We are (increasingly) one

Thanks to Nathalie's Myspace site for the lovely pic. It's so enchanting I had to borrow it. Eric

World music seems to be globalising like everything else. Globalisation’s great when it means we can travel more easily and buy online and eat various foods and we don’t have to worry about travellers’ cheques. It’s not so good when it gives us GFCs or local business bankruptcies and mega-corporations. So there’s good with bad and it’s inevitable as we move to a global society. I just hope it’s managed well and for all. There’s good and bad for culture, too. Modernist art was much influenced by “primitive” (read non-Western) art a century ago, and it goes the other way so Anglo-American pop influences “world” music. Again, not all for the bad, but it removes some of the surprise value.

So I was thinking when I heard Nathalie Natiembé yesterday at the Street Theatre. She was here with her band to perform at the WOMAdelaide Festival and we were lucky enough for the Street to bring her over for our Canberra birthday celebrations. I really liked her reggae and funk and other grooves but they were not particularly new to my ears. That’s what I mean: even lots of “world” music (I use quotes because it’s only “world” from our Western POV) is not particularly different from other popular musics these days, but neither is it all the same. There were some less common instruments (kalabash and djembe) amongst the Nords and Rolands and EVs and Ampegs and Godins and the wonderful MeyerSound PA (UPQ-1P?). Nathalie sang in French and Creole, so the languages are not our too-internationalised English. She sang about her formative experiences and cultural background relevant to her Le Reunion island origins: slavery and women and family. Some of this is shared, some not. I did notice an African love of movement. She flailed her arms and called up the dancers. It was a mature crowd, but she got a floor of women and a few men up. I also noticed the styles of her band, thinking how they differ from jazz, although perhaps less from other popular music styles. The keys were more effects and rolling arpeggios than the left hand chords and right hand solos of jazz. I was stunned to hear authentic distorted guitar accompaniment at one stage, obviously from keys. The bass was all ostinato grooves and sometimes quite choppy in style. I liked it, including the rough-edged tone of the Godin fretless semi-acoustic bass guitar. The drums seemed to be heavy on toms and light on cymbals which spoke of African drums to me. It was a lively and interesting concert that took me away from jazz but not so very far from the music on the radio that I felt out of place or at sea. Proof, or at least evidence, of my thesis on globalisation.

Nathalie Natiémbé (vocals, kalabash, djembe) sang with her band comprising Yann Costa (keyboards, melodica), Boris Kulenovic (bass) and Germain Samba (drums).