Kenya (Coast): Day 3 – our final recording day Story
…t blue buildings and wonderful village life. Recorded our final two groups and packed up equipment for the long trip home. The village We recorded at the village’s central meeting place. Throughout recording, clothes were being washed, iron and hung to dry, meetings were being held, grain sifted, chickens chased about… We felt very much in the middle of things. The corner of the ‘meeting place’, with the rich red earth gradually moving up the ligh…
Kenya (Coast): Day 2 continued…. Story
…n… Katana bin Kalama, with beautiful costume of shells… The Group prepares for their performance… Sengenya The most energetic group by far, brought the house down, with wonderful dancing. Led by Munyaka Chimega, they danced in the style of Sengenya (which bears their name). Non-stop dancing, multiple songs and they didn’t want to stop (but we ran out of video!). Fantastic energetic dancers that we’ve only captured on video…. …and all the kids jo…
Kenya (Coast): Day 2 – recording in the village of Kibarani Story
…mbu-mbu style One of the percussionists during break… Two members rest before the performance… Bahri wa katana and Tabu 4 the Mzinga Our fourth group was called 4 the Mzinga, led by Alfonce Kazungu, singing and dancing in the Koringongo style. They used the Marimba, a wooden xylophone. Wonderful lead vocals, very Islamic sound… 4 the Mzinga, featuring the Marimba …with lots of the children The Children Our routine is now established. We driv…
Day 1: The very first field recording day for Singing Wells Story
…There are about 7 houses, two cows, lots of chickens, groves of pea trees and lots and lots of children. All smiling all the time. The Music Groups We arrived and set up our tent, our two tables, our recording kit and our six mics. Andy ran the desk, supported by Jessie, Steve and Willie. Jimmy and Pato handled video, Winyo did a lot of photography and Tabu and Maddo watched (having retired after driving 10 hours the day before). