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Despite the fact that Black Orpheus is remarkable for its coherence,
don't go falling into the trap of thinking that this is one of those
decried 'mature' albums. Written in the solitude of the Andalusian
countryside, in the shadow of the Sierra Nevada, these are songs that
betray an artist whose concerns are at once increasingly personal yet
better controlled. There's less grandstanding, and the songs are the
better for it. The lyrics are filled with obscure references and
collages, drawing on the evocative richness of the 'pidgin' English
often spoken in former colonies to subvert what you might
call 'English as we know it'. Many of the tracks deal in the afro-
surrealism of the opening track.
Afrosurrealismfortheladies is a strange voyage to both sides of the
Atlantic. The track opens to the sound of the surf and a few dimly
heard echoes of the tabla -providing a background of unifying
timelessness - all accompanied by the creak of a ship's timbers as it
rolls on the seas. The ship in question must be one of the "ships of
slavery" referred to in the song. Ships that transported the "afro-
pioneers" across the oceans. But there's no bewailing of the tragedy,
in fact at times there's a sense that he's coming at the 'politically
correct' from a totally different direction. Winding around a cat-
smooth bass and sax, the mysterious lyrics speak of blackness, sex,
magic. Keziah adds that "it's also a hard-hitting riposte to African-
Americans who use African musical forms to sell a kinda black 'hyper-
sexuality', a concept that to me smacks of a sort of self-
colonization", and you just know that he's as uneasy as ever with all
the clichés and stereotypes that go with the image of being
a 'black' artist, or man.
The record is steeped in evocations of Africa and of the melancholy
of the émigré: "I'm sentimental like a state in Africa (...) Does
anybody know the way to Africa?" he sings on
Afrosurrealismfortheladies. In 72 kilos, a track with some kindly
meant words of irony directed at Lagos, the rhythms and the brass
pile up in a free-jazz style, seemingly driven by the urban
chaos: "I'm rugged in London/Tokyo, I'm rugged in Paree/from
immigration to McDonalds with a false identity(...) 72 kilos of
Nigerian weed". Rugged and ruggedness are concepts oft referred to
by Keziah. They are at once an expression of the sheer grind of life
in Lagos as well as being the signifiers of a strength born of
another age, almost like a memory of the pain which has now become
the survival instinct that protects an entire community, a vital
energy fuelling writers and artists.
Lagos and its creative community are the targets of the album's most
emblematic track, Kpafuca. During the intro, Keziah talks directly to
artists of Nigerian origin, painters and musicians who have found
fame in the Western world and who decree what is, and is not, African
Art. It's a song about himself and his friends, Nigerians educated
in the British style, "living in the first world, waiting for the
next one". Finding one's own place, fitting in without renouncing the
mindset forged by years' of training in Europe, attempting to draw on
the creative strength of his native land, yet filtering the process
through his own experience, renewing with his family without becoming
overwhelmed by the force of community, dreaming of a country at ease
with tradition and modernity... Such are the pressures, and rewards,
of travel. But Kpafuca is also a song of confusion - it's pidgin for
chaos. All it takes is a couple of days hanging out on the streets
of Lagos with Keziah Jones, and you quickly understand that the word
is in fact the most apt and accurate way of describing life in the de
facto capital of Nigeria. It's a hypercity where 13 million souls
live cheek-by-jowl in an area extending some 300 square kilometers,
living in haphazard shacks, rundown flats and precipitous alleys,
amongst ruptured sewers and teeming bridges and thoroughfares. Three
hundred square kilometers of misery and injustice in a country that
is the world's sixth largest oil producer, the country with the
greatest number of dollar millionaires in Africa. Keziah Jones has
his own unique slant on this confusion: "Kpafuca is your coun-ti-ree
and your coun-ti-rees-eco-no-mee /when you've been kpafu-organised/
kpafucal-ity, it's so simple to define it/ just find a place (e.g.:
Nigeria) and "kpafucize" it /(...) Are you living in a kpafuca
nation for survival?".
From the very first notes, this is a song that sounds like a
declaration of intent. An agile, muscular bass winds amongst the brass
stabs, with the tenor sax leading the way. The gravelly voice comes
in - intonations in the Nigerian style - deconstructing English with
elegant ease. Although not of the same mould, you are immediately
reminded of the golden era of the 1970's when Fela was inventing afro-
beat in Lagos. There's nothing accidental about this homage to Fela,
an artist Keziah holds in the highest respect for his music and for
his vision of the world. In Lagos, Keziah Jones often meets up with
Fela's former keyboard player Duro, and together they jam away with
other local musicians including his friend the bass and guitar player
Joey Ducane. He has also played with Fataï, the ageing guitarist, once
one of the stars of the 50s high-life scene, now back in the studio
thanks to Olakunle Tejuoso, another friend of Keziah's, who runs a
busy record shop and label. In such an environment, Keziah Jones takes
away as much as he gives in return: "I do my work in Europe, now it's
time to be useful here, time to try to build something that will last.
