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A GUITAR AROUND THE WORLD by Jean-Pierre Jumez


			ABIDJAN - DOUALA - BRAZZAVILLE NAIROBI - TANANARIVE The continent of swing Dugouts across the Oubangui As soon as I arrive in Dakar, I'm met with the incessant sound of beating drums. The real kind. The kind that cause unsuspecting visitors to enter a trance-like state, to lose all sense of time. In the street everything is an excuse for drumming. To left and right the percussive sounds of tom-toms resonate from every house. My stay is short since someone is waiting for me in Cotonou. In Dakar I’m introduced to the director of the drumming school of the Art Institute of Havana, who is here to visit Dahomey (currently Benin). - We Cubans are very interested in this region. We have roots here. Many accuse us of neo-colonialism, especially in Angola. But we have blood ties with the people in these countries. But you, you’re French... - Yes, well…But are you trying to tell me that drumming here is the same as it is in Cuba? - Absolutely. Why don't you come to the celebration tonight? I'll be playing there. The ceremony in question resembles a voodoo ritual. My personal guide is playing one of the drums and quickly becomes the driving force of the event. He drums as an old woman, spinning madly to the interlocking rhythms, gradually enters a bewildered stupor. He draws her attention with an intense, almost unbearable stare. He bewitches her with his halting rhythms and plaintive syncopation. She is spellbound by the complexity of the dense musical architecture he is constructing around her. The music is reaching a crescendo of sorts. Breathless, disoriented, and dizzy the woman is now searching for a way out of this world. Soon she’ll enter a trance-like state. Her senses heightened, her eyes bulging, her tongue lolling, she blacks out as the drums continue to pound. She bridges the gap between this world and the next, as if freed of the opaque screen of her conscious mind. She now serves as interpreter, playing her own version of the Great Master’s work. In the middle of the night, my host joins me outside the straw hut. Together, we walk in the still of the tropical night. - Tell me, I've never seen a college professor so involved in field research as you. - Yes, I'm familiar with the Yoruba rituals. - You seem to know a thing or two about their drumming as well. - The formal aspects aren’t hard to understand. In Havana we have access to tape recorders and computers that we use to learn the formal properties of music. But these rhythms need a key to unlock, a code, or, since we’re talking about computers, an algorithm. I can reproduce, phrase by phrase, any ceremonial music. Not just what you heard tonight but Fon or Abakua rhythms. But since I’m not an initiate, since I don’t know the password, which is reserved for the elect, I have no way of becoming meaningfully involved in their ceremonies. Form is meaningless without content. - What’s the meaning of the rhythm here, then? - For an African the world is asymmetrical. Through rhythm, he rectifies the original asymmetry. It is within man’s ability—and his duty—to transcend asymmetry. His actions should flow from this spiritual mission. He is the missionary of rhythm. Excision and circumcision are part of the rhythm. The clitoris is a natural growth but is viewed as an imperfection in woman’s role as a receptive vessel. Conversely, the foreskin is a screen borrowed from the female. Symmetry needs to be reestablished using the means available. Similarly, the spinal cord is considered the determining factor in the symmetry of the body. Throughout his activities the African never forgets the rigidity of the backbone. Women can work or even dance while carrying a baby on their back. The rigidity of the spine serves as a stabilizing mechanism. Similarly, musical instruments are assigned a sex. Hollow hand drums are female, filled hand drums are male. For purely musical reasons, of course, the male drum strikes the female, rather than the other way around. The sound is very different. Two strings on the harp lute are male, two female. The mystery of the African world resides in its sense of rhythm, the true organizing principle, the thing that saves us from chaos. Duke Ellington said it best when he said "It don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that swing." **** Abidjan is in a jubilant mood. President Pompidou's visit has transformed the Ivory Coast's capital into a gigantic dance floor. There are balaphons everywhere. Even the police officers, in their tight fitting uniforms, boogie to the sound of the drums. A surreal reception is being held at the sumptuous presidential palace. The latest joke is making the rounds: Two Frenchmen are fastened to a harrow. As they toil in the millet field, they