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Album review

Richard Bona

Bona Makes You Sweat

Paris

04/04/2008 -

The Cameroonian singer and bass-player Richard Bona - a much sought-after figure on the international music scene these days - has just released the first live album of his career. The appropriately-titled Bona Makes You Sweat, the bassist’s fifth solo album to date, immortalises a concert he performed in Hungary in 2007. This remarkable live recording captures the unique atmosphere the globe-trotting showman whips up live on stage wherever he goes.

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"After every concert I’ve ever played, I get people coming up saying they’d love to have a souvenir of the show. That’s the reason I recorded this album - for my fans!", declares Richard Bona, flashing his customary grin. Bona Makes You Sweat certainly keeps the promise the bass virtuoso makes in his title. Recorded during the summer of 2007 at Budapest’s A 38 club, the album (accompanied by a bonus video) transports listeners straight into the heaving audience, capturing the intimate feel of the surroundings and Bona’s upbeat performance on stage.

"Hungarians have proved to be some of the loyalest fans I have in the world!", affirms Bona. And the world-famous bassist repays those Hungarian fans in style on his eight-track live. Bona Makes You Sweat kicks off as it means to go on, sweeping us up on a brassy Latin jazz high with Engingilaye & Te Dikalo - a brilliant track which lasts over 13 minutes with every minute surpassing the last! Later in the proceedings, on Kivu & Suninga, the bassist also pays tribute to his free-jazz influences circa Weather Report and the late great Joe Zawinul.

A few tracks on, with the superb Indiscretions & Please Don’t, Bona stands up there live on stage and proves - lest there should linger even the slightest doubt - that as an instrumentalist he has a voice to rival the great George Benson’s. Bona is intent on showing off the many facets of that vocal timbre on Samaouma, an ‘a cappella’ polyphony which recalls the church songs he performed as a young boy growing up in Minta, his home village in eastern Cameroon.

Bona keeps in-between-song chit-chat to the strict minimum, simply throwing in a compulsory "thank you" here and there. But he more than makes up for this taciturnity via his vibrant bass-playing. Once he picks up his chosen instrument, the musician - who has lived and breathed New York for years now - infuses his playing with the most communicative of grooves. This eight-track live, which comes in the wake of four studio albums in his own name, allows Bona to show off his formidable showman skills. "And that’s what I am first and foremost - a showman! I’m always out on the road, either touring in the U.S. or in Europe like I am now. I get a big kick out of playing for other people!"

Meanwhile, fans will be reassured to know that a new Bona studio album is already in the can. For let’s not forget, the flamboyant showman is also a committed workaholic in the studio. During his long-haul tours, which involve countless bouts of flight-swapping and hotel-hopping, Bona never loses a minute of songwriting time thanks to his portable studio which inevitably follows him wherever he goes.