Balla Daffe

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Orchestra Baobab, "Balla Daffe" (download until 2/15/09), from "Pirates Choice."

I've been very fortunate to see Orchestra Baobab a number of times, in Dakar. Their records do actually do them some justice, but what one gets on record, particularly their beautifully recorded two records made since they reformed, and in performance in the United States and Europe (from what I can see from videos--I've never seen them in the States), is a bit more dressed-up than what I saw in Dakar. Not better or worse in the least. Baobab are nothing if not professionals, and they tailor what they do to fit the situation. If I had to recommend a single Baobab record to someone I'd pick "Specialist in All Styles," and not just for the nostalgia the artwork inspires. It's one of the more beautifully performed, recorded, tight records I know of. Moderately long if you watch the clock, but it speeds by when one just listens.

However: the Baobab I heard in Dakar is closer to this Baobab, the Baobab of "Pirates' Choice," than anything on their recent records. I heard them in 2005-6, I'd note. Their performances are no less tight than any of their other records or performances, but they are more buttoned-down. We have a rare thing in Orchestra Baobab: a group of (more or less) elder musicians who haven't lost any joy at all in playing music or playing music with each other. You can't fake personal relationships when music is involved, even if the relationship between the players is strictly musical, like that between Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli. I have a feeling that different members of Baobab are closer to each other than to others, but that they're really family.



Above is video from the club at which I saw Baobab. Ben Geloun, who on records and on tour plays rhythm guitar, here plays lead. Barthelemy Attisso, justifiably famous for his lead guitar, apparently only joins for tours and recordings. I assume he stays in Togo most of the time. In any event, Ben Geloun is absolutely brilliant, as one can see from the video. The key here, though, is just the ease of the performance, and the clear, casual affection the musicians have for each other.

I have never seen this particular track referred to as one of Baobab's best, but I can't think of one of their tunes I like more. The guitar lead is one of the single most memorable lines I know of, and the way it snakes around the metric structure, syncopating in a way that the word "syncopation" never comes to mind because it's such an obviously correct musical phrase, is absolutely mind-blowing. It's also typical Baobab in taking another society's musical form--reggae in this case--and playing it in a completely unique, identifiably African way.

One really must say "African," because the group itself is as cosmopolitan as African societies are. That's worth mentioning. We often get taught in the States that Africa is fraught with ethnic conflict, and shown the different flash points on the news. The assumption is that somehow the nasty racism that infects our society is somehow normal for people. And indeed, the people who were taken away as slaves for so many centuries so their labor power could build this country were just as prone to ethnic violence as in the U.S. But the violence one sees in post-colonial Africa is very rarely ethnic in origin, even if there are examples of it taking an ethnic form. There's almost always a much more important political or more often economic root cause, and any African can explain this to you. The norm in Africa is cosmopolitanism. Your average African knows three or four languages, plus most often a bit of the colonial language, in varying degrees of proficiency. Dakar is in this sense the African city par excellence. I've never been to a more diverse place in my life, excepting possibly New York City. Baobab, much more than Youssou N'Dour, is the Dakar musical act par excellence, not only for the quality of the music but because of the cosmopolitanism.