Life & Work

Three musicians in top class jazz concert tonight

CAB

Caribbean Africa Brazil (CAB) group is made up of a veteran jazz pianist from the island of Martinique, a Brazilian percussionist and a sensual singer-guitarist who is from Cameroon. PHOTO | COURTESY | BILL ODIDI

This weekend offers another opportunity to enjoy top class world music at a one-off concert in Nairobi by a group that brings together three artists from different parts of the world who have discovered a way of creating harmony from their diverse rhythms.

C.A.B, an exciting trio of established musicians representing the Caribbean, Africa and Brazil will stop over in Nairobi just a single concert tonight. The group is made up of a veteran jazz pianist from the island of Martinique, a Brazilian percussionist and a sensual singer-guitarist who has been described as the new urban voice from Cameroon.

Veteran Jazz Pianist Mario Canonge from Martinique, the exceptional guitarist and singer Blick Bassy from Cameroon and Brazilian master percussionist Adriano Tenorio formed C.A.B in late 2012.

In the last two years, they have been touring the world on a regular basis while writing and recording songs for their first joint album set for release this year. They may be from diverse musical backgrounds but their synergy is an illustration of the strong bonds that exist between Africa and Latin America.

The most famous name in the group is Cameroonian Blick Bassy who was last in Kenya in 2009 when he performed at the Carnivore. The singer and guitarist was a founder member of Macase, a jazz-fusion group from Cameroon that won the coveted Discoveries Award for World Music from Radio France International in 2001. Bassy is often compared to his famous compatriots like guitarist Richard Bona who played on his album “Likanda” and the legendary Manu Dibango, another artist he has also often played with.

Bassy was bitten by the bug of Brazilian music pretty early in his music career when, as a teenager, he formed a band that played a fusion of African melodies with bossa nova, that fusion of samba and jazz. His influences range from West African griot music blended with various styles of Jazz and a touch of classic Rhythm and Blues.

That association with Brazilian music was celebrated on Bassy’s second album “Hongo Calling” in 2011 that was partly recorded in South America after a musical journey that took him from Cameroon to Brazil passing through Benin, Senegal and Cape Verde, the route used to ferry slaves from West Africa to Brazil.

Reputation

Mario Canonge is a virtuoso pianist from the island of Martinique in the Caribbean, who traveled to Paris in 1979 to study music and ended up joining several bands during the following decade. The 54-year-old has a built a reputation for adapting his piano to a wide variety of genres, from Jazz to Zouk, Salsa and Bolero.

His style has effectively created a musical bridge between the music of Martinique, with it’s just under 400,000 inhabitants, and the rest of the world.

With more than two decades in the music business, Canonge has established a huge reputation on the international music scene as a pianist and accompanist for a host of stars including Manu Dibango, American jazz singer Dee Dee Bridgewater and the legendary zouk band Kassav.

The youngest of the C.A.B trio is the Brazilian percussionist Adriano Tenorio whose influence can be traced to his grandfather who was a trombone player in a military orchestra and his father who was a respected bassist. Born in the city of Aracaju, in the northeastern part of Brazil, which has a reputation as one of the richest cultural areas in the country, Tenorio was exposed to hundreds of rhythms, instruments, melodies and harmonies from a young age.

He settled in Europe in 2007 and has since worked as a percussion and bass player for Javier Ruibal, Munir Hossn, Marcia Maria, Blick Bassy and Gilberto Gil.

The trio will have a concert at the Alliance Francaise Gardens tonight, Friday 26 September, as part of an African tour that started mid this month and runs through November.

Just this week, the trio performed in Djibouti and after tonight’s show, they have dates booked in Kigali, Dar es Salaam, Addis Ababa, before heading off for the West Africa leg of the tour. In all, the group will perform across 23 African countries with the support of two French cultural institutions, Institut Francais French Agency for International Cooperation.

From their individual identities as great musicians, to videos that are available on the C.A.B website of the group in performance, there is plenty to excite those who love jazz music played with a twist of influences from some of the most rhythmically rich parts of the world.