Audio

Biography

11 SONGS, a project by Mishalle/Watts/Dramé & Foliba + Marockin’ Brass

In December 2010, Trevor Watts and Marockin’ Brass (2 gnaoua musicians from Brussels and 5 wind instruments) travelled to Bobo, Burkina Faso. Together with Adama Drame and 3 percussionist of his band Foliba, they spent two weeks working on a new repertoire that was written by Watts, Drame and Mishalle for the 11 SONGS project. The band rehearsed, recorded and performed the music twice: at Festi’40 festival (Fada) and at the cultural centre of Bobo Diolasso (Bobo).

In February 2011, the 11 SONGS project was performed during a European tour. The music recorded in Bobo was mixed in Casablanca and later on mixed and mastered in Brussels with live recordings from the tour. The album 11 SONGS is now released on the MET-X label ‘A-Shams’.

Project
11 SONGS combines traditional manding and gnaoua rhythms with written contemporary music and improvisations for an extraordinary section of wind instruments. The rhythm section plays the traditional rhythms but is also guided by the scores of the composers. The horns either add colours to the percussion or create a sound environment of chords and sliding musical sentences. At other points they groove together or against the percussion section. Parallel to the traditional music context, the compositions are often frameworks to brought to life by the participating musicians.

Some history
Both Luc Mishalle and Trevor Watts have worked extensively in the field of improvised and contemporary music: as performers and as bandleaders. For more than 20 years their compositions have been influenced strongly by rhythm, and more specifically by rhythms of the Maghreb and West-Africa. This background is also clearly present in the arrangements for the melodic instruments. Watts refers to Moiré, an African weaving style, where the colours and textures of cloth change depending from which angle you look at it. Mishalle usually builds up the tension by using a cyclical movement of rhythmic patterns and layers that slide over each other in a polyrhythmic way. Often their starting point is to be found in traditional music forms, like gnaoua or in more contemporary forms passed on by Adama Drame and Rida Stitou.

Rida Stitou is a gnaoua maalem (master) and one of the 6 ‘music makers’ of MET-X, the community arts association, directed by Luc Mishalle. Both of them developed projects including gnaoua-musicians since 2001. Marockin’ Brass is the group for whom Luc Mishalle writes all the music and Rida Stitou also plays in this group. In 2008 Marockin’ Brass played some spicy concerts with Adama Dramé & Foliba.

Musicians
Trevor Watts: soprano & alto saxophone, composition

Marockin’ Brass
Luc Mishalle: soprano & tenor saxophone, composition
Jean-Paul Estiévenart: trumpet
Cezariusz Gadzina: alto saxophone
Véronique Delmelle: bariton saxophone
Arno Bakker: sousaphone
Rida Stitou: krakeb, vocals
Badder Derras: bendir, krakeb, vocals

Foliba
Dramé Adama : Djémbé
Dramé Salifou : Djémbé
Traoré Adama : Doun doun
Demmbélé Bothan : Balafon

Coproducers: WCC Zuiderpershuis, Concertgebouw Brugge,
MET-X Moving Music

With the support of Art Moves Africa and Africalia