For
first time arrivals to Montreal’s world famous Les Nuits
d’Afrique festival (African Nights Festival), now in
its 38th year, the main draw is the incredible diversity of
music that translates into 13 days of indoor concerts and
six days of free, non-stop outdoor shows that begin early
in the afternoon and run until late in the evening under the
magnificent Montreal skyline. For the outdoor shows, as if
favoured by the celestial bodies that make up the music of
the spheres, both sun and moon add their natural light to
a city and festival famous for 
both
its lights and highlights.
The
festival programmers -- led by the indomitable Sépopo
Galley for whom budget restrictions are overcome as easily
as turning water into wine -- make sure that audiences, as
diverse as the eclectic line up of music, will be exposed
to the full gamut of indigenous African instruments as well
as music that has been influenced by Africa (let’s call
that world music) and in turn how the world’s music
has influenced the generic African soundscape. If that all
that sounds like a synergy made in heaven where no one gets
left behind, that will be merely one of any number of discoveries
that arise out of the festival dynamic. It might take a few
days, which will include a day spent in the grassy downtown
venue in Place des Spectacles, but for those who stay the
course they will discover that Les Nuits is as much a cultural
as a music festival. Which begs the question of what is meant
by culture?
If
culture refers to the way of life and accomplishments of a
people occupying a demarcated terrain, then Les Nuits, one
of Montreal’s great advertisements to the world, is
surely a culture onto itself as well as serving as a template
for similar festivals around the world. If you want to know
how to grow a festival from scratch, this event is a textbook
on organization and logistics.
For
a festival goer, it’s impossible not to be regaled by
the panoply of colours and styles that beguile the curious
eye. With all due respect to the one-nation-one-people concept,
the incredible diversity that is Africa offers a palette such
as you’ve never seen, beginning with the incredible
variety of hairdos (cornrows, boxbraids) where natty hair
is miraculously transmuted into dazzling pyramidical edifices
that seems to refute the laws of physics. Last but not least
is the Timbuktu market place, which is Africa’s home
away from home. Among items you’re not likely to find
anywhere else are a variety of root based curatives and herbal
concoctions, as well as precious olive wood carvings, and
a wide assortment of native apparel and jewellery.
Forming
a welcoming perimeter around the sight are exotic food stalls,
and dance and music ateliers where the musicians explain the
origins of Africa’s percussion and stringed instruments
and their lasting legacy. No wonder a day at the festival
feels like a day of travelling -- begging to be repeated.
And there’s no mistaking the vibe: everybody dresses
down with the backside doing all the talking; and the lingua
franca is bongos – not Bach.
The
show that best captured the cultural essence of the festival
was provided by the African Circus group Kalabante from Guinea.
When the curtain lifts, the stage is dusky going on dark,
the figures more shadowy than real but for the flickering
light from a kerosene lamp – the scene evoking the acoustic
space of ancestral Africa. With the arrival of dawn, the eye
picks out four djembes perched on a stilt-like structure as
an energetic tribal dance begins, concentrating the attention
of the villagers. Then the lights grow bright, the new day
arrives, from the 21-stringed kora a peaceful but plaintive
murmur fills the air, while preternaturally nimble acrobats
are climbing on top of each other, the shoulders serving as
pillars, human flesh reaching to the sky with an ease that
makes a mockery of gravity. In a transition that thoroughly
delights the ear, the calming campfire music is now combustible
as the listener is transported into 21st century Africa, led
by a mind-altering bass line and counterpoint djembe percussion,
with the electrified kora spitting out a frenzy of notes that
evokes modern jazz as the saxophone completes the fusion that
builds up to a state of rapture -- just as the human pyramid
reaches the heavens. The evening was a revelation not to be
missed, and despite the biblical rains earlier in the day
there wasn’t an empty seat to be had.
Like
no other city in North America, multi-lingual Montreal is
the perfect place to stage Les Nuits d’Afrique. Immigrants
from Africa, Brazil and Latin America make Montreal their
home and they give to the city a cultural edge with which
very few places on the planet can compete. And for listeners
willing to bring themselves to music that falls outside the
mainstream, Les Nuits is the great enabler since most of the
musicians are able to bridge the long bridge between their
ancestral (tribal) roots and modernity.
The
festival was opened by Kira from Brazil at Montreal’s
iconic Club Balattou. With an emphasis on percussion, his
sound, as if deliberately flouting the influence of his famous
father (Mano Choa), evoked the pounding rhythms and harmonies
of Cuba. And there were enough alt-intervals to keep the music
interesting. Theirs was not a music to sit still to; from
the outset the dance floor was buzzing.
For
those looking for the pure Brazilian sound, which is a cross-fertilization
between traditional Portuguese and the music of Brazil’s
black population, Luiz Salgado delivered the goods. Playing
original compositions, he brought a seductively rich and elastic
voice to his playlist, beautifully backed up by sometimes
haunting, highly original guitar work, and wonderfully extended
intros that were songs unto themselves. What sets him apart
from lesser guitarists is his use of open strings, which provides
depth and unique harmonic structures that allow his music
to carve out a niche in a genre of music that has found a
home everywhere in the world. His under-attended show was
one of the under-reported highlights of the festival.
