[TR24][OF] Fatoumata Diawara & Roberto Fonseca - At Home [Live in Marciac] - 2015 (ethnic jazz, world fusion, afro-cuban, wassoulou)

Роберто Фонсека и Фатумата Диавара: трансатлантическая встреча
Источник: арт-дайджест «Солонеба»
Уникальный дуэт одного из ведущих пианистов кубинской джазовой сцены Роберто Фонсеки и малийской певицы и актрисы Фатуматы Диавары. Влияние Фонсеки на современный кубинский джаз и джаз в целом неоспоримо, но его творческие горизонты не ограничиваются тонкостями только этого жанра. Богатая музыкальная палитра Фонсеки полна контрастов. Последнее время он развивает концепцию, объединяющую электронную и аналоговую музыку в сочетании с африканской и кубинской стилистикой. Подтверждением тому служит сотрудничество Роберто Фонсеки с Фатуматой Диаварой, которая наследует малийские традиции стиля вассулу.
Роберто Фонсека покоряет публику не только сильнейшей харизмой и сумасшедшей энергией, но и виртуозной техникой исполнения. Он успел заявить о себе еще в составе легендарного коллектива Buena Vista Social Club с Ибрагимом Феррером и Омарой Портуондо, с которой в 2014-2015 годах с триумфом облетел полпланеты. Стиль Фонсеки уходит корнями в традиции латиноамериканской и кубинской музыки.
Как и большинство кубинских исполнителей, Роберто занимался музыкой с раннего детства. Он родился и вырос в музыкальной семье: отец – барабанщик, мать – профессиональная певица (ее вокал можно услышать на нескольких альбомах сына), братья Эмилио Вальдес и Хесус Вальдес-мл. – перкуссионист и пианист соответственно. Поначалу, как и отец Роберто осваивал ударные, но в возрасте восьми лет он пересел за фортепиано. Несмотря на то, что главной страстью юного музыканта были клавишные, свою первую работу он получил в качестве ударника в группе, создающей кавер-версии хитов группы Битлз.
В возрасте 14 лет Роберто начал писать собственную музыку, черпая вдохновение в афро-кубинских корнях. Его появление как пианиста в возрасте 15 лет произвело фурор на престижном международном джазовом фестивале Jazz Plaza в Гаване. Свой успех Роберто захотел подкрепить хорошим образованием и получил степень по классу музыкальной композиции в известном кубинском ВУЗе Instituto Superior de Arte. А в 1996 году Роберто решил расширить рамки своего творчества и опробовать свои силы в других музыкальных стилях. Ради этого он совершил тур по Италии в компании итальянского исполнителя Августо Энрикеса. В рамках тура состоялся концерт на национальном итальянском канале RAI. Далее в течение нескольких лет музыкант работал над созданием своего дебютного альбома и в 1999 году выпустил пластинку Tiene Que Ver, благодаря которой стал лауреатом национальной музыкальной премии. Сегодня на счету Роберто Фонсеки 6 сольных альбомов, последний из которых Yo (2012) был номинирован на премию «Грэмми» как лучший альбом латинского джаза.
В свою очередь малийская певица и актриса Фатумата Диавара (род. в 1982 г. в Кот-д’Ивуаре), ныне проживающая во Франции, стала известна благодаря сочетанию в своем творчестве африканских традиций в стиле «вассулу» с современными джазовыми и поп-веяниями. В свое время на ее «чувственный голос» обратила внимание королева стиля вассулу – Уму Сангаре, с которой позже Фатумата не единожды пела в дуэте. Кроме того, еще на самом старте певческой карьеры Фатумате посчастливилось выступать с Ди Ди Бриджуотер и с популярным оркестром Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou.
Благодаря усилиям продюсера Ника Голда в сентябре 2011 года на студии World Circuit Records увидел свет дебютный альбом Fatou. Среди приглашенных звезд на альбоме можно заметить известного нигерийского барабанщика и популяризатора афробита Тони Аллена, короля коры Тумани Диабате, а также бас-гитариста Джона Пола Джонса (Led Zeppelin). Диск пользовался огромной европейской популярностью (особенно во Франции), а семь песен из альбома, на которые были сняты видеоклипы, стали международными хитами.
В сентябре 2012 года Фатумата приняла участие в кампании «30 песен / 30 дней», ставшей частью мультимедиа-проекта «Полнеба: против угнетения женщин по всему миру и за равные возможности для всех». Чуть позже Фатумата отправилась колесить по миру с проектом Дэймона Албарна «Африка Экспресс», где она делила сцену с Бассеку Куяте, Афелем Бокумом, Баабой Маалем, дуэтом «Амаду и Мариам», Диабелем Сиссоко, Рокией Траоре, Тумани Диабате и другими звёздами африканского континента, с кульминационным выступлением в Лондоне в компании с сэром Полом Маккартни.
