Black Swamp Arts Festival Friday music preview
By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Daniel Yount of Super Yamba Band said he and the other musicians in the ensemble always felt it would be great to be the backing band for an iconic performer. Think of the J.B.s behind James Brown or the musicians supporting B.B. King.
Founded as an instrumental ensemble, Yamba now has that opportunity. The band now performs with Kaleta, who has done time as a guitarist with Afrobeat icons Fela Kuti and King Sunny Ade. And the Benin-born Kaleta is carrying forward the music of those legends and adding his own grooves.
Kaleta and Super Yamba Band will perform as headliners at the Black Swamp Arts Festival, Friday, Sept. 8 at 10 p.m. on the Main Stage.
The festival runs this weekend in downtown. Bowling Green, opening at 5 p.m. Friday until 11:30 p.m. and continuing Saturday 10 a.m. to 11:30 p.m., and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. The festival features music, visual arts, kids’ activities, and food and beverages.
Super Yamba Band traces its roots North Carolina where many of the members played in a band focused on original music that had a vein of Afrobeat and world music running through it.
They hooked up with Senegalese talking drum master Mamadou Mbengeu. “When he joined it took it to a different level,” Yount, a drummer, said.
Now with a horn section and three percussionists they were better positioned to explore more varieties of Afrobeat and jüjü.
In 2013, members of the band decided to relocate to New York City where they found this style in demand. The band expected to continue the more eclectic mix of music “but it changed and evolved,” Yount said.
They played clubs in Harlem and parties in Brooklyn. These “low stakes” gigs helped Super Yamba Band get established. “It took off very quickly,” he said. “People just love to dance to the music.”
The band started recording. For its 2019 album “Mèdaho” they planned to enlist several different singers to do a couple tracks each. They doubted that they’d find one singer who could touch all the stylistic bases they were exploring. Then they intended to continue to perform as an instrumental ensemble.
Yount said he’d heard Kaleta sing and contacted him. They sent him tracks featuring grooves from Nigeria, where Kaleta had moved when he was a teenager and where he’d made his name as a musician.
Kaleta loved the tracks, and in talking with him, Yount discovered the musician was from Benin, which has its own rhythms. Super Yamba was obsessed with Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou. He sent Kaleta, the band’s music inspired by the Beninese ensemble.
Kaleta ended up recording eight tracks with the band as the only vocalist on the album.
He also added his guitar, which he had set aside for a bit.
Still in the studio, he said, he looked forward to performing the music live. Super Yamba had a high-profile show at the Emerging Music Festival in Bryant Park in the city. The band as an instrumental ensemble was already making its mark.
After one rehearsal they did the festival with Kaleta . “It went really well, and we were off to the races,” Yount said.
“It’s kind of interesting where music and life takes you,” he said.
Though they still occasionally perform as an instrumental ensemble, most of their gigs are with Kaleta out front. “We’re learning so much along the way – the music Benin where he was born and Nigeria where he grew up.”
Kaleta provides the words and melodies that ride over the band’s grooves. “We left all that to him,” Yount said.
The music is a mix between the collaborations between Super Yamba and Kaleta, and Kaleta’s compositions. They do throw in a Fela cover now and then, Yount said, but that’s now rare.
Kaleta’s lyrics are often based on proverbs and sometimes touch on politics. He sings in several languages, though, so Yount is not sure what’s he’s singing about.
The seven-piece band with Kaleta’s vocals and guitar along with Prince Amu, bass, Eric Burns, guitar, Walter Fancourt, saxophone and keyboards, Sean Smith trumpet and keyboards, Evan Frierson, congas and talking drum, and Yount, drums, delivers a big sound.
Festivalgoers “should be prepared to dance and have a good time,” Yount said. “The music is really rich and interesting but it’s not over anyone’s head. It’s fun music to groove to and dance to. The audience always has fun.”
Friday night’s line-up
Music gets going at 5 p.m. on the Main Stage with The Sensational Barnes Brothers. The band grew out of the Barnes Family Band with their father, a veteran performer, and their mother, a former Raelette with Ray Charles.
The band brings family harmonies to music rooted in gospel. They have been called on to sing with other top acts including Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys.
They also appear on the newest recording by Latin rockers Making Movies, who will take the stage at 6:30 p.m. following their set. Maybe they’ll sit in.
Making Movies is also a band that features brothers – Enrique and Diego Chi, who are of Panamanian descent and grew up in Kansas City, Missouri.
Making Movies threads psychedelic rock with ancient African rhythms.
[RELATED: Making Movies draws on rock laced with ancient rhythms to get people moving on the dance floor]
At 8 p.m. Grammy nominee Ruthie Foster returns to the festival stage. The roots music diva graced the Bowling Green in 2009 and 2010.
Like the Barnes Brothers, the singer-songwriter grew up in the church, and the deep soul of gospel informs the eclectic mix of originals, traditional, and covers she performs.
