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Album review
Authenticité, The Syliphone Years
The Guinean Label’s Golden Age
Paris
23/08/2007 -
Guineans celebrated the dawn of a new era in 1958, waking up to their newly won independence. But once the celebrations had died down, President Sékou Touré was faced with a harsh reality. After years of French cultural influence, the former colony had totally lost touch with its musical heritage and its own cultural roots. When President Touré wished to organise a grand musical gala in Guinea, he had to call in ET Mensah, the Ghanean king of high-life, because no local group had ever developed a repertoire based on traditional home-grown songs and rhythms.
In a bid to turn this disastrous situation around, President Touré instituted a government initiative based on reviving authentic Guinean culture and creating a popular style of Guinean music by modernising tradition. President Touré saw in this cultural initiative a vital means of forging an all-important sense of national pride amongst his compatriots.
National orchestras were set up in Guinea and members automatically acquired the status of civil servants. Meanwhile, each individual region of Guinea organised its own federal orchestra. The orchestras were encouraged to compete on a regular basis, coming together at a national contest which involved pre-selection auditions across the country before a grand final in Conakry.
Meanwhile, the state-owned label Syliphone played a supportive role in this elaborate national structure. Syliphone was responsible for releasing 33rpm and 45rpm recordings by the best groups in the land. These were made in the studio of the national radio station which dipped into these precious music archives to fill its programmes, Western sounds having been banned from the airwaves.
Authenticité, The Syliphone Years features two music-packed CDs, both lasting well over an hour, the first covering the sounds of 1965-1972, the second devoted to the golden years from 1972 to 1980. Both CDs reflect the Guinean music scene as an exceptional hotbed of creativity, a creativity fuelled by the fierce spirit of competition fostered in the country at the time.
Listen to the phenomenal series of successive solos on Kouma, recorded by the 22 Novembre Band (that rose like a phoenix out of the ashes of the defunct Horoya Band) and you’ll get some idea of the ambition that drove individual musicians to grab their moment in the spotlight. Meanwhile, on other tracks, the legendary Guinean guitarist Sékou Diabaté and his equally famous saxophonist compatriot Momo Wandel prove their musical mettle as formidable instrumentalists.
The 28 tracks on this compilation, taken from Syliphone’s extensive back catalogue and many of them available here for the first time on CD, present an almost exhaustive panorama of the Guinean music scene from these years. Lie back and listen to the compelling sound of Kélétigui et ses Tambourinis, L’Orchestre de la Paillote, Le Super Boiro Band and, of course, the legendary Orchestre de Beyla (who went on to become Le Bembeya Jazz National when the orchestra was “nationalised” in 1966). The box-set retrospective comes complete with an in-depth booklet as richly illustrated as it is researched, making Authenticité one of those authentic music collectibles that is as enjoyable to look at as it is to listen to!Bertrand Lavaine
Translation : Julie Street
11/03/2011 -
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