Ulf Jagfors

Music

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General Info

Genre: Afro-beat / Folk / Roots Music
Location Tyreso, SE
Profile Views: 17114
Last Login: 10/24/2008
Member Since 8/9/2006
Website http://www.myspace.com/akonting
Type of Label Major
Bio
......(Photo by ..Greg Adams..).. ....American banjoist ..Paul Sedgwick.. and me (on the banjo-mandolin).. playing our banjos for some local kids. Mandinary, Gambia 7/06.... .. ......Kasumy!...... ..(That's "Hello! How are you?" in the language of the Jola of Senegambia, West Africa. The proper response is "Kasumy balle!").. ..My name is ..Ulf Jägfors... I'm a historian and collector of banjos and West African plucked lutes which are the living ancestors of the New World banjo, such as ....akonting.... folk lute of the Jola (Senegal, Gambia, Guinea Bissau) and the ....koliko.... folk/artisan lute of the Frafra (Ghana). I'm also interested in related string instruments-- especially those of the lute family-- from West Africa and the world over. In fact my home here in ..Tyreso.. (Sweden) has become something of a private banjo museum, showcasing my collection of over 80 banjos, West African lutes, and related string instruments from around the world that I've collected on my travels over the years..... ...... ....Here I am in a corner of my little banjo museum surrounded by some of the banjos and related instruments in the ..lute family.. I've collected in my travels the world over. I'm playing an ..entofen.., a type of Jola ..akonting.. from Casamance (southern Senegal) that has an oval gourd body instead of the more typical round kind....... ..I've been hooked on banjos since 1960 when I first got into playing traditional jazz on the tenor banjo. A few years later, I got caught up in "The Great Folk Scare" that came over from America and swept Europe, so I swapped my tenor for a 5-string "regular" banjo. Like hundreds of other aspiring banjoists the world over, I taught myself the instrument using ..Pete Seeger's.. classic tutor, ......How to Play the 5-String Banjo....... .. ..For more than 40 years, I've been into American old-time country music as well as early jazz and blues. I've always been intrigued by the roots of traditional American vernacular and popular music as they extend back to both Europe and Africa. My interest in the history of these forms as well as the banjo led me to purchase a 130 year old 5-string banjo in 1990 and study 19th century styles of playing the instrument, in particular the ....down-picking.... technique known as ....stroke style..... ..(The ....stroke style.... is considered to be the oldest known style of playing the banjo. This is the technique that the blackface minstrels learned from African American slave musicians in the early 19th century and popularized along with the banjo in the 1830s and '40s. Stroke style remained the principal style of playing the 5-string banjo until the advent of ...."guitar-style" up-picking.... in the late 1860s. Down-picking survived in the folk traditions of the African American and European American communities of the rural South where it's known by a variety of names: ....clawhammer...., ....frailing...., ....thumping...., and so on.).. ..Curious about the banjo's African heritage, I embarked on what you might call my own personal "journey of discovery," searching out the instrument's long obscured roots in West Africa. At the time, the conventional wisdom was that the West African archetypes of the banjo were those wooden-bodied plucked lutes that were exclusive to the griots, like the Mande/Bamana ....ngoni...., the Wolof ....xalam...., and the Fula ....hoddu..... However, this never made much sense to me. According to period documentation of the early banjos made and played by slaves in the Caribbean and the Americas from the 17th century on through the mid-19th century, these instruments all had gourd bodies, typically round or teardrop-shaped. Yet, the griot lutes are distinguished by having narrow, canoe shaped or figure-eight shaped, hollowed-out, wooden bodies..... ......(Photo by Ulf Jägfors).. ......Daniel Laemouahuma Jatta.. playing the Jola ..akonting.. folk lute. In the background is a reproduction of ..The Banjo Player.. (1856) by ..William Sidney Mount.. (1807-1868) of Setauket, New York. Note that Daniel and the banjo player are both down-picking their instruments....... ..At that point, my search for the elusive "missing link" that could connect the banjo to present-day West African lutes ran smack into a brick wall. Then, in 1999, I happened on a lecture in Stockholm that literally gave new life and direction to my quest. The lecturer was ..Daniel Laemouahuma Jatta.., a member of the Jola people from Gambia currently living and working as a economist here in Sweden. Daniel was doing a presentation on his people's folk lute, the ....akonting..... I was amazed to see that the instrument had a round gourd body and was strikely similar to period depictions of early gourd banjos. Even more amazing was how Daniel played the akonting-- he was down-picking it exactly as one down-picks a 5-string banjo!!!.. ..In 2000, I had the privilege and honor of introducing Daniel and his pioneering work researching and documenting the ....akonting.... to the international banjo community at the 3rd Annual Banjo Collectors Gathering in Boston. Daniel, in turn, has introduced to me to his people and their wonderful culture and music. Together, we've taken several trips to Gambia as well as the Casamance region of Senegal-- the heartland of Jola culture and the birthplace of the akonting-- to film and document the rich musical traditions of the Jola as well as those of neighboring peoples such as the Manjago, Wolof, Mandinka, and Fula... ..The most recent trip in July of 2006 was perhaps the most rewarding in that it was the occasion of the official opening of ..The Akonting Center for Senegambian Folk Music.. and ..The First International Conference on the African Origins of the Banjo... This was the first ever meeting on African soil of American and European scholars and musicians with their West African counterparts that focused specifically on extant Senegambian string instruments and their kinship with the banjo..... ..To learn more about The Akonting Center and read reports on the conference, please visit: ....AKONTING: A WEST AFRICAN ANCESTOR OF THE BANJO........ ......(Photo by ..Greg Adams..).. ....Presenting various types of gourd-bodied West African folk/artisan lutes at ..The First International Conference on the African Origins of the Banjo... ..The Akonting Center.., Mandinary, Gambia, 7/06.... .. ..In addition to my collaboration with Daniel Jatta in support of the ....akonting...., I've also been working with other researchers in Europe and America delving into the origins of the banjo and the lute family of string instruments. These include my good buddies-in-banjos British banjoist/banjo historian ..Nick Bamber.. and American musicians/scholars ..Ed Britt.., ..Ben Nelson.., ..Shlomo Pestcoe.. and ..Paul Sedgwick.., to name but a few... ..My friends describe me as a "man on a mission." It's true that my passion keeps my hot on the trail, following up on every and any lead, wherever they may be found, from villages in West Africa to dusty museum vaults in Egypt. My next big trip will be back to Ghana to try and learn more about the Frafra ....koliko.... folk/artisan lute as well as the other string instrument traditions of that country... ..Thanks for stopping by for a visit! Please be sure to check back here for updates on my ongoing research and travels...
Members
.................. ..Here's a video I shot of Jola ..ekonting.. (akonting) player ..Joe Diatta.. from Casamance (southern Senegal) performing a traditional song, ....Ampa Youtou.... (Child of Youtou), with family and friends. Dakar, Senegal, 7/06. (Note: ....Diatta.... is the French transliteration of ....Jatta...., one of the most common Jola surnames.).. ..My thanks to ..Nick Bamber.. for introducing Joe and his wonderful playing to us... ..To see more of my videos documenting traditional West African musical instruments and related traditions, please visit my YouTube site: ..www.youtube.com/user/UlfJagfors...
Influences
.. ..Here are links to some sites that you might find interesting and informative:.. ......The African Roots of the Banjo...... .... ......Akonting: A West African Ancestor of the Banjo....(A MYSPACE MUSIC site devoted to the Jola ..akonting.. folk lute and support work for ..The Akonting Center for Senegambian Folk Music.. in Mandinary, Gambia. It's constantly being updated with the latest information and findings. Great MP3s of recent field recordings of traditional akonting music as well as videos and photos!)...... .. ......www.youtube.com/user/UlfJagfors.... (My ..YouTube.. site on which you'll find the videos I shot in West Africa documenting string instruments and other traditional instruments as well as related music and dance traditions.)...... .. ......Daniel Laemouahuma Jatta.... (In the mid-'80s, Gambian Jola musician/scholar ..Daniel Jatta.. pioneered the research and documentation of his people's folk lute, the ..akonting.. and its sibling, the Manjak ..bunchundo...)...... .. ......The African Akonting & the Origins of the Banjo....(A special multimedia presentation devoted to my article in the ..The Old-Time Herald: A Magazine Dedicated to Old-Time Music.. [Volume 9, Number 2, Winter 2003/04])...... .. ......Articles & Essays on the Jola Akonting....(..Daniel Jatta's.. principal website.)...... .. .... ..Banjo Ancestors: The Lutes of West Africa....(Essays by my fellow researcher and good buddy ..Shlomo Pestcoe..)...... .. .. ......Banjo Relatives & Other Members of the ..Lute Family........ .. .. ......Paul Guy's Guitar Handbook........ .. ......Atlas of Plucked Instruments: An Encyclopedia of all the World's Plucked Instruments of Lute, Guitar, Ganjo and Mandolin Type........ .. .. ......Banjo History...... .. .. ......BanjoHistory.com........ .. ......The 5-string Banjo...... .. ......The Early Banjo in the New World........ .. ......Gourd Banjos: From Africa To The Appalachians........ .. .. ......Contemporary African American Old-Time Banjoists & String Bands...... .. .. ......The Carolina Chocolate Drops....(An amazing group of young musicians who play in the African American fiddle & banjo tradition of the Carolinas Piedmont.)...... .. ......Rhiannon Giddens.... (Rhiannon is an incredibly gifted singer and multi-instrumentalist, who is fast becoming a leading performer of traditional African American banjo and fiddle music as well as the Jola akonting.)...... .. ...... Dom Flemons....(Dom is an extremely talented and innovative musician who plays a killer slide banjo.)...... .. ......Sule Greg Wilson....(Sule-- pronounced "soo-lay"-- is one of the pioneers of the recent movement of African American musicians and scholars to reclaim the obscired heritage of the banjo as a product of the African Diaspora in the New World and to reintroduce the instrument into African American contemporary musical culture.)...... .. ......Sankofa Strings....(A musical collaboration of ..Rhiannon Giddens.., ..Dom Flemons.. and ..Sule Greg Wilson...)...... .. ..
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