During this hour with the Congolese musician Fan Fan, an image emerged of a musician moving through his life as if he were a boat, with music the water on which he floats.
Mose Sesengo (‘Mo-zay Sess-engo’) has been known as ‘Fan Fan’ since he was a teenager in Kinshasa. We've met several times over the years since he came to live in the UK in 1985, and Fan Fan played with Papa Noel during a live broadcast from WOMAD a few years ago. But we had never had a proper conversation before.
Earlier this year, Fan Fan released a new album, Bayekeleye, a lovely record that I failed to do justice to, perhaps unconsciously put off by my inability to pronounce its title, which I belatedly got to grips with tonight - ‘by-yay-kell-ay-yay’.
The spur for the invitation was the release of Golden Afrique, Vol 2, a double CD on the German label, Network, celebrating Congolese music from years 1956 to 1982. Listening to it ‘blind’, without checking the artist names, I was particularly struck by Track One on CD 2. It turned out to be ‘Pele Odidja’ by Fan Fan. Who better to guide us through the album than the man who played guitar with Franco’s OK Jazz from 1967-74.
Without attempting a detailed who’s who of Congolese music, we did mention a few of the major pioneers from the 1960s:
Joseph Kabasele, who called his group African Jazz, which inspired another group to call itself OK Jazz, whose teenage singer/guitarist Franco soon became their leader.
Dr Nico, who left African Jazz to form African Fiesta, is widely revered as the master guitarist from this era, but Fan Fan remembered Tino Baroza as being equally important.
I’ve always liked the sound of the saxophonist Essous, but had not quite appreciated his role as a founder-member of three major groups – OK Jazz, Les Bantous de la Capitale (based in Brazzaville, in the ‘other’ Congo, north of the river), and Ry-co Jazz. When I played ‘Lily Germaine’, a long-time personal favourite from Essous’ 1984 solo album, Fan Fan pointed out that the song was written by Tina Baroza.
For about twenty-five years, 1960 to 1985, Congolese music was the dominant style throughout huge swathes of Africa, as the big Congolese bands toured the continent, up through Cameroon to Ivory Coast and especially East Africa from Kenya and Uganda through Zambia, Malawi and Tanzania.
This was where the image of music as water came to me, waves of music washing though the continent, sometimes leaving musicians behind when the tide receded. Local demand was insatiable, as every hotel wanted its own resident orchestra playing this sound, if possible featuring authentic Congolese singers and musicians.
Vocalists Sam Mangwana (*), Nyboma (*), and the musicians who later became Les Quatres Etoiles, worked in Lomé (capital of Togo) and Abidjan. Fan Fan went east, joining and forming orchestras from a mixture of local and Congolese musicians in Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam. ‘Pele Odidja’ is taken from the album Belle Epoque on RetroAfric (RETRO 7CD), a compilation drawn from Fan Fan’s recordings in Kenya and Tanzania, whose sleeve note documents his wanderings.
(*) Sam Mangwana and Nyboma have two tracks each on Golden Afrique Vol 2, and if you need to know more, get hold of Gary Stewart’s book, Rumba on the River: A History of the Popular Music of the Two Congos (Verso Press).
In last week’s bulletin, the list of UK labels releasing albums by world music artists inexplicably and inexcusably omitted Real World, whose latest release is the third album by the Mexican outfit, Los De Abajos. Produced by Temple of Sound, LDA v The Lunatics is their best yet, and the message of the single, a reworking of the Fun Boy Three’s ‘The Lunatics Are Taking Over the Asylum’, becomes more apt every day.