Open a kinda house, where old-time musicians will be able to meet
musicians from Europe, to do concerts together... Helping to keep the
heritage alive, opening music from Nigeria to the world." Then he
adds, with a smile: "I want to found a funky church, a place to go to
listen to Coltrane in the morning, Fela at night. Music is a spiritual
path... that's all Fela talked about before his death".
It's a spiritual path that leads to the land of the Yoruba, in
Abeokuta a background Keziah Jones shares with Fela Kuti and Nobel-
winning author Wole Soyinka. The path leads to the pantheon of orisha,
gods in a complex cosmology, and plunges into the intricacies of ifa,
the system of philosophy and divination. Orin O'Lomi, the magnificent
ballad with which the album closes, is a delicate homage to this world
suffused with respect for ancestors, life and the living world. The
track opens to the gentle strains of traditional percussion and a raw
acoustic guitar, with sound evoking the murmur of the bush. Then
Jones' vocal begins, almost appears to float on this "water song", a
singing style used "when washing in the morning or as a mark of
respect for an opponent before combat". Keziah's voice betrays
boundless melancholy, charged with a profound sense of oneness with
the land and country. It's the first time that he has recorded a song
written in Yoruba: "When I write in that language, I am seized by a
sort of solemnity. The 'me' exists no more... you have to expunge the
self, acknowledge that you are part of a whole that's greater than you
are." Orin O'Lomi is also a tribute to his father, now buried in the
house at Abeokuta, a man who was once a rich industrialist and
balogun, an advisor to the Yoruba king of Egbaland. A man of his times
who never forgot his heritage.
Keziah Jones dedicated three years to the composition of his latest
album, endlessly flitting between subject matter, lyrics and music,
until finally the three merged. Considering the originality of many of
the melodic structures, this in itself was no mean achievement, but
the results are worthy of his ambitions. Keziah was never less than an
outstanding musician, and with this new album he has gone to great
lengths to provide substance to the sophistication of his melodies and
the diversity of his themes. On Wet Questions, a young man's profound
sensitivity timidly revels in an acoustic funk of rare smoothness as
an almost Prince-like vocal delivery speaks of hurt and solitude. Some
of the tracks are unashamedly romantic, but it's always held in check.
Take Neptune, for example, the guitar sound is so bright and shiny
that it's almost aquatic; the lightest of brushes on cymbal and snare
pave the way for a cello part that delicately fleshes out the song,
providing a love song with all the emotion and passion that might be
desired. The guitar on Femiliarise is tenderness itself, gently
ringing out the sound of the most intimate of relations. With its
upfront swing, little Motown touches from the organ and chorus,
there's a certain well-intentioned teasing about Beautiful Emilie, the
girl who has trouble deciding who she is and communicating with the
world around. The overall impression is of infinite care lavished on
ensuring a seamless match between subject and music. From the minimal
blues of The Black Orpheus - guitar and vocal gloriously
unaccompanied - to the bossa vibe underscoring Autumn Moon - with
Sarah Ann Webb's vocal providing a sensual counterpoint - every track
inhabits its own fully formed world. Lyrics at times willfully ignore
the strict confines of meter, melodies are crafted in an abstract
world of polytonality, and yet the coherence never wavers. Jones
relies less on the famous slap technique of his that allows his guitar
to double up as bass and percussion. For this outing, his approach is
concerned with the oneness of the performance as a whole. Black
Orpheus - more acoustic and more lyrical than before - is a step
forwards from his previous albums Liquid Sunshine (1999) and African
Space Craft (1995).
This feeling of unity has never been as strong since his debut
album, Blufunk Is A Fact (1992), and much of the credit must lie with
the band Keziah Jones has assembled. Bassist Otto Williams rehearsed
endlessly, learning just what it is that makes the 'Jones touch', and
youngster Nathaniel Ledwidge, on keyboards, left his traditional
churchified venues to follow quite another calling. Sarah- Ann Webb
appeared on Keziah's first album and drummer Richard Cassell toured
with him following the release of Liquid Sunshine. Along with the
funky touch generated by the brass section under Jason Yarde, these
combined talents form an ensemble of far greater power than the
previous three-piece line-up. It's a group wholly in tune with
Keziah's music; music that's complex, direct, and emotionally
intense. Every tiniest detail is held up to the light, thanks to the
wonderful production work of Kevin Armstrong and the sublime mixes of
New York hotshot Russel Elevado. Black Orpheus was recorded in London
and mixed in Paris and New York, and at every moment Elevado's
subtle, discreet mixes gets to the essence of every track, his
lightness of touch respecting the spirit of the work.
The wrongheadedness of those who, as the years and albums succeeded
each other, compared Jones to Hendrix, Coltrane or Terence Trent
D'Arby is now revealed. Black Orpheus is a Keziah Jones record.
Although the title is taken from the film Orfeo Negro, the myth of
Orpheus transferred to the favelas of Brazil, and though its subject
matter is the difficulty of returning to the maelstrom that is Lagos
and the confusion that reigns in the mind of one of its sons who left
too early and stayed away too long, one thing is certain: Keziah
Jones is not lost; he's found new strength, new determination. Just
listen.
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