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Gwotet Project
American Sax Meets the Drums of Guadeloupe
Paris
25/08/2004 -
"The album’s called ‘Gwotet’ which means ‘big heads’ in Creole," explains Klod Kiavué, the 43-year-old drumming virtuoso from Guadeloupe, "The title was David Murray’s idea. He wanted to try and define a new kind of music, a music that comes from bringing very different musicians together. This album’s not just about gwo ka or funky avant-garde jazz, it’s about ‘great black music’ in general."
Murray appears to be right in his insistence on avoiding attempts to label and categorise this fusion, for the "Creole Project" brings together a truly eclectic mix of talents and influences from an area that Paul Gilroy (a sociologist at Goldsmith’s College in London) defines as "the Black Atlantic." Murray gathers a clan of Afro-American cousins together, pooling the individual talents of gwo ka drummers François Ladrezeau and Klod Kiavué with that of John Coltrane’s legendary tenor sax sideman, Pharoah Sanders, drummer Hamid Drake, a crisp Cuban brass section and wizard guitarists Christian Laviso (from the French West Indies) and Hervé Sambe (from Senegal).
The ‘dream team’ cast on the album Gwotet was born of an encounter between Murray and Kiavué when the American and the Guadeloupean met at the "Banlieue Bleue" festival staged in the Paris suburbs almost a decade ago now. Murray was in charge of organising a gospel workshop at the festival, while Kiavué was busy initiating youngsters into the exhilarating rhythms which had been banned from use on the ka drums. "What happened in the States was slaves didn’t preserve the tradition of the hand drums," Kiavué says, "The tradition they kept was gospel music. Murray was instantly drawn to gwo ka drums because, like jazz, they offer incredible scope for improvisation. You can play an amazing amount of different rhythms on them."
Murray and Kiavué worked in close collaboration following their encounter at “Banlieue Bleue,” Murray inviting the Guadeloupean drummer to guest on his tribute to Duke Ellington and Kiavué returning the invitation by asking the American sax star into the studio to record an album with his group Wopso. Meanwhile, Murray moved to Paris, where he continued his policy of rubbing shoulders with Creole musicians in "the second capital of gwo ka." "Paris is still this amazing cultural city where you have a lot of musicians from the French West Indies hanging out and working together," Kiavué says, "I come from a generation which has always revolved around the idea of different musicians hooking up together. Before I came to work with Murray, there were other major collaborations in my career like working with Lubat. But this time round it’s like the singer Guy Konket says, this is special because this is basically the ‘cane blues’ meets the ‘cotton blues.’ "
Kiavué was responsible for introducing Murray to the legendary Guadeloupean ka-drummer Konket. This encounter with "Guadeloupe’s Fela" set the seal on Volume II of the "Creole Project"(after the first instalment recorded in Guadeloupe in 1997). Kiavué also took Murray along to traditional Lewoz* ceremonies and other kinds of wild jam sessions, but admits he took something of a risk in doing so. "The first time we played back home, I felt a lot of pressure," he admits, "People were coming up to me saying, ‘What’s all this about you bringing Americans over here to play gwo ka?’ But I think we ended up proving that we haven’t betrayed the spirit of gwo ka in any way. That’s why it’s lasted."
Recorded in Cuba, Gwotet, the third album in the Creole series, is decidedly more funkier than its predecessors, the overall sound frequently verging on Afro-beat. And its Creole lyrics are supported by the relentlessly energetic groove of drummer Hamid Drake, whose drumkit often seems to overpower the beats of the ka. "We weren’t involved in the mixing side of things," says Kiavué’s fellow ka-drummer François Ladrezeau, almost apologetically. "I listen to things with my spirit rather than my physical ears, so I can really hear the drums on the album. I pick up on something mystical in Mr. Murray and Mr Sanders’s playing. It’s like their music transports you to another place, but there’s also an element of social struggle in there, too. I really feel they’ve understood our language".
This language is one that François Ladrezeau has transmitted far beyond the frontiers of the Lewoz over the past few years, working with reggae-dancehall acts like Ti-Wony and rising young talent Admiral T. Thus it is that veteran ka musicians, who have fought to preserve the seven ‘banned’ rhythms of their instrument over the years, are banding together with the new stars of tomorrow. Gwo ka, a genre which was rejected and looked down upon for years, is now undergoing a revival thanks to dub, ragga and jazz.
Meanwhile, the Gwotet project appears to have struck a chord on the dancefloor. DJs, such as Afro-beat-ophile Doctor L, have leapt on the chance of remixing gwo ka. "Back home in Guadeloupe, people tend to be very suspicious when it comes to meeting strangers, especially foreigners," says Kiavué. "But this is 2004. I don’t think it would be right for us to keep the gwo ka for ourselves. If the gwo ka carry a language for the whole of humanity, then even DJs should be able to use them in their work. A lot of people believe that you should be very protective of your traditional music heritage, but I don’t feel I’ve betrayed its laws in any way. I’d say I’m simply aware that you have to open the door to others, because if you don’t tradition gradually dies out and disappears."
*cultural get-togethers in Guadeloupe which involve singing and dancing to the ‘boula’ and ‘maké’ (two types of ka drum)
David Murray & the Gwo-Ka Masters featuring Pharoah Sanders Gwotet (Justin Time Records) 2004
Elodie Maillot
Translation : Julie Street