Последние годы её график расписан по минутам. Выступления в Южной Америке и Азии, Европе и США. В 2014 году Фатумата Диавара приняла участие в съемках кинокартины мавританского режиссера Абдеррахмана Сисако «Тимбукту», которая была отобрана для участия в основной конкурсной программе 67-го Каннского кинофестиваля. Фильм, в котором Фатумата сыграла одну из главных ролей, а также выступила соавтором саундтрека, собрал немало положительных рецензий и благодарных отзывов. А 11 декабря 2014 года Фатумата Диавара была награждена орденом и возведена в степень кавалера искусств и литературы Французской Республики за заслуги в продвижении культурных ценностей Франции и африканского континента.
В совместном выступлении на французском джазовом фестивале Jazz in Marciac малийская дива Фатумата Диавара и пианист-виртуоз Роберто Фонсека демонстрируют уникальное мастерство и технику, исполняя музыку, волнующую воображение и погружающую слушателей в экзотическое трансатлантическое путешествие по маршруту «Куба — Африка».
http://soloneba.com/roberto-fonseca-fatoumata-diawara-transatlantic-meeting/

Roberto Fonseca (born 1975, Havana) is a Cuban jazz pianist. From an early age, Fonseca was surrounded by music: his father was a drummer, his mother, Mercedes Cortes Alfaro, a professional singer (she sings on her son's most recent solo album, Zamazu), and his two older half-brothers, Emilio Valdés (drums) and Jesús "Chuchito" Valdés Jr. (piano), are also two young musicians of great international prestige.
After an early interest in drums, Fonseca switched to piano at the age of 8, and by 14 was experimenting with fusing American jazz and traditional Cuban rhythms; he appeared at Havana's Jazz Plaza Festival in 1991 when he was just 15.
Fonseca studied at Cuba's prestigious Instituto Superior de Arte, where he obtained a master's degree in composition, even though he often says that he was a really bad student. After earning his degree, he left Cuba to find his sound.
His first album, En El Comienzo, which he recorded with Javier Zalba and the group Temperamento, was awarded Cuba's Best Jazz Album in 1999. This success encouraged him to work on two solo records: Tiene Que Ver and Elengo, combining Latin jazz, drum and bass, hip-hop, urban music and Afro-Cuban rhythms.
In 2001, Fonseca went to Japan to record No Limit: Afro Cuban Jazz. He also toured with the Buena Vista Social Club the same year and has worked with Rubén González, Ibrahim Ferrer, Cachaito, Guajiro Mirabal and Manuel Galbán.
A Buena Vista Social Club tour spanned the world, with over 400 concerts, promoting Ibrahim Ferrer's records next to great legends such as Cachaíto López, Manuel Guajiro Mirabal and Manuel Galbán, among others, and playing at the most prestigious venues, such as the Frankfurt Alte Oper, Palais des Congrès (Paris), Albert Hall (London), Beacon Theatre (New York), and the Sydney Opera House (Australia). Not a single review of Ibrahim's concerts, from South America to Asia, would fail to mention Fonseca's talent and his magnetic stage presence.
That period of intense work, touring round the world, led Fonseca to realise that his music was ready for creating his own project. He dug deep to compose each of the songs that form Zamazu, the result of the integration of all his influences: Afro-Cuban music, jazz, classical music and traditional Cuban music. In the words of one reviewer, his recording, Zamazu, is "a deftly varied and well-sequenced set that leaves a strong impression of who Fonseca is and promises plenty for the future."
2008 was a year full of work and experiences that have inspired Fonseca's new compositions, one being Columbia Pictures choosing the track "Llego Cachaito" from the Zamazu album for the Will Smith film Hancock.
With his 2009 album, Akokan, Fonseca wanted to bring the magic, strength and improvisation from a live show to the studio. With a quartet formation and accompanied by his band, the one that he had been playing with for the past 12 years, Fonseca as the record's producer encouraged creativity and chemistry amongst the musicians.
There are also two very special collaborations from artists that Fonseca admires, artists that have very different styles: Mayra Andrade, the Cape Verdean singer who wrote the words and sings on "Siete potencias", and Raul Midón, the American guitarist, who wrote "Second Chance". On this track Fonseca did the arrangements and Midon accompanied him on guitar.
In 2010 Fonseca was the support act for Omara Portuondo's USA. After the summer his album Roberto Fonseca Live in Marciac was released. It includes a bonus DVD which features footage of the festival's 2009 show.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Fonseca
In her teens, Fatoumata Diawara moved to France to pursue an acting career. She appeared in a handful of films and worked with a street theater troupe but really found her calling later, when she took up the guitar and started writing songs. Born in Cote d’Ivoire and raised in southern Mali, Diawara grew up hearing Wassoulou music, a song style that’s thought by some ethnomusiclogists to be one of the main pre-colonial ancestors of blues. The Wassoulou cultural area is now split between three countries, but it has a history that extends back centuries, and Diawara merges that long, traditional history with a modern, globalized sensibility on her debut album.
