René Lacaille & Bob Brozman Downloads

1 ZOK 3:12 (René Lacaille & Bob Brozman) Dedicated to Samy Waro 2 5 O.P. (Syncopé) 4:30 (René Lacaille) 3 An Dio 3:00 (René Lacaille) 4 Lang Là 3:44 (René Lacaille) 5 Oh! Lé Là Ô 4:29 (Joel Gonthier) Dedicated to the mother of Joel Gonthier. A note from Joel about Oh! Lé Là Ô: Je voudrais dédier mon morceau à ma mère en souhaitant qu’un jour les hommes apprennent à se respecter pour qu’il y...
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1 ZOK 3:12 (René Lacaille & Bob Brozman) Dedicated to Samy Waro 2 5 O.P. (Syncopé) 4:30 (René Lacaille) 3 An Dio 3:00 (René Lacaille) 4 Lang Là 3:44 (René Lacaille) 5 Oh! Lé Là Ô 4:29 (Joel Gonthier) Dedicated to the mother of Joel Gonthier. A note from Joel about Oh! Lé Là Ô: Je voudrais dédier mon morceau à ma mère en souhaitant qu’un jour les hommes apprennent à se respecter pour qu’il y ait moins de guerre. I would like to dedicate my song to my mother with the hope that, one day, men will learn to respect each other so that there is less war. 6 Fraka 4:50 (René Lacaille) 7 Zi Bi Pi Blues 2:20 (Bob Brozman) 8 Pondaurat 2:47 (René Lacaille) 9 Place D’Youville 3:59 (René Lacaille & Bob Brozman) 10 Lozé 3:34 (Bernard Marka) 11 Ti Guitar Là 2:54 (René Lacaille & Bob Brozman) 12 Debussy À La Réunion 3:46 (Bob Brozman) Dedicated to Haley Robertson 13 Mam’zelle Rico 3:05 (trad, arr Lacaille/Brozman) 14 K Ba 2:39 (René Lacaille) 15 Maria Ya Ya 1:38 (René Lacaille & Bob Brozman) Dedicated to Maria Payet L’Ile de la Réunion, a volcanic island situated 600 miles east of Madagascar in the southern Indian Ocean, is perhaps one of the world’s most interesting islands, both physically and culturally. Originally uninhabited, it was colonised by the French 300 years ago. Slaves were brought in, primarily from Africa, Madagascar and India. La Réunion’s racial mix was also seasoned by Chinese and Arab immigrants, due to the island’s location along trade routes between Asia and Africa. This resulted in one of the world’s richest cultural mixes – in music, language, customs and cuisine – thus forging a lifestyle that is volcanic, passionate, joyous, sexy, and rhythmic. René Lacaille is the embodiment of La Réunion’s verve. A man steeped in his culture’s celebration of life and good times, he learned how to command a party as early as age 7, when he accompanied his father to perform at weddings and dances throughout the island’s many towns. This was rigorous training, because the musicians had to be versatile and capable of playing the paso doble, cha-cha, polka, waltz, bolero, Creole quadrille, sega and maloya. René’s talent and curiosity led him to master the bongos, drums, accordion, guitar and saxophone. The countless nights spent playing professionally with his family, combined with new music arriving from other shores, provided a variety of influences for René throughout the 1970s. Flamenco, salsa, twist, rock, jazz and fusion would soon inspire his compositions. He abandoned the accordion for the guitar in his twenties, and formed the now-legendary group Caméléon, who were the first to invent electric maloya, blending traditional Réunion music with modern Western timbres. In 1979, René moved to France and continued to pursue his musical interests in jazz and fusion. Soon after, he had a deeply moving musical encounter with the roots Réunion artist Danyél Waro, which rekindled his interest in the accordion and Réunion musical traditions, thereby changing the direction of his musical life. As with all master musicians, René plays, practises and composes ceaselessly. His music has carried him to Europe, Africa, Canada, Brazil and China. Bob Brozman has dedicated the last twenty years to playing, researching and recording music from numerous islands around the world. He has found strong cultural and social similarities among people from islands as varied as Hawaii, Martinique and Okinawa. In the last few centuries, islands have been small hothouse musical environments for interesting developments between colonising and native cultures. Thus, the music of islands is often suffused with a hybrid