Ambiance Kalle Catho

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Grand Kalle, "Ambiance Kalle Catho" (download until 1/31/09), from "African Pearls 1: Congo - Rumba on the River."

I have very little to offer in terms of information about the performers or even the context of the production. I don't know precisely when it was recorded. This was given to me by a friend, and I've never read the liner notes. Just a record (even in mp3 form, it's still a record) I listen to constantly.

One of the huge flaws in the way people in the United States tend to view and discuss "World Music" is that in this country we tend to think of the term in a continental sense, with the sole exception of music from "the Pacific." It might be correct in some circumstances to do this, but unfortunately what tends to happen is that people talk about African music as a thing, but wouldn't dream of lumping Polish music in with French. The categories mirror the 19th century imperialist view of the world which still, as Marx put it, "weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living."

It's not odd for African people to talk about Africa as a generality and have some sense of continental unity, and indeed this sort of suprised me when I stayed in Senegal for eight months. I sort of assumed it would be rude to talk about Africa, and made a point to say to myself, "I'm in Senegal. It's specific. It's not just 'Africa.'" But while people were certainly aware of the specificity of Senegal I was struck by how much talk there was of "Africa."

That said, the category, "Africa," doesn't always make musical sense when you're listening to the music of the Diaspora. One should, depending on the music, categorize it as "Atlantic" music, because that's precisely what it is. Orchestra Baobab and other African salsa groups--though there's a lot more to Baobab than just "salsa"--get portrayed often as somehow taking something of the Americas--something Cuban, in this case--and then working it into, depending on how one discusses it, something unique or something merely derivative.

This misses the fact that Cuba is part of Africa in every sense except the geological. No other way to conceive of it. Salsa is as foreign to Africa as country music was to Bakersfield in the 1950's and 1960's. Different regions of the Diaspora have different accents--like Senegalese salsa is different that Congolese or Cuban--but they speak as it were the same language, if possible in different, though mutually intelligible, dialects.

Of note in this recording is the guitar work. It's absolutely elegant, and the grace with which it builds from backing up the singing to taking a solo is breathtakingly subtle. So, so easy to say, so difficult to actually do.