Location: Bled / Športna dvorana / Slovenia
Date: Sunday, 4. 9. 2011
The traditional Okarina Ethno Festival in Bled, now in its 21st year, serves up plenty of top-quality, renowned acts from all corners of the world every year. But it’s rare for this festival, always a draw for music connoisseurs and held this year in Zdravilski park, to land a band with the caliber, track record and reputation of the legendary Ghanaians Osibisa, who have recorded more than 20 studio and live albums over a magnificent 42-year career and were a key force in popularizing afrobeat-jazz rock fusion in the early seventies.
One of the most important jazz rock bands of all time, led by the band’s boss and founder, multi-instrumentalist Teddy Osei, has been thrilling audiences for decades with its unique blend of jazz, funk, fusion, R&B, African, Caribbean and Latin rhythms and traditional, “shamanic” vocal harmonies. No wonder plenty of Slovenian music gourmets decided they simply couldn’t miss this gig.
While the band’s traditional fans usually come from the fusion and world music crowd, Osibisa also appeal to some hardcore rockers, who know them best for their contribution to the Uriah Heep classic “Look At Yourself”, even though over their long career they’ve also worked with other famous rock names like Free and Thin Lizzy. Their music, built mostly on an astonishingly rich web of rhythms from all kinds of percussion and drums, something that has always defined traditional African music, is steeped in positive vibes that go hand in hand with awakening, pacifist-minded lyrics.
The whole evening unfolded in that spirit. From the very first minute, when the ten-piece band started the instrumental intro to the classic “The Dark” after a short tuning-up, they sent out positively charged vibes, and later, during the more commercial-leaning numbers, some people in the crowd even gave in to the dance rhythms, which in their case have both African and Caribbean roots. It’s worth noting that several past and present members of this superb band come from the Caribbean islands.
Besides multi-instrumentalist Osei, who kept addressing the crowd throughout, kept nudging them with humor to get more involved, and, despite being confined to a wheelchair (which for a moment recalled the legendary drummer Robert Wyatt, who shares a similar fate but still makes excellent music), diligently watched over his rich array of African drums, tenor sax and flute, and occasionally handled vocal duties too, we were treated to the original guitarist/vocalist Wendel Richardson, who’s from Antigua, guitarist/vocalist Gregg Kofi Brown, trumpeter Colin Graham, organist/vocalist Emmanuel Rintzos, drummer Alex Kwaku-Boateng, keyboardist Kwame Yeboah, bassist Emmanuel Afram and percussionist Kofi Ayivor. Colin Graham replaced the original Osibisa trumpeter Mac Tontoh, who sadly passed away last year.
It was fascinating to watch the sonic contrast and the division of duties between the two keyboardists. While Rintzos dazzled with rustling runs on the Hammond organ, Kwame Yeboah impressed with the orchestral sound of his synthesizers, which also successfully made up for the absence of a soprano sax. It would be seriously negligent to call Osibisa’s style “just” jazz fusion, and yet the trumpet parts are an important piece of their sonic vocabulary, as Graham’s solo masterpieces proved. Pretty much every member of the band except bassist Afram and percussionist Ayivor tried their hand at singing, with Kofi Brown, who mostly played rhythm guitar, and Richardson shining brightest. The two of them also delighted us with their guitar skills, though in the solos the older, more experienced Richardson, whom some rock fans know as Paul Kossoff’s replacement right before Free fell apart, was the more convincing one. And the big boss, philosopher and entertainer Osei, with his short flute passages and creative work on the African drums, kept proving that he’s well on his way to becoming the African Ian Anderson, a comparison plenty of people like to make.
As expected, the Ghanaian masters mostly played hits from their first three albums, “Osibisa” (1971), “Woyaya” (1971) and “Heads” (1972), which most music connoisseurs also know best, alongside newer material. Among other things, we got to hear classics like the opening “The Dawn”, “Ayiko Bia”, their first hit single “Music for Gong Gong, “Beautiful Seven”, “Y Sharp”, the peace anthem “Woyaya” and “Kokorokoo”. From their latest, otherwise excellent studio album “Osee Yee” they showed off the title track and “My Sweet Lord”, a cover of the quiet Beatle George Harrison. The other cover of the night was “Pata Pata”, originally sung by the famous South African singer Miriam Makeba.
For a short while, Osibisa used their unique fusion of jazz, rock, funk and world music to transport us into the heart of the African savannas and jungles, with a brief stopover in the Caribbean islands. The excellent show by this legendary band, which many who followed them back in the early seventies don’t even realize is still active (which is sad), was over far too soon, and when the descendants of ancient African peoples said their goodbyes to a small but enthusiastic crowd, their complex shamanic rhythms kept echoing in our ears for a long time.
Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
