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The banjo is a muchA loved and increasinglyLONG popular instrument, but its history is less well-known. Rose Skelton talks to banjo protagonists Béla Fleck, Jayme Stone and Otis Taylor, who are all intent on highlighting its African roots TRIP HOME sparkling moment of stillness dig at the roots of the instrument. Jayme and it got relegated to traditional music and is sandwiched between Stone, a young Canadian banjo player, went to disappeared from common usage.” scenes of children singing at Mali to explore griot music and has since But the banjo’s history didn’t start there. an orphanage in the Malian recorded and toured with kora players with Ethnomusicologists reckon the instrument, capital Bamako, and a noisy their version of the banjo-meets-Africa on his now made from metal, wood and plastic, A street scene in which motorbikes, cars and 2008 album Africa to Appalachia [reviewed actually came from Africa on slave ships in donkey carts chug down a dust-lined road. in #58]. The great American bluesman Otis the form of skin and gourd lutes, like the Béla Fleck, one of modern music’s most Taylor delved into the African-American akonting of Senegal or the ngoni of Mali, the experimental banjo players, and Oumou roots of the instrument on his 2008 album latter of which has been around since at least Sangaré, arguably Africa’s most celebrated Recapturing The Banjo [reviewed in #50], the 14th century. Once these gourd

female singer, play together in a small making the point that when the blues came instruments arrived on American soil, the Above: banjo maestro Béla recording studio in Bamako; Béla picking from Africa, it came via the banjo. banjo as we know it today started to take Fleck swaps instruments with ngoni wizard Bassekou out sparse notes on the banjo with a look of So while the instrument once again seems shape. Very quickly the African roots became Béla Fleck Kouyaté for a casual jam. Left, clockwise from top left: calm anticipation on his face and Oumou to be on the rise, appearing in sell-out bands buried as the early slave songs gave way to New York City-born Béla was 15 when Béla playing with Toumani passionately calling the anguished lyrics of like the UK’s Mumford & Sons and jazz, blues and bluegrass, and the instrument he first picked up the banjo – a 1930s Diabaté; posing for the new Where’s Wally? picture book; her song ‘Djorolen.’ championed by mainstream radio DJs like took on a whole new American identity. Gibson that set him back $4,000, an with Djelimady Tounkara, who features on the track Though the pair barely make eye contact, BBC Radio 1’s Zane Lowe, other musicians Now musicians such as Béla Fleck are unheard of amount of money at that ‘Mariam’; enchanting another group with his banjo the tenderness shared is deeply moving, and are starting to ask the question, where did this starting to unpack the whole banjo story. time. He was inspired to play by the playing on his journey it’s as if the viewer has been given a glimpse of instrument come from? During a year off from his improvisational legendary banjo player Earl Scruggs through Africa a private exchange between old friends. While Most of us think of the banjo as a symbol banjo-jazz ensemble The Flecktones, and (now 86), an instrumental figure in the it feels as if the two have been playing together of southern white American music, a central suffering what he describes as “being in a funk” bluegrass style; as well as being for a lifetime, in reality their relationship has part of mid-20th century country, folk and – unable to get excited about the music he was intrigued by the instrument’s long and

been short. Béla felt it too. “When I heard her bluegrass. But before there was bluegrass, the playing – Béla decided he’d take his banjo to BANNING EYRE fascinating history. Since then, Béla has music,” he says of hearing Oumou Sangaré for banjo-based folk music that formed in the Africa, on a musical odyssey to find its roots taken the banjo to places well outside of the first time, “I thought, ‘wow, I know this Appalachian mountains during the 1940s, the and also see if he could find a place in modern the bluegrass and American folk stuff, I want to play music like this.’” It was the banjo was a big part of African-American African music for his own instrument. tradition, with progressive bands such start of a musical journey that took Béla and music styles like Dixieland, a style of jazz that “I was always aware that the banjo came as New Grass Revival and the Grammy his banjo to Africa and resulted in the came out of New Orleans at the start of the from Africa,” says Béla, “and from the slaves. award-winning The Flecktones. Béla’s remarkable documentary and album, Throw 20th century. Going back further to the late But it didn’t really click for me as being recent projects include a funk and Down Your Heart, a project which just won 1800s, the banjo was a common instrument anything important personally, until I started bluegrass fusion with pianist Chick two Grammies and which explores the in the drawing rooms of New York and hearing music from Africa that really turned Corea, and a concerto called The African roots of the banjo. Boston, where women would use it to play the me on.” When one of the Flecktones played Melody of Rhythm with American That Béla felt such a strong connection to popular songs of the day. Béla Oumou Sangaré’s track ‘Ah Ndiya’ one bassist Edgar Meyer and Indian tabla Malian music immediately on hearing it is “Everyone had a banjo back then,” says Béla, night on the tour bus, he was smitten. player Zakir Hussain, which tours the something other musicians have also reflecting on the instrument’s past glory days. “‘That’s what I’m talking about’,” he UK in the summer. experienced, spurning various projects which “But it fell out of favour, the guitar took over remembers saying on hearing her soaring »

