Menu


Orchestra Baobab - The comeback!

Baobab Social Club?


29/10/2002 - 

The world music highlight of this autumn has to be the release of a new album by legendary Senegalese band Orchestra Baobab. The group, who set the dancefloors of Dakar and the rest of West Africa alight in the '70s, have been dragged out of retirement by British producer Nick Gold (the man responsible for Cuban best-seller Buena Vista Social Club). And the Afro-granddads prove they have lost none of their magic touch. We predict a full-scale revival of other African veterans soon - so watch out for comeback albums by Voz de Cabo Verde, Guinea's Bembeya Jazz and Congo's Zaïko-Langa-Langa!

print

send

react



RFI/Musique flies out to Saint-Louis in Senegal to watch Orchestra Baobab showcase their new album:
The Senegalese veterans are on form - no doubt about that! Baobab's long, lean sax-player Issa Cissokho writhes through a series of elaborate contortions, wrenching half-weeping, half-laughing notes from his instrument. Issa is a born improviser, capable of playing any role from mischievous clown or handsome seducer to irrepressible show-off.


Standing beside him up on stage, rhythm guitarist Barthélemy Attisso could not make a more striking contrast. Placid and solidly built, Attisso is not one for showing his emotions, preferring to express his feelings through his cherished guitar as he powers out nostalgic 70s riffs, full-blown rhythm'n'blues and Hendrix-style rock. And the most amazing thing is, Attisso has not actually laid hands on a guitar for the past 15 years! Born in Togo and better-known as a barrister working at the bar in Lomé, Attisso apparently had little faith in rediscovering his famous guitar skills. But we can bear witness that his magic touch is intact and his fingers as lightning quick as ever!


Baobab's percussion section have rallied to the comeback call too and Rudy Gomis is back shaking his maracas, singing age-old choruses in his strange, troubling voice. Next to him, Balla Sidibé - looking like the most elegant and venerable old marabout - thumps away on his kettledrums, his deep, powerful voice swelling as he sings of the legendary generosity of a man from his native village of Casamance (where fellow percussionist Gomis and guitarist Charlie Ndiaye were also born). Meanwhile, Ndiouga Dieng the Wolof djéli adds his own haunting vocals to the mix, crying out the pain of his long, dark nights following the death of his father.


Médoune Diallo, the 'Cuban' of the group, adds a lighter touch to Baobab's sensual Cuban/African mix, singing rapid-rhythmed, uplifting melodies in his lilting Spanish. As for Baobab's other rhythm guitarist, Lotfi Benjelloun, he assumes the role of the group's 'philosopher.' Lotfi was actually born in Morocco but ended up growing up in northern Senegal's thriving metropolis, Saint-Louis, after his father fled the regime of the late King Hassan II. Lotfi is based in Dakar these days, as are most of Baobab's other members, but the laid-back and serene-smiling guitarist greets the Saint-Louis audience by announcing "Welcome to my hometown!"


Walking through Saint-Louis's picturesque streets filled with Caribbean-coloured houses and crumbling facades, you'd be forgiven for thinking yourself in Havana. Almost every street corner bears vestiges of a colonial past when the hot and sultry town was adopted as the capital of French West Africa. Protected from the Atlantic's heavy swell by a thin strip of land, delicately positioned in the middle of a small lake formed by the mouth of the river Senegal, Saint-Louis is a secluded island whose inhabitants live off the sales of dried fish, dreaming of the day they will attract the western tourist trade. But the town has now been put firmly on the musical map, chosen as the site of the official comeback of Senegalese heroes, Orchestra Baobab.


Baobab's official renaissance has drawn an impressive press delegation to Saint-Louis, journalists from at least a dozen European countries (including the U.K., Ireland, Italy, France, Germany and Spain) jetting out to watch the first concert Baobab have performed on their native soil in 15 years.


The Orchestra's story dates back to 1970 when one night the management of Baobab, a chic new club which had just opened its doors in the centre of Dakar, were casting about for top-quality musicians to entertain their elite clientele of African politicians, intellectuals and businessmen. The club ended up hiring six musicians from the Star Band (who played regular gigs at Baobab's rival establishment, Miami). The musicians included Sidibé, Gomis and Attisso who was playing guitar at night to finance his law studies by day. These six musicians, who formed the core of Orchestra Baobab, scored an instant hit with their strange fusion mix, adding a haunting African melancholy to vibrant Latin-American salsa beats.


The group soon built up a fervent following of hundreds of thousands of fans - which, interestingly enough, included a young son of the Dakar medina by the name of Youssou N'Dour! Years later Youssou and his group Super Etoile together with Omar Pène and his group Super Diamono rose to prominence with a fast and furious new form of mbalax - just as Baobab went into early retirement. The legendary Orchestra would leave some 20 vinyl LPs behind for posterity.


By a strange twist of fate Youssou N'Dour - who once declared his admiration for the Orchestra Baobab being "truly pan-African" - was called in to produce a couple of tracks on the group's new album. The Senegalese world star also lends his haunting, muezzin-style vocals to Hommage à Tonton Ferrer (a moving tribute to Ibrahim Ferrer, the former Havana shoe-shiner turned Cuban superstar, who also guests on this melancholy bolero). Ferrer's presence on Baobab's new album says a lot in itself.


After all, it was the internationally best-selling Buena Vista Social Club which sealed the comeback of the singer and his veteran Cuban counterparts decades after they'd been forgotten by their compatriots. Buena Vista Social Club has also paved the way for a new breed of 'Afro-granddads' currently relaunching their careers. Following in Ferrer and Orchestra Baobab's footsteps, let's not forget the greying panthers of Guinean band Bembeya Jazz, Zimbabwe's ageing Cool Crooners, Congo's Kékélé or the recently reformed group La Voz de Cabo Verde.


Interestingly enough, it was UK producer Nick Gold - the man behind Buena Vista Social Club - who lent his Midas studio touch to Baobab's new album. Remembering the days he used to play a bootleg copy of a Baobab album on his cassette-player in '83, Gold managed to track his erstwhile idols down and persuade them back into the studio for a comeback.

Taking to the stage at the "Quai des Arts" in Saint-Louis - in a venue which a dozen whirling ceiling fans have trouble cooling down such is the buzz of anticipation in the room! - Orchestra Baobab look to be in spanking form. What's more, the eleven-strong group includes two talented newcomers, saxophonist Thierno Koité and singer Assane Mboup whose delicate sub-Saharan vocals weave in and out of the music. Mixing their soulful, husky voices with vibrant percussion, squealing brass and vertiginous guitars, the Senegalese music veterans soon have both old and young members of the audience singing along to their classics.


As the nostalgic and the blasé join their voices in unison, belting out the chorus to Utrus Horas, Jiin Ma Jiin Ma, On verra ça, Sutukum, Ndongoy Daara and El Son Te Llama, couples take to the dancefloor, gliding around with the most sensual, hip-swaying moves. Orchestra Baobab's African "salsa" holds the audience completely wrapped in its spell throughout.

If you want to get a taste of the Senegalese veterans in action yourself, make sure you catch Orchestra Baobab in concert on their current European tour.

Orchestra Baobab Specialist In All Styles, World Circuit/Night & Day
Concert dates: Strasbourg (8 November), Roubaix (24 November), Paris (26 November).

Bouziane  Daoudi

Translation : Julie  Street