where his wife was attending graduate school, that Whelan finally learned how to play in the Congolese style. (Guitar Player magazine gives him credit for having the "elusive soukous style down cold.") After placing an ad in a local newspaper looking for someone with an interest in African music, he struck gold. Living in Raleigh in a large expatriate Zairean community was Joe Konde Kuvuna, a guitarist who played in Abeti Masekini's band. He was happy to take Whelan on as a student. (Abeti was one of Zaire's most famous female singers. Ironically, some of the most inventive music from the Congo is being produced by the women, including Abeti, Tshala Mwana and Mbelia Bel. Gender oppression might undercut the tendency to produce shallow dance music, the bane of less ambitious Congolese popular music.)

Coming to the music from the outside has afforded Whelan some interesting perspectives on the difference between playing guitar in an American jazz band and playing Congolese style guitar. The hardest thing for him to adjust to was that soukous guitarists do not start on the same downbeat, nor do they follow the same beat during the course of a song. The guitarists have to listen to each other and to the drummers more carefully than usual. The overall effect is much more improvisatory than American jazz or popular music that follows a steady beat in most cases. African multi-rhythms are a pleasure to the ear, but they are a big challenge to apprentice musicians as Whelan learned.

Whelan says, "The recording artists who have influenced my sound the most are Diblo Dibala and Dally Kimoko in their work with Kanda Bongo Man, Remmy Ongala and Mose Fan Fan in their post-Franco playing, as well as Syran M'Benza with his Franco-at-120mph style. they have been tremendous influences on my sound. Rigo Star, Bopol Misiana and Lokassa Ya M'Bongo have been tremendous influences on my rhythm guitar ideas, but...contrary to my original expectations, the rhythm guitar work of African music is usually much more difficult and sophisticated than the lead work."

Rhythm is of course a key element of Afroblue's music, as it is of any African band. Whelan says that in some respects any African band is organized like the simple, egalitarian drum ensembles that enchanted him from his Fifth Avenue bedroom window when he was a child. The musicians rely on each other's cues, rather than getting strict instructions from a leader. This spirit guides Afroblue as well, which has no leader as such. The musicians are in effect co-leaders and participate as equals.

This requires everybody in the band to be highly skilled and responsive to each other's initiatives during performance. Joining Whelan, keyboardist Vargas and lead singer Tutani are joined by drummer Benny Koonyevsky, originally from Israel, and bassist Trevor Bridgewater, from the island of St. Kitts. Koonyevsky, a Julliard graduate, is a specialist in Brazilian rhythms and frequently performs with classical ensembles. Bridgewater helps to root the band in the soca and reggae styles, which is becoming an important part of their repertory.