Charlie Gillett on BBC London 94.9 FM

26 October 02

Live from WOMEX, Saturday Night on BBC London and Multi Kulti, Berlin

WOMEX is the annual trade fair for everyone involved in world music. 1,800 delegates spend four days swapping CDs and business cards. You'd be surprised how tiring it is. There are hundreds of stalls - record labels looking for international licensees, festival promoters seeking artists for next year, agents hoping to get their protegees noticed by journalists. In the evening, performers compete for attention in four separate locations.

This years WOMEX took place at the Zolverein, a cultural centre built on the site of a disused coal mine on the outskirts of Essen in the heart of the Ruhr, Germany's industrial region. Walking between the theatres, museums and conference halls used by the event, we stepped over defunct railway lines and under massive metal tubing.

For the second year running, I became a cuckoo in the nest of a local nation radio network, in this case WDR, who provided the connections to broadcast live performances and commentary throughout Germany. Johannes Theurer was already planning to broadcast his three-hour Saturday Night show on Radio Multi Kulti in Berlin, and he not only agreed to share the last two hours of his show for simultaneous broadcast in English on BBC London, but gave me a free hand to invite whoever I liked to take part. BBC Radio 3 helped to connect us by ISDN line to London.

Without my usual team of volunteers at this away match, I recruited Katharina Lobeck, the journalist, graduate student and former Radio Ping Pong guest, to be my producer. Fluent in German, French and English, taking CDs from our table to the engineer, writing down their details, rounding up whichever guests were needed next and quick to respond to every situation, Katharina was born for the part.

The makeshift studio was set up along one side of a corridor leading to one of the main theatres, so there was a continual murmur of conversation and laughter as delegates walked past us. But whenever there was a live performance, the traffic suddenly stopped as everyone turned to watch, forming an instant audience of 50 or more, only inches away.

At WOMAD Singapore in August, I fell under the beguiling spell of Rene Lacaille, the musician from La Reunion, so his was the first name I pencilled in when I saw the line-up of artists for WOMEX. Rene mostly played guitar on his recent album with the American guitarist Bob Brozman, but I asked him to bring the accordion featured on his previous album, Patanpo. On the first song, Rene sang as he played, and I could see that the need to keep close to the vocal microphone was inhibiting him. When I requested an instrumental in my schoolboy French, he visibly relaxed, leaned back, and proceeded to attack the buttons like a boogie-woogie pianist. The live audience was transfixed.

As there were only three microphones available for the musicians, I assured the WDR engineers we would never use more than two musicians at a time, forgetting that I had agreed that Pape & Cheikh could play as a four-piece. Overcoming their alarm as we shifted our table to make room for the unexpectedly large ensemble, the engineers pointed one microphone towards lead vocalist Pape Fall, aimed the second at the guitars and the third at the percussionist. The balance was just fine and listeners at home could never have guessed how improvised it all was.

Among several world music labels with Network in their names, Germany's Network Medien has set the standard for compilations with their series of sumptuous 2-CD book-shaped packages, starting with Desert Blues in 1995. Compiler Jean Trouillet vividly conveyed the torment involved in finding the perfect sequence, aiming for what he called a coherent symphony. After exploring various other generic themes including Balkan Blues, Jean has returned to the Sahara for Desert Blues 2. The label's founder Christian Scholze described some of the adventurous journeys that lay behind Island Blues, my favourite compilation this year One of its revelations is a song by the band led by Oswin Chin Behilia from Curacao, who enchanted us with a couple of pretty ballads accompanied only with acoustic guitar.

Among the highlights of this year's WOMEX was the Friday night performance by the Garifuna All Stars, musicians from Belize whose magical blend of lilt and groove on electric and traditional instruments was arranged by band-leader Andy Palacio. Andy is as good a talker as he is a singer, songwriter and guitarist, and the programme finished on a high with his tribute to veteran Garifuna songwriter Paul Nabor.

Thanks to Kristi Stassinopoulou for dropping in on her way to do her performance in Hall 9; and apologies to Vinicio Capossela, who could not be fitted in. Earlier Vinicio gave one of the funniest press conferences I have ever attended, and after our show finished he ended a series of memorable performances in Hall 9 with a show that divided the onlookers. Some found him over-theatrical, while I was among those who were amused and moved, especially by the ballads which reminded me of Marty Robbins, steeped in melody with languorous, tango-like rhythms.

Thanks again to Johannes Theurer for so generously making his show available for us to share. A passing English delegate asked his companion, who is that person Charlie is calling 'Your Highness'?

I'll be interested to hear how it sounded back at home.

We broadcast from 8 to 10 every Saturday Night on BBC London on 94.9 FM in the London area and worldwide at www.bbc.co.uk/london

Tracks marked with '*' were chosen by Johannes Theurer.