vigour, further heightened by the powerful influences of nature. The music expresses the sounds and images of the ocean, wind, rain and volcanoes, along with the tastes and smells of tropical foods and flowers. In his extensive travels, Bob has found that, worldwide, island music resonates with the joy of immediate living, the sorrow of colonial history and the strength of the people in overcoming hardship. French-Canadian world music guru Jean Beauchesne suggested René as a potential collaborator for Bob’s ongoing island recording projects. For Bob, René’s music was a revelation, full of freedom and excitement. Serendipity entered the picture when Bob was invited to play solo at a festival on La Réunion – the two men took this opportunity to meet, and immediately started to play music, laughing and communicating in René’s Creole French and Bob’s broken French, and within minutes a deep friendship was forged. They wound up performing together at the festival, and it seemed that Bob’s musical energy and passion was well matched to both René and the mood of the Réunionnais people – judging by the pandemonium that followed each song. Through the auspices of the Pôle Régional de Musiques Actuelles de La Réunion, recording sessions were arranged on the island. Several months later, a second month-long residence was organised in order to continue recording, and to present several performances around the island and in the Seychelles. Before the second residence, René spent a week in California at Bob’s home, playing, composing and cooking Creole food every night. During the visit, they continued to make surprising discoveries about the range of each other’s music. In duet shows, the two friends are able to play for hours without rehearsal, and have been known to continue playing into the night and early morning, long after the concerts have ended. Since this recording was made, René, Bob, and percussionists Joel and Bernard, have toured together in Europe, South Africa and Canada, and they look forward to introducing La Réunion’s rhythms to the rest of the world. A word from Bob Brozman: When I first encountered René Lacaille, it was also my first trip to La Réunion Island. The scenic beauty of the place, the depth and mood of the culture, and the rich complexity of René’s music overwhelmed me. Réunion Island is the home of Sega, and its ancestor, Maloya. These unique styles of music contain some of the world’s richest and most soulful sounds. René brings to this already complex music a new level of fiery creativity and innovation, both in composition and in playing. Performing and recording with René, Joel, Bernard and the rest of the guest musicians has been a musical revelation for me, which has forever changed my way of hearing music. When René stayed with us in California in 1999, I gave him a charango (small ten-string Bolivian guitar relative) – a gift that I frequently give to my musical collaborators as an experiment in ethnomusicology. René fell in love with it, and asked for a second one, ‘just in case’, before the week was over. Like me, René is inseparable from his charango now, and the enthusiasm we have for this instrument is demonstrated on several songs on this CD. I’ve since given charangos to Bernard and Joel and, when we are on tour, all four of us use them to while away the long travel hours. The basic 6/8 grooves of maloya and sega utilise the interplay between two, three, four, six, eight and twelve beats to create deep layers of infectious rhythmic content. The accents occur in places that are surprising to Western ears, and allow creative, lightning-quick multiplication and/or division of these beats. The listener can actually change the way the music sounds by altering his or her internal counting, from a two-pulse to a three-pulse and back, at will. Listening this way simulates the sensation of absolute freedom that the musicians enjoy while playing. The typical Réunionnais percussion section has at its core three instruments. Holding down the low end, yet playing in a syncopated melodic fashion is the rouleur (bass hand drum), made