Jan 5/06
Horn chops from the Gulf of Guinea
As promised, a second catch-up post to bring in the new year. And hey, I’ve never posted any music from Benin on this site so today we’ll hear a tune by the Gangbé Brass Band.
I don’t know about the group except that they’re from Benin and have a distinctly West African yet original sound. The production is polished but not too much, and the mixing is quite well done considering the potentially disastrous combination of instruments they use. I guess I’m a sucker for the horns a bit, too, since years ago I used to play trombone and sometimes still long for the days of blasting away my lips to some ska or big band deal. True horn chops, if you ask me, only come from the trombone.
Today’s track is my favourite from their 2001 release, Togbé. You can get their latest album, released one year ago, on Calabash.
Tags: benin
Salut mattgy, bonne anneé!
Man, I’m glad I dropped by in time to hear this brass band stuff. I’m a horn player too (trumpet, the instrument of angels) and this horn playing out of Benin is great. Reminds me of Dirty Dozen Brass band but with that great West African rhythm section underneath. It really swings, and such a different approach from Fela’s horn sections down the coast in Lagos
I will have to look out for their albums…
All the best for 2006
Ditto on the praise for Gangbe – I caught them live in Seattle in 2005, and they rocked the usually stiff Triple Door crowd. It didn’t hurt that there was an African guy in the front of the audience instructing the well-heeled patrions how to spray the musicians with money, as well as a few daring ladies who went onstage to dance. Gangbe’s trombone player is fierce, by the way. But I always thought the angels prefered saxes…