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KEKELE LIVE: TOURNEE AMERICAINE & CANADIENNE (only available from CD Baby as a download)

By Alastair Johnston

For the first time I have bought a CD as a download (though I admit I have snaggled a few on the sly, most recently Neil Young in Amsterdam, which is worth seeking out). C.C. Smith, editor of The BEAT sent me the link to a live Kékélé concert: I checked out the sound on the CD Bébé site, which is board quality, so immediately grabbed it. C.C. has also started the inevitable myspace page for the band and if you check their friends there's a link to Quatre Etoiles. As I said in my review of their show in San Rafael from this 2005-6 tour, they were a lot hotter live than on the CDs. On tour they had Rigo Star instead of Papa Noel on second guitar and three singers which kept it focussed. Syran decided to authorize the sale of the concert tape on line.

The CD Baby site also points you to several other albums available for immediate download, including a couple of Samba Mapangala & Virunga albums you probably have, a recollection of Sam Mangwana's Portuguese tracks, Quatre Etoiles' LIVE IN LONDON, and an outstanding soukous album: Syran's SYMBIOSE: BEST OF PARIS. If you don't have it, that disc is essential listening (It includes the same rhythm section and vocalists as Kékélé).

The artwork for Kékélé Live is budget-quality and the liner notes are crummy, but the music is superb (though they clipped the end of a couple of songs). What's really striking -- without watching them play, or the antics of the singers -- is that you really get inside Syran's amazing finger picking. I thought it wouldn't be long before they went electric again, but he has been there, done that (Symbiose is a case in point, not to mention all the Lovy, Somo Somo, Quatre Etoiles, Sam Mangwana, Paris sessions etc, he played on) and now he has taken hold of something that is, to me, the legacy of Franco: a plucked two-finger lead, staggered tempi, and sustained repetitions of a phrase that push the rest of the band into a rhythmic frenzy (He started doing it when Quatre Etoiles did "Mado").

We also have Sebastien Malherbe on accordion and the legendary Jimmy Mvondo on sax (uncredited in the liner note, but Loko gives him a shout-out). Deba Sungu on congas backs Komba Bellow's drum kit. The front line on the tour were three Congolese legends: Nyboma and Wuta Mayi of Quatre Etoiles & Loko Massengo of Vercky's wild break-out band Trio Madjesi (He had considerably bigger hair back then!). Wuta Mayi's "Affaire mokuwa" sounds like his earlier "Enfant Bamileke." In fact there is a familiarity to the whole sound, they have successfully reprocessed many musical ideas from their separate and collective past into a fantastic fusion of supercool rumba. There's now rumours of a Quatre Etoiles reunion tour, though I remember Quatre Etoiles did "Doublé doublé" unplugged on Georges Collinet's radio show Afropop (memo: find the tape), which was probably the spark for the idea of an unplugged band. They should just keep doing this until it gets tired, and if they can get Bopol back then call it a double bill and do both acoustic and electric sets.

But this Kékélé concert is really smoking. The last three tracks lift you right up into the air. The "Ma-ni" chorus appears on the penultimate track so you know they are feeling positively Afro-Cubist. "Ça, c'est la rumba Congolaise," says Loko with satisfaction, as Jimmy breaks out some hot licks, Deba slaps fiercely, and Syran chugs on relentlessly. He finally makes the connection to Franco pointedly: it's an awesome moment as the song ends. One for the ages.

- Myspace Editor -