Last March, the Théâtre du Châtelet hosted Le Châtelet fait son Jazz, a festival dedicated to what appears to be world music. The programming, eclectic and generous, delights fans of the genre and enchants the public who come in large numbers to meet the guest artists. Let us pay particular attention to the closing weekend, first with the indescribable Richard Bona, virtuoso singer bassist, outstanding ambiancer and ambassador of peace between cultures, then with the young prodigy Arnaud Dolmen, explorer drummer noticed from his first album Tombé lévé, finally with the always surprising Avishai Cohen, double bass player and singer inhabited, and more than ever perhaps inhabitant of the world, with his new project Iroko, offered in world premiere in Paris.
As I write these lines, the music still resounds in me, the melodies, the groove, the sun, the uprooted jubilation too. While it was raining, screaming, protesting, striking outside, inside he was singing, he was dancing, he was vibrating, he was making a truce, a dream of summer in winter. We were in another world where music erased borders, all borders, a world where music, and not just any music, jazz, led us all to cry and smile in the same language, that overflowing hearts.
Winner of a Grammy Award, a Victoire de la Musique and the Grand Prix de la Sacem, among other honors received during his prolific career, Richard Bona, born in Cameroon, living in the United States, is like a child of the Earth, and he is, champion of relationships. His music is a crossroads, a space of diversity, a region of the All-World, where differences are exchanged, separated, committed, on the path of happy, luminous otherness.
Bona makes it a point of honor to sing in Douala, his mother tongue, perhaps because at the Senghorian rendezvous of giving and receiving, we come with what we are, with what we have to offer the other. And Bona offers himself, with humor and love, Bona offers all his technique and his mastery that we often end up forgetting because he puts on a show and has fun and entertains the gallery, laughs and makes people laugh, takes position and also gives food for thought, in all lightness.
O si tikane ndutu o mulema, there is indeed this invitation to simplicity and joy between the chosen pieces of his solar sets. We came out of Richard Bona’s Bal Africain, accompanied that evening by Nicolas Viccaro on drums, Alexandre Herrichon on trumpet, Ciro Manna on guitar and Mica Lecoq on keyboard. Enjaillés, yes that’s the right word, and charged with positive energy, therefore necessary against sad affects.
I smile again, thinking back to the finale of the dancing ovation, on the unstoppable cover of Ndedi Dibango, Cameroonian singer of my childhood. Na som jita Richard, for these words too: “We are the ambassadors of peace in this world. That’s how I would describe myself. When I set up a new project like I did with Asante, and with which I’m starting in London soon, it’s in a process of moving towards the possibility of embracing differences, “says the Cameroonian artist. “I feel like when we embraced difference, we embraced tolerance. That’s what I focus on the most these days, because the world needs it. Traveling is also learning, it’s a way of learning, it’s a way of being, it’s a state of mind. Me, I want to learn. I’m a student, not just music,” he continues.
Another atmosphere after the African Ball having set fire to the Great Hall a little earlier, the message or rather the questioning in music by Arnaud Dolmen, Adjusting, presented at the Grand Foyer. The Guadeloupean drummer, winner of the Victoires du Jazz 2022 in the Revelation category, brings his new album to the stage, in a quartet with Léonardo Montana on piano, Francesco Geminiani on tenor saxophone and Samuel F’hima on double bass. In a world as beautiful as it is noisy, Adjusting questions our interconnections and human experiences.
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The tone is set, the sound too, fresh, fluid, elegant, sometimes muffled. And Dolmen beats time, the Ka dances one might say; he takes us to the drumbeat of his jazz tinged with Gwo-ka. “I really draw my inspiration from my roots, from my history,” says Arnaud Dolmen. Despite the fact that this history is punctuated by difficult, even bad periods, I like to draw from this one. I’m also curious about my culture and I use that to be able to open up to the world and to give me strength, so that I can better understand the culture of the other, the vision of the other. »
The next day, the turn of Avishai Cohen and his wonderful Banda, master percussionist Abraham Rodriguez Jr. on congas and vocals, Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez on drums and percussion, Yoswany Terry on saxophone and chekere, Diego Urcola on trumpet and trombone, Jose Angel on percussion and voice, and the sublime Virginia Alves on singing and dancing.
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Here again, what a great artistic adventure, and what a tour of the Whole World, sacred songs, Yoruba, Bantu, gospel, it’s a man’s man’s world, motherless child, etc. The double bass player, trumpeter and singer, who has selected Puerto Rican, Cuban, Argentinian and Spanish musicians, invited us to an Afro-Caribbean set, tender and fiery rumba. Impossible to sit quietly on his seat, besides we ended up standing, dancing at the back of the room. When the music is good, we get up and that’s it. And we let ourselves vibrate, we let ourselves move, we let ourselves be carried away.
We thank for the Iroko, this African tree with magical properties that can live for several centuries. Like this palimpsest music, in essence open to all winds, all times, all genres, unique. The Châtelet did its Jazz, and it was big and beautiful, generous, I want to repeat.
Outside it was raining, it was screaming, it was demanding, it was on strike, and inside it was singing, it was dancing, it was vibrating, it was a truce, a dream of summer in winter. We were in another world, where music erases borders, all borders. A world where music, and not just any music, jazz, has led us all to cry and smile in the same language, that of overflowing hearts.
* Franco-Cameroonian, Marc Alexandre Oho Bambe, Paul Verlaine Prize of the French Academy, is artistic director of the collective On a slamé sur la Lune.
