Festival echo (part 1)

By: Joe Farmer Follow

Throughout the month of July 2020, "L'épopée des Musiques Noires" supports the live performance penalized by the world health crisis and offers you a series of programs produced in recent years in festivals in France and Navarre.

Publicity

While the Covid-19 pandemic prohibits the holding of the main festivals in France and abroad, this week we immerse ourselves in the archives of two major musical events: "Jazz sous les Pommiers" and "Jazz à Vienne" .

The first part of our summer series brings us back first to 2013 when the Ladysmith Black Mambazo, a famous South African vocal group, gave a vibrant concert at Coutances in Normandy (north-west of France). The 33rd edition of "Jazz sous les Pommiers" was in full swing and festival-goers discovered, enchanted, the harmonies of this legendary choir which married the upheavals of history, from the 60s, when apartheid was sadly the norm. This inextricable situation was the daily life of millions of people in southern Africa until the release of Nelson Mandela on February 11, 1990. Although they were never openly perceived as political activists, the Ladysmith Black Mambazo won the hearts of their contemporaries by poetically distilling messages of hope and resilience throughout their musical adventure. On May 11, 2013, two prominent members of this unique group, Albert Mazibuko and Sibongiseni Shabalala, were delighted to narrate their fiftieth destiny, their meeting with the father of the rainbow nation, the success of the album " Graceland "by Paul Simon in 1986 which revealed them internationally, and the pleasure of recording Songs from a Zulu Farm , a disc entirely composed of traditional songs heard in the past in the South African countryside. The family patriarch, Joseph Shabalala, has since left us. He left peacefully on February 11, 2020 at the age of 79, 30 years to the day after the release of his friend Madiba. Being able to listen to extracts from his performance today in the company of his faithful fellow travelers is a privilege and our tribute to a pillar of "The epic of black music". "Jazz sous les Pommiers" in its usual formula will return in 2021, organizers assure us that are already thinking of alternatives such as "weekends under the apple trees" in September 2020. To be continued…

"Jazz à Vienne" also undergoes the throes of a deferred programming. This quarantine summer event which, every summer, thrills its famous ancient theater had to be resolved to invite festival-goers to the bars and restaurants of the city where they can watch the archives of past concerts on the big screen. In addition, on July 11, 2020, the festival's official YouTube channel will offer a selection of performances captured in previous editions. The team of "L'épopée" accompanies all these initiatives by exhuming some reports carried out on the spot and, in particular, the cordial radio conversations of June 2014. Two major groups of the disco-funk era had then made roar the old Roman stones of this city in the south of France by revitalizing a repertoire, sometimes a little outdated, not so hectic. The Commodores and Kool & The Gang were therefore on the bill for the 34th edition "Jazz à Vienne". Each of these historic formations then celebrated an anniversary. The Commodores celebrated the 40th anniversary of their very first album, "Machine Gun", released in June 1974. William King, Walter Orange and James Dean Nicholas were happy to share this moment on our antenna. For his part, Robert "Kool" Bell, founding member of Kool & The Gang, realized on our microphone that half a century had passed since the creation of the original group in 1964. So many good reasons to resuscitate some musical memories and comment on them!

The coronavirus has certainly slowed down cultural activity around the world, but the envy, faith and passion of artists will always prevail. Let us be united and, while waiting for better days, listen, broadcast, share our musical enthusiasms!

The Jazz Festival site under the apple trees

The site of the Jazz Festival in Vienna

Newsletter Receive all international news directly in your mailbox

Follow all international news by downloading the RFI application

• Culture
• Music

On the same subject

The Epic of Black Music

Benin under the apple trees

The Epic of Black Music

Under the apple trees, the dark soul ...