sing "FRE-RE JAC-QUES, FRE-RE JAC-QUES..." The African owner, who watches as they work, remarks, "I tell you, these French and their sense of rhythm..." *** In Douala, the American consul decides to introduce me to the local population. Of all the Yanks I've ever met, the Consul turns out to be one of the few to display a genuine interest in Africa. - Only the whites will come to your concert. Sure, Africans enjoy music, but only when they're playing it. As far as they're concerned, it’s pointless to listen to music. Their vocabulary doesn't even have a word to describe it. Of course, they know our word for it. But there is no word in their vernacular that means "music" as we understand it. When I was in India, Patrick Moutal made the same remark about Sanskrit. "Sangit" alone can mean dance, sing, or even musical instrument. In the Amazon I was also told that the word "orignang" has these same three meanings among the Xingu indians. The diplomat continues: - What we call music is as natural to them as water or fire. One lives it as opposed to merely talking about it. It's impossible to be inside or outside music. Culturally speaking, this is another world. And it has nothing to do with skin color. LeRoi Jones, the most "pro-integration" of our Black American writers, is currently visiting the area. He thought he was coming here to discover his roots. However, despite all his efforts, he has been rejected, even shunned by the local population. His Western jive is frowned upon here, especially since he's black. The heat in the Consulate is stifling, the people around me are mostly expatriates. ***** The next day the consul takes me into the forest in his Land Rover. The first village we stop at gives us a warm welcome. We distribute quinine and salt. The chiefs offer their hospitality. At nightfall the silence is so profound that, even here deep in the woods, every little noise becomes a sound. Every once in a while, a bird's chirping resonates from tree to tree. Crackling branches shatter the still darkness. One of the villagers, sitting near the fire, improvises endless, complex melodies on a sanza, a thumb piano. He narrates epic tales of his ancestors in a guttural voice. I return to my hut late in the night. Before I even have time to close my eyes, I hear a gentle rustling of the banana leaves that serve as a door. A soft hand touches my arm. Here, the notion of hospitality encompasses a variety of attitudes.				2 dugouts across the Oubangui The next day we continue our journey. Our hosts serenade us in rhythmic fashion. It summarizes the impression we seem to have left on the local people: "White things are strange" [sounds like] "MOME A MOTO" [sung with these notes] "E G E E". The expression is repeated, accompanied by the sound of drums, to ensure that anyone listening in the forest will understand it. As we are leaving we're sent off with: "He's on his way" = "NOU MAA SANGUE" = "G E E D E." This is repeated a second time. Finally, the entire message is repeated using this harmonized version of Morse code. Needless to say we’re intercepted by the neighboring tribe, who are hunting for wild animals, as well as our valuable supply of quinine. ******* Brazzaville is presently in the midst of an uprising by the Camp de la météo (Weather Report Block). Several Soviet made tanks are on the scene to re-establish some semblance of order. They've surrounded the imperialists' stronghold and continue firing until they run out of men and ammunition. Obviously this isn’t a good time to hang around the capital. The surgeon with whom I’m staying has traveled extensively throughout Africa. - Firearms are extremely dangerous in the hands of the Africans. Until now they’ve been accustomed to killing what they know and are familiar with. - As Giraudoux used to say: We only destroy that which we love. - The carnage took on a ritual significance that guaranteed its acceptance. Machine guns and cannons go off on their own. THEY are the ones committing the murders, not their users. It would be best to get away from the city as quickly as possible. Since the exit routes are barricaded, we set off on foot after dinner, and then borrow a car from a friend who lives in Bakongo, outside the city. We will head to the remote countryside. We shared our last meal in the city with an unexpected guest: a young, glossy-eyed chimpanzee. - Be careful, he's an alcoholic, that one. Whatever you do don't give him any of your wine! But the animal was very well-behaved, cutting his meat with meticulous concentration. Suddenly, while I am in the midst of a conversation with my host, however, he grabs my glass with lightning speed, gulps down the contents, and runs to the other end of the room, screaming with fear. He behaves as if he knows that he deserves to be punished for his actions, yet