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voice and the stringed instruments distantly related to the banjo, “‘right there.’ I figured the best music in the world had to be happening in Africa and it wouldn’t be the big pop stuff. It was probably buried a little bit and you’d have to go there to find it.” The trip took in Uganda, Tanzania, the Gambia and Mali over 30 days, with a film crew, sound engineers and a myriad of local musicians, both known and unheard of, collaborating with Béla. The result is both Right: Canadian banjo player probing and deeply moving, and according to Jayme Stone teamed up with Malian kora artist Mansa Béla, “one of the things that I’m most happy Sissoko in 2008 Far right: bluesman Otis about that I’ve ever gotten to do.” Taylor set about bringing the banjo’s African roots to the Oumou’s song, ‘Ah Ndiya,’ which features on fore on his Recapturing the the documentary’s accompanying soundtrack, Banjo album is a telling part in the puzzle of the banjo’s were some curious white folk who were trying idea to make both the film and the album had roots. The song opens with the raw notes of to play the banjo but they weren’t really asking been picked up by Sony in 2004, the record the kamalengoni, the low-pitched stringed to learn traditional music. There are some company pulled out just a couple of months instrument which in many ways – especially in elements of West African music that you can before the start of the trip. Suddenly Béla found its buzzy resonations – resembles the banjo. hear in old-time music and in blues, but there himself funding the entire project and he When the song gives way to the rippling is a rhythmic sophistication in (African) music became disheartened when he didn’t gel with currents of the kora, played here by Toumani that I feel a lot of us are having to learn for the the first musicians he met on the trip. Diabaté, and then the banjo, it all seems like a first time.” “I just wasn’t getting it,” he said, sounding natural progression, the instruments sparring For bluesman Otis Taylor, this “old-timey” nervous just at the memory of his first few off each other seemingly effortlessly. Heard like music, that he describes as “very African in days in Uganda. “A couple of the guys were this, it’s not too far a leap of the imagination to style,” is what drew him into the banjo’s roots very, very old, so not being familiar with the believe that one of America’s great musical and led him to make the blues album music, I couldn’t tell if they were just past it or instruments did in fact originate in Africa. Recapturing the Banjo. “I was playing African whether I just wasn’t getting it. Either way, it But despite the physical and stylistic music before I knew it was African music,” he was very frustrating.” similarities between the banjo and says, adding that he only found out about the The opening scene of Throw Down Your instruments like the long-necked, lute-like instrument’s origins 20 years ago. “People Heart, a breezy green field surrounded by ngoni, most recently made popular by Malian thought the banjo was an American instrument slender trees, shows Béla surrounded by rock-blues outfit Bassekou Kouyaté and invented by white people. Well, that’s not true. throngs of villagers from Jinja in eastern Ngoni ba, the actual songs Béla found on his I just wanted to get the record straight.” Uganda. Béla leans against a car and plays a travels did not resemble bluegrass. For Béla, a project of this size came with rippling tune on the banjo. Old women, young “I was hoping I would find a song that they considerable complications. While the original children and middle-aged men look on in » played that had turned into an American folk

“I figured the best music in the world had to be happening in Africa and it wouldn’t be the big pop stuff. It was probably buried a little bit and you’d have to Steve Martin Earl Scruggs plucky Californian comedian, Perhaps the most famous go there to find it” actor, and this issue’s of all banjo players, featured Playlist guest there’s even a style of stuff (see p8), Steve Martin playing named after song or banjo tune,” says Béla, “and I really didn’t find that. But the sound of the music A selection of our is now recognised as him (the three-finger really reminded me of the early slave music favourite banjo one of traditional banjo style). The bluegrass that I’ve heard. None of it felt like bluegrass: it music’s great exponents. classic track ‘Foggy was banjo music.” pickers Martin won a Grammy Mountain Breakdown’ Jayme Stone, whose last album explored in January for best which Scruggs wrote and Malian griot music through the banjo and bluegrass album for The recorded with guitarist kora, explains how it was that the instrument Crow. He’s played with Lester Flatt is widely survived but the songs did not. “The people Earl Scruggs, Dolly Parton thought to be one of who would be playing this music,” he says of and had a sell-out show the fastest and most the Africans who first brought their at the Royal Festival Hall challenging banjo instruments to the US, “were slaves, and there in London in 2009. songs. » wasn’t really an openness where there could OR MCGUIRE Ñ be a real transmission of their music. There SE

