LIRA RECOMMENDS!
Etienne Mbappé
Misiya
0+ Music/Harmonia Mundi
Afrofusion. Unknown
to the big audiences but at the same time one of the most skillful and best qualified
bass players in African music, Etienne Mbappé has, since moving to Paris from
his home country Kamerun in the 70's, played with musicians such as Manu
Dibango, Salif Keita, Joe Zawinul and his own fusion bands Chic and
Ultramarine.
His first solo album definitely belongs to the same
genre as Richard Bona's, soft wellarranged modern African music, where the
vocals have a prominent role. Like Bona, he sings in the soft Douala language,
but translations into English and French are included in the CD booklet. If you
didn't know that Mbappé's career was in full bloom while Bona was still home in
Kamerun, you might want to call this genre Bona-music. During the years that
they both lived in Paris they used to jam together in the clubs there - one
could assume that the room was full of amazed listeners when these two
enormously talented bass player got started!
The wealth of variety is great but the 14 tracks
form an almost symphonic entity, where Mbappé turns out to be a real master of
both arrangement and orchestration. A number of years with Orchestre National
de Jazz in France have left their mark. Almost half of the tracks feature a
string quintet, arranged by Mbappé. Also the vocal arrangements are exquisite,
and the whole album is saturated with warmth, depth and a rich timbre
with nearly only acoustic sounds. And the bass playing itself is in a class of
its own, soft, elastic, with an obvious virtuosity that doesn't need any
showing-off to be noticed. A fantastic record that keeps giving you more each
time you listen to it!
Annika Westman
Published in Lira magazine 1/2005