realizes that his outrageous antics will save him in the end. ***** We quietly make our way along the street. Before long we encounter a roadblock that prevents us from going any farther. Unfortunately this is the only way out. We catch sight of a soldier, who raises his machine gun ominously. The gesture is followed by a simple instruction. - You can't go through. Turn around and go back where you came from. - Come on, chief, don’t bust our chops, the doctor jokes. The sentinel raises his machine gun once again. - For the last time, I order you to turn around! The surgeon grabs the barrel of the machine gun and points it in the other direction. He runs towards the barrier, urging me to follow him. I'm frozen with fear. - That's enough! Let us by and have a good night! - Oh, boss, you have no respect for authority. That's not nice! - And don't forget to say hello to your wife for me. I helped her with the delivery last week! We locate our friend and the car, and head for the forest the following day. After a day of very slow progress, we stop at a village in the middle of a clearing. There is a great deal of activity in the village because the chief has just died and preparations are being made for the funeral ceremony. Still, in the midst of all this, we are made welcome. In the evening about fifteen of the villagers grab horns of various sizes, some of them human-shaped. Each horn can only play a single note, which complements the notes emitted by the other horns. The new tribal chief picks up his instrument and plays a kind of threnody. The members of the tribe respond. Everyone plays but a single note at the exact moment required by the complex melodic and rhythmic fabric. They produce a sonic architecture in which music is queen and man her servant. The next day, intrigued by my guitar, my hosts ask me to play something for them. As I proceed to play the introduction to "Seis Por Derecho," the piece that made such a vivid impression on me in Venezuela and which seemed to me to contain a number of African influences, they burst out laughing. I continue undeterred, however, knowing that, in Africa, laughter often plays the role applause plays in the West. However, the laughter grows louder and louder, until my guitar is completely drowned out. I have no choice but to stop playing. One of the villagers, who went to school in Brazzaville, the capital, explained: "That tune is very common here. We use it to care for epileptics." *** Suddenly, the puzzle begins to take shape. These people don't know anything about envy or frustration. Eroticism makes them laugh, because they don't share our sexual "taboos" (however, kissing intrigues them because mouths are for eating). Music, or at least the signs associated with it, is for communicating not for showing. Ever since setting foot on African soil, these unsettling facts have been accumulating in me. I’ve been exposed to a way of thought and a way of life that are unspoiled, immersed in a world where things are accepted for what they are not for what they should be. My awareness, at this place and time, triggers in me an ecstatic reaction, not unlike the trance state that captivated me a few days earlier. For me it’s a moment of fulfillment, of liberation. I can never be who I was before. *** Kinshasa, Nairobi, Dar-Es-Salaam...My mind's made up, I'll come back to this place. I want to find out all there is to know about this country. But right now I want to improve my guitar playing. I make arrangements to register at the Academy of Saint Cecile in Rome, where the renowned Gianluigi Gelmetti lives. I still have two months of freedom ahead of me, however, time enough to visit Mauritius and Madagascar. ***** The product of Africa and Asia, the people of the Madagascar plateau have much to offer. They combine the artistic refinement of the one with the spontaneity of the other. Their music is the sign of this dichotomy. Here, more than anywhere else, the guitar is a universal password, because it is similar to the national instrument, the valiha. The valiha is one of the most ingenious stringed instruments ever made. You start with a piece of bamboo cut on either side of two joints in the wood. Using a small, sharp blade, you cut eleven strips lengthwise. You then insert a small piece of bamboo under the end of each strip. You now have a string. That’s all there is to it. The resulting instrument has a clean, somewhat reedy sound and is a common sight in this land of poets. And they are poets. A number of inquisitive listeners show up for my recital. The wooden benches of the Town Hall, where the concert is held, are very uncomfortable. At the end of the recital, an old woman walks up to me. - You know, while you were playing my behind stopped hurting. A small detail, perhaps, but one that substantiates the compliment.