34 Songlines April/May 2010 ° BANJO BONANZA °

curious wonder at the white man playing this When both Béla and Jayme passed their fascinating instrument, their incredulous banjos to people in Africa to play, the result WIN A laughter increasing with his quickening fingers. was amazing. “They loved trying it,” says Then a bicycle bell sounds and from the Jayme, laughing. “You’d watch them solve back of the crowd, a young man in a faded the puzzle of the tuning, they have all these BANJO! ‘Tower of London’ T-shirt pushes his way to melodies in their head so they’ll just figure the front, a one-stringed instrument clutched out a way to make it work. In some ways it We are offering one in his hand. He starts to play it with a bow would feel natural to them.” Bassekou agrees. lucky banjo-picking made from a bent branch and the villagers “I can play the banjo,” he laughs, “in my own reader the chance begin to clap, quick and determined. Before way. But I play it like the ngoni. For me it’s all to win a five-stringed long, a huge group of musicians are gathered the same thing.” openback banjo, around him, playing a range of bowed lyres, For Béla, bringing the banjo to Africa, and harps, one-stringed violin-like instruments, bringing African music to the banjo, was a courtesy of rattling shakers and drums. “It’s like the lights desire that had its roots in his early years, Hobgoblin Music. just came on,” says Béla of that moment in the growing up during the civil rights movement. www.hobgoblinmusic.co.uk field at Jinja. “From then on, there was really “I wanted to bring out that the banjo was more not a bad moment.” than just an Appalachian instrument that white To enter, simply answer Amongst the myriad musicians Béla links folks played,” he says. “A lot of black people I’ve the following question: up with across the continent, the one character met don’t know the banjo comes from Africa.” Which famous banjo player who already knows the banjo – and has one of As he brought the banjo back into the jazz wrote ‘Foggy Mountain his own – is Bassekou Kouyaté, the Malian world with his group The Flecktones, and as Breakdown’? ngoni player. Together they play some blistering groups like The Carolina Chocolate Drops See p5 for Songlines competition blues and Béla teaches Bassekou’s son how to have helped revive the African-American rules and address. play the banjo. Bassekou also features on Jayme string band tradition, now the banjo has gone Closing date May 14. Stone’s record and curiously, says Jayme, back to its earliest roots, back to Africa. Could Bassekou uses some finger-picking styles that it ever take on there, I ask Jayme? have travelled across the sea. “Sure!” he says, laughing. “The fretless “The traditional style of playing the ngoni,” ngoni is a great instrument, it’s part of the says Jayme, “you play down, which in old-time sound of Africa, there’s a lot to that music we call ‘claw hammer’ style. Then instrument. But I’m sure they would also do there’s the more modern styles that I use and perfectly well with the banjo.” l Béla Fleck uses, where you’re actually picking upwards, and Bassekou also does that. Those cd Listen to a track by Béla Fleck & Bassekou are modern developments, both developments Kouyaté on this issue’s covermount CD – one happening in different countries. It’s almost of Steve Martin’s playlist choices like there’s something in the instrument that REview The Throw Down Your Heart DVD urges this kind of playing.” is reviewed in this issue

Mumford & Carolina Po’Girl The Deadly Crooked Still Noam Pikelny Abigail Sons Chocolate When banjo player Trish Gentlemen The young Boston This Chicago-born, New Washburn These four young men Drops Klein of The Be Good The American foursome bluegrass group released York-based banjoist Formerly a member from West London have This energetic trio from Tanyas collaborated in who describe themselves their last album Still ditched his solo career of the all-female, old- taken the old-time banjo North Carolina have re- jam sessions with Allison as a ‘banjo rap’ band Crooked in 2008 – a Top in favour of playing in time Americana group sound, mixed it with claimed and revitalised Russell, they went on to and ‘Béla Fleck with an of the World review in The Punch Brothers (see Uncle Earl, Washburn’s gutsy rock and brought it Afro-American banjo form the band Po’Girl. They extra finger’ recently #56. Greg Liszt’s reeling feature in #53), a seriously latest venture is with to mainstream attention, music with their spirited call themselves ‘urban performed at Scotland’s banjo-playing is finely talented fivesome which the Sparrow Quartet playing sell-out gigs in interpretations of black roots’ and take inspirations Celtic Connections accompanied by the includes ex-Nickel Creek which features Béla the UK, Australia and string-band music of from country, jazz and festival. Their current sultry singing of Aoife mandolin whizzkid Chris Fleck, together with the US. The band have the 1920s and 30s. Their blues. The songs, fresh album is endearingly O’Donovan. The band Thile. Their debut as an Chinese musicians. The only been together since album, Genuine Negro and folky, are interspersed entitled The Bastard are coming to the UK ensemble was the highly group have toured in 2007 but are successfully Jig [reviewed in #66], with galloping banjo solos. Masterpiece. The group’s in March, with a date impressive album Punch China and Tibet and last bringing the banjo to which mixes traditional Po’Girl tour England and lead vocalist and banjo at London’s Borderline (a Top of the World review year released the EP places that, in the UK at tracks as well as their own Ireland in May and June. player is Greg Liszt – also on March 23. Check out in #51), and they’re Afterquake, in memory

least, others have failed compositions, features the Check the gig guide for a member of Crooked Still the Gig Guide for more releasing a second album of the 2008 Sichuan oberts R ulie J to reach. banjo, fiddle and kazoo. dates. (see right). details. in May. earthquake. l

April/May 2010 Songlines 37