The great Ghanaian bandleader ET Mensah and his band The Tempos Band visited the Guinean capital Conakry in 1958. At that time, Mensah was probably the most famous bandleader in Africa, an icon of the "highlife" music he helped create and popularise. His arrival in Conakry created an impression on local musicians, particularly on the new African bands that were emerging in Guinea — from that time onward they added highlife to their music.
Salif Keita, singer.
I get a lot of enquiries about West African dance bands, particularly when I play tracks by legendary bands like Bembeya Jazz National, Les Ambassadeurs du Motel de Bamako and the Rail Band at my DJ nights. So, for the curious, here are few thoughts and some background to a golden era — from the 1950s through to the late 1970s — when dance bands ruled the dance floors and airwaves of West Africa.
Highlife goes back to the turn of the 20th century when local musicians started to experiment mixing Akan music with Western instruments and some Western genres like jazz (see Soundway's Highlife on the Move compilation, which reviewed recently). Later, Caribbean forms like calypso and Cuban music would also be incorporated into the highlife mix. ET Mensah brought his highlife music to Guinea but perhaps more important was that his band was an African dance band, something that was hard to find in Conakry at that time, according to John Collins in his book Musicmakers Of West Africa. Collins interviewed musicians in French-speaking West African countries and many said that the English-speaking countries in the region, particularly Ghana and Nigeria, were way ahead in terms of developing their own sound and music from their own countries.
ET Mensah gave the local musicians in Conakry a real boost, which enabled them to make up for lost time. Another key element was independence from colonial rule (Ghana was the first in 1957), which in some French-speaking countries led to state government policies that banned Western music on the airwaves. In Guinea, the then-president Sekou Toure had Western dance bands banned and created regional orchestras which would develop more "Africanised" music. The same process was implemented in Mali (check out some of the Stern's label early compilations on regional orchestras for examples of this sound) and other countries in the region (in the 1960s, Zaire's president Mobuto installed a similar policy, which he called "authenticité").
The regional orchestras in these countries would compete in national competitions. This is how the great dance band Bembeya Jazz International came about — winning the Gold medal of the Guinean biannual music contest in 1964. Interestingly, their first overseas trip after winning the medal was to Cuba; while Western music was banned, Cuban music, a key influence in the development of many West and Central African popular musical styles, was performed and incorporated into the music.
Thus, it came to pass that after learning their trade in the regional orchestras, bands were set up in capitals like Bamako in Mali (Rail Band, Ambassadeurs) and Conakry in Guinea (Bembeya, Les Amazones and Balla et ses Balladins) and they started touring and recording in the region. The music they created was multilayered, polyphonic and it swung. Local traditional music was brought in, often as guitar lines, supported by hot swinging brass, a bedrock of percussion and beautiful soaring call and response vocals. At their peak, these orchestras must have been an awesome sight.
The music these pioneering bands created was quickly picked up by others, so that by the early 1960s new dance bands were being created across the region. In Senegal, for instance, bands like the Star Band took their lead from Guinea and Mali to create the rootsy mbalax music. Other key bands crossed borders, such as the incomparable Orchestra Baobab, a band formed by Malian and Senegalese musicians.
Out of these orchestras, great musicians emerged to international acclaim like the singer Salif Keita, guitarist and arranger Kante Manfila, guitarist/bandleader Zani Diabate, kora player Mory Kante and many more.
Just look online for some of the names I've mentioned above and you'll find yourself on one of the video websites like YouTube. I recommend that you look out for grainy monochrome TV clips from some of the bands and musicians I've mentioned in this column; there are some very good ones. After you've done that, there are many compilations on Stern's, Rough Guides and Celluloid labels and many others to keep you dancing.
This columnist can be contacted at clewley.john@gmail.com.
