Throw down your heart - Béla Flek comes to Durham

Last night Béla Fleck was in Durham, playing a live show at the Page Auditorium on the Duke campus, showcasing the work he did in 2005 with his Africa Project, Throw Down Your Heart.



Béla was in town with Vusi Mahlasela, a South African poet, activist and musician known in South Africa as "The Voice;" Toumani Diabaté, a Grammy-award winning kora player from Mali; Tanzanian guitarist and vocalist John Kitime; Anania Ngoliga, another Tanzanian multi-instrumentalist who has been part of the Tanzanian fusion movement for many years; D'Gary, an amazing roots guitar musician and singer from Madagascar; and D'Gary's friend and percussionist, Mario, also from Madagascar. Also on stage for part of the night was Fleck's friend and fiddle player, who wasn't listed in the program so I didn't catch his name.

As the YouTube clip above suggests, it was indeed a night highlighting traditional and contemporary African music, with singing in several different African languages (Vusi himself speaks 17 languages so you can imagine the different tones and rhythms coming from the stage.) It was a truly wonderful show highlighting these world-class musicians and their art, with Béla right in the middle finding a place for the banjo, and our perception of it as a bluegrass standard.

The format was such that Béla would introduce who was coming out, then would leave the stage for those folks to perform two or three songs. He'd then come back out, take a seat on his stool or stand nearby with his banjo, and they would engage in some back-and-forth virtuosity before launching into a full-fledged collaboration.

To see the banjo, which in my mind produces a fully Southern sound from the U.S., and is fully modern with machined metal and steel picks and steel strings and precision tuning, up there with a finger harp and a kora (a 21-string African harp) and a tin can that used to be evaporated milk now attached to a stick and filled with broken glass, was wonderful. On top of it all, the playing sounded correct! And with these different measures and tones and voices, it was mind-expanding. I kept having to lift myself out of where I thought the music was going to go, and out of the American South, and just experience the direction and the context where it was actually headed.

While all of the musicians were wonderful, and Toumani Diabaté was indeed virtuosic on the kora -- as well as gracious and kind to Béla and the audience -- and while Vusi was powerful and poignant, the highlight for me was D'Gary and Mario with their roots-inspired performance.

Here's a clip of D'Gary with some photo montage. You can see his spirit when he plays. What you aren't getting here is his friend Mario -- wearing bright yellow pants and shirt with purple flames and patchwork -- dancing a little shuffle next to him, and playing his evaporated milk tin with broken glass in it.



It was a really great night. And I see on Béla's website that he'll be in Santa Fe in June, at the Thirsty Ear Music festival. If I were going to be in New Mexico in June I'd go because it looks like he'll be there with Toumani Diabaté playing probably a wonderful set.

Next week, we'll go back to the Page to see Richie Havens & Rachid Taha in a concert called "Art Politics Now." Should be fun.