from a barrel with a skin stretched over one end. The kayamb produces the shaker sound, which carries the eighth-notes or eighth-note triplets (depending on your internal count). The instrument is made with seed-filled sugarcane flower stalks, which are bound into a flat, inch-thick, two-foot square. The third central percussion instrument is the triangle, which provides the ‘up’ accents. Added to this core are claves, bongos, congas and several other small percussion pieces, yielding a rich musical texture that is strong and delicious. On this CD, you will find examples of both sega and maloya. The main difference between the two is harmonic. Maloya is the older, slightly more African form, and the harmony is modal, without Western chord changes. It evokes the same feelings as the blues, coming as it does from enslaved Africans. Sega reflects the absorption of French (colonial) musette diatonic harmonies (chord changes and European song form) with a hint of jazz influence. ‘Oh! Lé Là Ô’ and ‘An Dio’ are maloya style, while the other 6/8 songs like ‘Lang Là’, ‘Place D’Youville’, ‘Lozé’ or ‘5 O.P. (Syncopé)’ represent sega. The art form expresses itself in part by playfully tipping the aural balance back and forth at will from a two-beat feeling to a three-beat feeling, as in charango specialities ‘Ti Guitar Là’ and ‘Maria Ya Ya’. There are also several binaire songs, meaning music in 4/4 time, such as ‘Pondaurat’ or ‘Fraka’, which may remind the listener of Caribbean music, though these songs are strictly Réunionnais. ‘Zi Bi Pi Blues’ is our sega version of old southern American blues, with strong Southern Hemisphere syncopation. ‘Debussy À La Réunion’ is an imaginary musical voyage of the French impressionist Claude Debussy composing in maloya time, with guest percussionists from the Granmoun Lélé family. Almost all of the music on this CD is new music, and René and I are both very interested in pushing the limits at all times. Nou lé kontan à zoué po zot! (We’re happy to play for you all!) Bob Brozman is an Adjunct Professor at the Department of Music, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. Bob Brozman uses National Reso-phonic guitars, Bear Creek Hawaiian guitars, Highlander pickups and John Pearse strings. Appearing on this album are René Lacaille: vocal, accordion, charango, tschoulas Bob Brozman: Hawaiian guitar, bottleneck and Spanish guitar, charango Bernard Marka: percussion, vocal Joel Gonthier: percussion, vocal Additional percussion by Pascal Futol, Yanis Lacaille, Laurent Dalleau (on ‘K Ba’ only) and Nicolas Moucazambo (on ‘K Ba’ only) On ‘Debussy À La Réunion’, all percussion played by special guests Granmoun Lélé family (triangle, rouleur, piker, shaker, cayamb) Joel would like to thank Betty Boristene for guest vocals on ‘Oh! Lé Là Ô’ Special thanks to Jean Beauchesne for inspiring this collaboration, Alain Courbis for implementing it, Nadège Nagés, Philippe Capponi, Granmoun Lélé family, Snack de la Pointe, Fritzi Lacaille family, Regis and Marie-Claire Lacaille, Betty Boristene, Laurent Dalleau and Nicolas Moucazambo Thanks to Phil Stanton, Sandra Alayón-Stanton, all at World Music Network and Paul Fisher All tracks published by White Spats Music, BMI Sub-publishing in UK by Riverboat UK Music, MCPS Executive production: Alain Courbis, Pôle Régional de Musiques Actuelles de La Réunion Production: Daniel Thomas and Bob Brozman Chief engineer: Daniel Thomas Assistant engineers: Pascal Manglou and Eric Fruteau Production assistant: Haley S. Robertson Recorded at Studio Digital, St Denis, Ile de La Réunion, Indian Ocean Translation of lyrics: Odile Lagacherie (Creole to French), Haley S. Robertson and Jean-Pierre Laurent (Creole to English) Sleeve notes: Haley S. Robertson and Bob Brozman UK coordination by Duncan Baker Designed by Intro Also available on Riverboat Records: Takashi Hirayasu and Bob Brozman – Jin Jin / Firefly (TUGCD1020) and Nankuru Naisa (TUGCD1023) Visit www.worldmusic.net to listen to sound samples of all World Music Network and Riverboat Records releases
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