Diawara has honed her performing and recording craft through work with AfroCubism, Orchestre Poly-Rythmo, and Herbie Hancock, among others, so really the big step here is to recording her own songs with her own arrangements. She has a voice with a naturally sensual glide to it that sometimes reminds me a little of Sade. Unlike many of her peers, such as Oumou Sangaré, power is not really a part of her style– she keeps her singing even and steady to complement the hypnotic, cycling guitar parts of her arrangements. The album is quietly intense, rarely rising above the volume of ordinary conversation.
Diawara sings in her native Wassoulou language, but understanding the exact content of the songs isn’t necessary to enjoy them. There’s plenty of information in the melodies and rhythms, and inventive musicianship as well. Diawara locks in with the simmering funk backdrop of “Bissa” by playing harmonics on her guitar instead of full chords. The electric leads seem to float up out of the patterns; several times over the course of the album, I found myself caught up in a flowing solo that I didn’t even notice when it started. This is how the whole record works. There’s no fanfare, nothing is announced. It simply surrounds you with its atmosphere.
It is an ultimately beguiling album because of this. Even in its most demonstrative moments, such as the shivering lead guitar line that opens “Bakonoba”, it’s a record you can sink into and enjoy for its sonics as well as its songwriting. “Bakonoba” is among the songs with the strongest West African character, and that guitar is a big part of it– it’s reminiscent of the type of lead Malian guitarists Djelimady Tounkara or Kanté Manfila might have once laid down for the Rail Band. Otherwise, Diawara is one of a growing number of musicians working on a sort of pan-folk sound that incorporates influences from across a broad Afro-Western cultural spectrum. It’s an approach that may be a better fit for the “world music” label than any of the highly localized sounds that tag’s often applied to.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatoumata_Diawara

At Home: Live in Marciac is one of those rare live albums that somehow retains the show's sense of excitement.
A while ago, the Afro-Cuban die was cast when certain musicians from Cuba and northern Africa felt as if they grooved to a similar drummer. The traditions of that subgenre thrive today as more and more musicians like Cuban pianist Roberto Fonseca and Malian guitarist/vocalist Fatoumata Diawara feel inclined to bridge the Altantic through the power of music. Their chance meeting led to a 45 day tour of Europe as a seven-piece band and At Home: Live in Marciac is the resulting album. Right from its opening bars, this album crackles. Fonseca's clavinet lays down a funky foundation, the crowd begins to clap along on the second and fourth beats, and the entire band are off and running. "Sowa" quickly becomes an Afro-Cuban call to worship. And for her part, Diawara is just getting warmed up.
By the time the band gets to "Connection", Diawara is ready to give it her all. It may be a Fonseca original, but she's still sounds at home while singing the refrain over a slow burning groove. Here, the northern African accent placed over Cuban percussion came come across as just another one of those natural things in "world" music. "Yemaya", Fonseca's other original, is definitely a more obscured and complex number. While it doesn't give Diawara as many chances to shout for joy, that doesn't mean she won't make room for them. Diawara's originals, on the other hand, follow in the cyclical tradition of African music doubling as performance and celebration (and once in a while, as healing). Their one joint composition is a very unique track named "Real Family". The other five members of the band take a break while Fonseca plays gentle rubato piano, unlocking the door for Diawara's spoken-word performance to transform into soulful chants. I don't know what words she is singing, but it sounds deathly serious, especially when pitted against Fonseca's left hand octave trills.
The band hops back on stage for "Clandestin" and "Neboufo", two Diawara originals that show off different sides of her musical personality. "Clandestin" is the tight-as-bolts jam while "Neboufo" is tougher to define. Fonseca plays a pattern where each clef is emphasized in patterns, depending on the meter. Sometimes they're playing in four, other times it feels like a fast three. It's hard to tell because the deceptively simple chord progression grafted over it gives the whole sound a new twist. Diawara, somehow, is able to sing over the whole thing. After all, the other members of their band are no slouches themselves. Drummer Ramsés Rodriguez, percussionist Joel Hierrezuelo, and bassist Yandy Martinez make for a vitally important rhythm section. Drissa Sibide takes up the (Kamalen) Ngoni and guitarist Sekou Bah does the rest (of all the live snapshots inside At Home, there are no pictures of Diawara with her guitar).
There are numerous times on At Home where Fonseca begins pounding away on the keys towards the end of an especially energetic solo. When he does, Diawara is inclined to give an equally energetic "whoo!", thereby giving the crowd permission to freak out. And every time that happens, it's as if At Home: Live in Marciac has the power to mentally transport you to that very show. That alone should be reason enough to check out this release. And besides, there's also the Afro-Cuban connection forever bridging those pesky geological gaps.
https://www.popmatters.com/195068-roberto-fonseca-fatoumata-diawara-at-home-live-...-2495511404.html

Roberto Fonseca - piano & keyboards
Fatoumata Diawara - vocals & guitar
Ramses Rodriguez - drums
Joel Hierrezuelo - percussion
Yandy Martinez González - acoustic and electric bass
Sekou Bah - electric guitar
Drissa Sibide - kamalen n'goni