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Manu Dibango
Music's veteran all-rounder
Paris
20/03/2007 -
RFI Musique: You've just released a jazz album entitled Manu Dibango joue Sydney Bechett (Manu Dibango plays Sydney Bechett). When you were a teenager, Bechett and Armstrong were potent symbols of Afro-American music for you. I wonder if, somewhere down the line, this album shouldn't be seen as a youthful 70-something realising a childhood dream…
Manu Dibango: Well put! I think on the whole I've been a fairly lucky guy in life. That's not saying I haven't had my share of problems along the way, but when I have been lucky it's always revolved around being in the right place at the right time. I was lucky enough to have been in France in the '50s, the great era of Boris Vian and Edith Piaf… That was an amazingly fertile period when a lot of black Americans came over and played in France… I was lucky enough to find myself dancing to Bechett's soprano sax at the Théâtre du Vieux Colombier (in Paris) one night. Sydney Bechett was one of the biggest stars in France in the '50s! But you have to place things in context, of course. That was a time of great joy and optimism. People had just come out of the war years and we didn't have the same problems as now... There was this great cultural melting-pot bubbling away and I guess I just sort of fell into it – it was like Asterix falling into his magic potion. The amazing thing is that magic potion was so powerful I'm still feeding off it today!
Why make a jazz album now, though?
There are several reasons, really. For a long time now people have turned round and said, "Ah well! Manu Dibango doesn't do jazz!" But I'm a musician who's interested in all forms of music. I've spent a lot of my career playing jazz and I've performed with a lot of jazzmen including Herbie Hancock and a lot of other big stars. It was the tragic events in New Orleans that really decided me, though. What's more, there were a lot of other disasters around the same time, like the big plane crash in the French West Indies and the riots in the French suburbs… That all got to me and worked away in my brain and I finally decided to pay tribute to my people through the music of Sydney Bechett and New Orleans. This album's based on our common culture. The way I see it, jazz is a beautiful flower that manages to grow even out of the dunghill. And the way I see it that dunghill is four centuries of slavery!
At the start of this year fans were treated to the re-issue of Africadelic, a supremely funky album that was very much the product of its time (1973)…
Back then, around 1972, the year I made Soul Makossa, I was doing a lot of different things. There was Soul Makossa in February, Africadelic in the autumn and then there was another album, O Bosso, which had nothing to do with the other stuff. But we ended up sticking Soul Makossa on it because, for business reasons, we needed to bring the track out on an album…. Shortly after that, in the second half of the '70s, I started composing film music. That was way before Kirikou… Back when I started out in this business there was no such thing as a structured career plan… You had to try your luck all over the place…
Talking of delving into other domains, you recently presided over FESPACO, the pan-African film festival in Ouagadougou. Is film an important part of your life or do you just enjoy composing film soundtracks?
No, I've always been a big film fan – although, I have to admit a bit less so now because there are too many special effects in movies these days. Back in my day I was a total film buff. You could ask me anything about Hollywood movies or any of Jouvet, Gabin or Blier's films… I come from a music-hall tradition, so I can really relate to cinema… There are so many films that were really carried by their soundtrack, absolute classics like Shaft and Doctor Zhivago… All those films showed how sound and image could interact. I think it was important for FESPACO to use a musician as a symbol…
…Important for them to choose someone like Manu Dibango, too, a veteran icon of African culture who happens to be celebrating 50 years in the music business at the Casino de Paris on 20 March. What will the anniversary concert be like?
We're obviously going to try and make it one big party! Basically, the concert's going to be a sort of jubilee in two parts. First up, there'll be a tribute to New Orleans featuring the orchestra I recorded the album with. Then the second part of the show will be more African. Let's just say Manu as an Afro-European musician from Cameroon. But, you know, it's a pretty tough call, squeezing 50 years of career into two hours on stage…
You've explored some very diverse music styles in the course of your career. Is there any particular sound that stands out to you on the current scene?
The phenomenon I'm interested in right now is slam. I think the French language is currently being given a totally new lease of life thanks to all the MCs like Solaar and Abd Al Malik who've introduced a new, more rhythmic, vision of French. Up until now, it looked like only guys from Quebec could make French swing. Very few people realise it but there's a linguistic revolution going on on the underground right now. And mark my words this is where the future lies!
Concert at the Casino de Paris, 20 March 2007
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