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Special report
Youssou N’Dour and the Retour à Gorée Jazz Project
"You" at the Montreux Jazz Festival
Montreux
10/07/2007 -
Voyage of discovery
Following the daytime march through the streets, Youssou found himself in the spotlight again that night, opening the 41st edition of Montreux, one of the most prestigious jazz festivals in Europe. And the concert he gave on this occasion was a truly exceptional event, for the prodigy from Dakar’s Medina was not performing with his usual band, The Super Etoile, but with the all-star jazz band he formed for his Retour à Gorée Jazz Project. This musical voyage of discovery took Youssou from Gorée (the island off the coast of Dakar which has come to symbolise the slave trade) to the U.S. where he played with leading American jazzmen in New York, Atlanta and New Orleans, before returning to Gorée with the musicians he had hooked up with en route. In the course of their collaboration, the group built up an original repertoire made up of Youssou’s compositions, rearranged jazz-style, as well as reworkings of jazz classics. The Retour à Gorée project also spawned an award-winning documentary by Pierre-Yves Borgeaud (due out this autumn).
The idea for the project arose in the U.S. back in 1999 when Youssou performed at the Cully Jazz Festival. Emmanuel Gettaz, a producer and co-founder of the festival and the Swiss pianist Moncef Genoud suggested to Youssou that he should inject a number of his songs with a jazz flavour. And the project matured in the Senegalese star’s mind for many years after that. Youssou, who proclaims that "jazz is a product of slavery", could think of no better way of making his point than heading out from Gorée, hooking up with a bunch of talented jazz musicians, and then bringing them back to the point where it all began.
Accompanied by the pianist Moncef Genoud, Youssou headed off to rehearse with drummer Idris Muhammad in an empty New Orleans, still traumatised by the recent passage of Hurricane Katrina. After that, Youssou was welcomed “African-style” in New Jersey by the American musician and writer Amiri Baraka, aka Leroi Jones, author of Blues People: Negro Music in White America (1968), an acclaimed book about the way in which Africa influenced the emergence of black music in the States.
Another memorable moment in Youssou’s voyage of discovery came in Atlanta where he worked with a gospel choir. “I’d never been into a church before where people were actually worshipping,” the Senegalese star says, “Anyway, there we were rehearsing and we got round to doing the song My Hope is in You… but when the gospel choir struck up the chorus they started singing about Jesus! Well, I’ve got nothing against Jesus, but I happen to be a Muslim, so I stopped them in their tracks and told them the song’s about children not Jesus… It was a total clash, a striking symbol of the differences between cultures… And when I took the American choir back to Gorée they were all so moved in the “Maison des Esclaves” (the slave museum) that they broke down and cried." Back in Gorée, Youssou took to the stage with his musicians from the Retour à Gorée project for an emotionally-charged concert and their second performance together at Montreux was to be no less momentous.
"Not a big jazz fan!"
Taking to the stage at the Miles Davis Hall in Montreux, where they followed Ismaël Lô’s ultra-danceable concert, the Retour à Gorée project toned the tempo down a notch, launching into a smooth jazz set featuring compositions by Youssou and the different musicians. Seated at the piano, Moncef Genoud, the musical ‘guide’ in the whole venture, introduced the line-up: Idris Muhammad on drums, Grégoire Maret on harmonica, vocalist Pyeng Threadgill from Brooklyn and James Cammack on double bass and, of course, the great Youssou up front.
Senegalese music fans had turned out to the concert in force, expecting a Dakar-style second part of the evening where Youssou would get the crowd up on their feet. But there was not a hint of m’balax in the show all night. Youssou was there to play jazz, jazz and nothing but jazz! The atmosphere got quite tense at one point when Senegalese fans started chanting "You!!" “You!!” and jazz fans turned round in their seats and asked them to be quiet or leave. (A similar disruption happened at the Sacred Music Festival in Fes, in 2004, when Youssou presented tracks from his album Egypte). Speaking backstage in his dressing-room an hour before the show, Youssou had warned everyone that he is not "a big fan of jazz in the real sense of the term. I still find free jazz pretty difficult, in fact, but I’ve always been interested in the freedom and space jazz gives musicians. People may find it confusing, but I’ve always refused to let myself get pigeon-holed in any one particular style. I enjoy the freedom of roaming across the musical spectrum. And if anyone tried to take that away from me, I’d stop playing tomorrow!"
Prix Suissimage/ SSA du Meilleur Documentaire Suisse – Visions du réel 2007
For further info: www.retouragoree.com
Eglantine Chabasseur
Translation : Julie Street
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