As
to the best voice of the festival, and with all due respect
to Rutshelle Guillaume, that 
honour
goes to Trinidad’s Queen Omega, of Rastafarian faith,
who along with L’Entouloup starred in the main event
(Grand Evenement) of the festival. Her reggae influenced sound
informed most of her rousing repertoire, but it’s the
voice we’ll remember. For sheer power that turns gravel
into glass, and for good measure stops tsunamis in their tracks,
it was force of nature. If during a typical reggae concert
it’s the bottom notes in the bass that buzzes (vibrates)
the body, with Queen Omega its her cobalt clean voice that
transfixes the listener, an ability usually reserved for the
great opera singers. She made a convincing case that it’s
just a matter of time before “top rankin” comes
her way.
My
first thought, when L’Entourloop’s two turn-tablers
took the stage and did their thing to pre-recorded tracks,
was just how far away from Africa (from terra firma)
is the new music. That initial impression that was reinforced
when two post-modern rappers took over the show. My second
thought is that the least interesting thing one can say about
any music is that s/he doesn’t like it. The audience
lapped it up like a dry cat’s tongue on a saucer of
3.5% milk, begging the question what is it that attracts listeners
to monotonic music? That music might be the world’s
most all-purpose (insinuating) pharmaceutical is perhaps an
idea that deserves a serious hearing. Or, as Stew sings from
the award-winning musical Passing
Strange, “There’s a melody
for every malady.”
In
the spirit of a programming concept introduced last year,
the 7 pm slot at the Loto Quebec stage was dedicated to 
the
female voice: Cuba, Cameroon, Haiti, Chad and Columbia were
represented. Among the highlights was Columbia’s Stephanie
Osorio who lit up the stage with her willowy, breeze-friendly,
multi-coloured attire which set the tone for her confident,
limpid vocalise and impeccable phrasing that were joined,
sometimes note for note, by her creative clarinetist. The
group travelled the traditional Columbian sound to a new place.
It will be interesting to see what kind of mileage Osorio
gets out of her original material that combines Latino folk
and electric.
One
of the biggest challenges for the festival programmers is
finding the sweet spot between the familiar and music that
lies outside the listener’s comfort zone, a repertoire
that navigates between the past perfect and present indicative.
The Moroccan group Zar Electric showed the huge crowd how
it’s done. Their music typically begins in the deep
quiet of a place outside of time, via a primitive stringed
instrument and a mournful, pleading voice that speaks to the
hard scrabble life where the necessities of life are often
in short supply. Very gradually, the percussion picks up before
going into overdrive, as the stringed instruments -- Anass
Zina’s oud and Arthur Péneau kora -- turn electric
as if being fed by a dynamo; and in no time, which is now
time, the entire Kasbah is rocking. Issuing out of Péneau
amplified,
time-warped kora were blistering solos that burst out of his
instrument like sparks in the night. Zar Electric was easily
one of the festival highlights, as was all the mesmerizing
music from the Maghreb.
When
we visit the great cities of the past, we want to see their
monuments, their old city centres, the ancient suqs and market
places. We don’t want to see Manhattan in Bamako or
Fez. We don’t want to hear Adele in Old Delhi or Rihanna
in Riyadh. That wish was number one on my festival bucket
list, and it was awesomely answered by Sofaz, whose musicians
come from Morocco, Reunion Island and Burkina Faso. Their
music and staging is exactly what you would hear and see if
you’re there in person, and despite their predominately
electric sound and the pre-recorded percussion tracks, there
was never any doubting the music’s authenticity and
rootedness in place and culture. The power of rapturous chanting
and dance was shown to great advantage, throwing into bold
relief the ecstasy we associate with Sufi frenzy. Sofaz provided
yet another memorable interval of Maghreb magic.
One
of the unintended effects of Les Nuits d’Afrique is
to make festival goers -- especially those that attend for
more than a day -- realize that there is no setting limits
on the power of music and culture to win the day. Thirteen
days of music and celebration is a timely reminder that the
world’s power brokers are powerless when it comes to
appreciating world culture in all its remarkable plenitude,
and as such, they are to a fault the default impoverished
ones.
Les
Nuits d'Afrique is a statement of intent: that empires rise
and fall, but music and culture are forever, transcending
time and place. Les Nuits is an opportunity to get on board
and be part of a collective experience that makes us all better
and wiser, in a world that seems to be stuck in reverse. Les
Nuits is synonymous with optimism (yes we can) and healing,
and is a timeless reminder of the curative effects of being
in the presence of the act of creation.
To
all of those who made it happen, beginning with festival founder
Lamine Touré and his dynamic director Suzanne Rousseau:
shukraan, obrigado, merci, thank you, jerejef, gracias, weebale,
gha-ana.
Suffice
to say, the 39th edition can’t come soon enough.
All
photos ©Jerry Prindle
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