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Album review


Wendo Kolosoy

On The Rumba River


Paris 

07/01/2008 - 

Wendo Kolosoy - better known to fans as “Papa Wendo” - made an acclaimed comeback on the world music scene five years ago with a self-titled album. Now he is back in the spotlight with On The Rumba River, an album that serves as the soundtrack to Jacques Sarasin’s film about Wendo, one of the Congolese music scene’s most respected rumba veterans.

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"Papa Wendo”, a sprightly rumba singer now in his eighties, has earned the status of living legend in his native Congo. And rightly so! Wendo helped lay the foundations of rumba, a sound that ended up taking the entire African continent by storm. He made his name rocketing to fame with his immensely popular hit, Marie-Louise, back in 1948.

So it is fitting that Papa Wendo’s new album, On The Rumba River., should open with Marie-Louise (albeit in a 1993 version, not the original). Wendo’s latest offering features twelve tracks in all, recorded at different stages of his career. The oldest songs on the album date back to the early ‘70s, the most recent to 2004, the year director Jacques Sarasin - renowned for his 2002 feature film Je chanterai pour toi about the Malian guitarist Boubacar "Karkar" Traoré - arrived in Kinshasa to start filming Wendo in action.

While even the most committed rumba fans would concede that the Golden Age of Rumba is now consigned to history, the heroes of this Golden Age do not appear to be in any hurry to hang up their instruments. Rumba continues to flow through their veins with a vengeance - and Wendo and his peers do not seem to be planning career changes anytime soon! Rumba is their life and when these friends from the good old days get together to play, their collective joy is as contagious as their fast and furious rhythms.

What does it matter if the sound quality of a track like Interlude is not of top recording quality? The magic of these six exceptional minutes lies in the atmosphere in the rehearsal room as Wendo’s musicians glance up from their instruments and see him walk into the room with surprise guest star Antoine Moundanda. The rumba veteran had made the journey from Brazzaville, on the other bank of the river Congo, just to be able to play his likembe with his old friends again. When Moundanda launches into his showstopping thumb-piano Improvisation, rumba sweeps listeners up on a tide of emotion. One of your top music resolutions in 2008 has to be listening to On The Rumba River!

 

Wendo Kolosoy On The Rumba River (Marabi/Harmonia Mundi) 2007

Patrick  Labesse