Jazz returns to Africa to soak up its traditional sounds

Markets have historically been ambivalent territories. They can provide goods, in every sense of the word, or facilitate the trafficking of products that entail pain, and even human merchandise. Surrounding the mouth of the Senegal River in the Atlantic, in the city of Saint Louis —which was the imperial capital of all French-speaking West Africa until 1902—markets opened their doors, and from there, transatlantic voyages departed with essential raw materials across the sea, as well as enslaved people. “With them came labor and the knowledge of how to cultivate rice in the swamps; also music,” notes Birame Seck, artistic director of the Saint Louis Jazz Festival , which held its 33rd edition from May 28 to June 1.

“They populated the fields, the plantations, and then the sounds that accompanied them in exile appeared,” Seck continues. With the percussion and singing that helped them endure those days of undignified work, the seeds of jazz sprouted, a music that was North American in origin, but hybrid and deeply inclusive. From the shores of Africa, the makers of traditional rhythms, in turn, experienced the influence of a multitude of cultures that traded on the continent. “We lived with the English, the French, the Arabs… And when World War II broke out, there were alliances and confrontations of music, and we learned about other instruments that arrived with the armies,” the programmer explains. Those melodies played with European wind and brass instruments encountered, in West Africa, “this bastion of traditional instruments that we find today in jazz groups, such as the balafon, the kora, or the djembe,” in Seck’s words. Music evolves, and with it, a story of cultural circulation is told.

Jazz is a music that has its roots here and what we propose is that it once again be imbued with the sounds of the region.

Birame Seck, artistic director of the Festival

“We believe that jazz is a music that has its roots here, and what we propose is that it be re-infused with the sounds of the region. Jazz is the absence of barriers, whether national, social, or ethnic,” says the programmer of the festival, which, throughout its history, has brought top-level musicians such as Herbie Hancock, Stanley Clarke, Joe Zawinul, and Marcus Miller. In its most recent edition, despite the financial challenges faced by the organizing association, the following have appeared: Spanish musician Marco Mezquida, Italian musician Rosa Brunello, Portuguese musician Salvador Sobral—surrounded by his wife's Senegalese family—French classicists Sixun, and the local favorite Alune Wade , who presented his latest album, New African Orleans.

On the colonial-style streets of Saint Louis, devoted jazz fans speak of a music made of call and response, as if it were the rhythm of a conversation that perhaps began behind bars on the banks of a river, continued in the hold of a ship, and became art and survival on a rice or cotton plantation. The question hanging in the air today is whether, finally, jazz is returning to Africa like a boom .

For historian Papis Samba, jazz "is not the preserve of any one continent or culture. It's important to remember that it's not only about lament and complaint, but also liberation and hope," explains Samba, who participated in a panel discussion following the screening of a documentary about bassist Alune Wade's explorations in Louisiana. In his view, it's "comparable to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which is a hymn to human brotherhood and joy." In the case of the first Black jazz musicians , says Samba, "they developed a sense of national pride, and it's understandable, given the context in which they lived, hence their creation can be considered a 20th-century humanism."

For musician Alune Wade, "if Saint-Louis, Dakar, Gorée, and Rufisque hosted the first jazz bands in this country, thanks to the records that arrived at the military bases, the same thing happened in New Orleans after the Civil War." In his opinion, to this raw material should be added "European classical music, because you could say that Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky were also jazz musicians." Then everything was mixed with " blues , boogie-woogie , and African rhythms."

Wade says he realized jazz is more than just music when he visited New Orleans: “I think it’s a concept, a movement, and, above all, a testament to history, one of the most beautiful things humanity has had to create in recent centuries.”

A triangular itinerary

In Louisiana, the musician began another journey through an Afro-Creole culture built by all the African peoples represented there, and which narrates this "triangular relationship between Africa, America, and Europe, spanning four centuries." From there, he developed the conviction that jazz is not only sound, but also spirituality and even traditional cuisine.

The bassist, who says he was born with the privilege of having a father who was a musician and a high-ranking official, and whose family allowed his son to study in Europe, advocates for making this style accessible to children from other neighborhoods. He even believes he should express the reasons for jazz in Wolof (the country's native language). He wants to involve young traditional balafon players and consult their perspectives. He wants to go out and meet people on the street, suggesting they use what they know to understand this art form, "because jazz is a way of reflecting society."

It is important to remember that jazz is not only about lament and complaint, but also about liberation and hope.

Papis Samba, historian

“In Senegal, we've been fortunate for decades to have a fairly eclectic culture, both ritually and culturally,” he notes. This religious and musical eclecticism weaves the fabric of a network that extends to the swamps of the southern United States. For Wade, “the jazz of the future will be one that tells the life stories of the musicians who play it, just as I interpret the music of my time, adding my little stone to the edifice.” In the case of his latest work, there is also a tribute to other composers such as Fela Kuti and Manu Dibango. “I think it's up to us African musicians to cover African classics, in the same way that American musicians do. We still have a lot of things to bring to light,” he concludes.

Among those voices that have not yet been sufficiently reinterpreted on the African continent, that of Aminata Fall (Saint Louis, 1930-2002) stands out, a woman revered in her own right, but little known by the general public. To celebrate her figure, in a panel on the oral transmission of the musical style, bassist Maah Keita remembered her as someone who truly understood that " jazz is something that all musicians carry within us, and women in particular, as we are the ones who transmit messages through oral expression."

For her, an albino musician and model who campaigns for understanding albinism in Africa, she advocates for making jazz visible, just as it seeks to make it known to people with features different from the majority. “It goes beyond what is done for entertainment or relaxation, and is aimed at those who can appreciate subtleties, rhythmic divisions, or perceive the instrumentation, and for that, you have to guide the audience,” she says.

Anthropologist Helen Regis believes that this "music, born from the phenomenon of creolization (or hybridization) arising from unpredictable and unexpected contact," is a "sound of centuries and the collision of oceans." In her view, "there can be no universality in jazz , only differences; and this is what gives it its dimension, the relationship with the other, with otherness. In jazz , there is a word waiting for another word." The answer requires returning to Africa.