The Syliphone Years

Bembeya Jazz National

Massive African Mambo

Several years after Guinea won its independence from France in 1958, the new government began a program intended to promote cultural heritage. In music, that meant that the established dance bands and orchestras that specialized in rhythms not native to Guinea were disbanded, and new ensembles were encouraged to make music based on indigenous traditions. Government officials had a hand in assembling the new groups, and when they reached the town of Beyla, near the border with Liberia, they put together a horn ensemble first called Orchestre de Beyla and later renamed for the nearby Bembeya River.

Like most musicians, the assembled players shared a curiosity about music from all over the world. But they were canny enough to recognize that survival depended on what the government considered "authenticity"; so the tracks on the group's first album, from 1961, included a calypso, a mambo cha-cha, and four folkloric pulses identified as "rhythme Africaine."

But as the group evolved, it strayed from that initial directive. Its specialty became the polyrhythmic music of Cuba, which, of course, descended from the polyrhythmic music of West Africa. To this intercontinental cauldron Bembeya added multiple electric guitars playing spiderwebbed African-style riffs, and spirited call-and-answer exchanges between singer Demba Camara and the active horn section. It's possible to identify the various regional traits, but after a while it all blends into a sound of pure joy that spreads generously in all directions. Resistance to this buoyant pulse is futile—before you're even aware of it, you may find yourself dancing.

Genre: World, Guinea
Released: 2004, Sterns Africa
Key Tracks: "Camara mousso," "Montuno de la sierra," "Beyla," "Sabor de guajira."
Catalog Choice: Bembeya Jazz.
Next Stop: Orchestra Baobab: Specialist in All Styles.
Book Page: 76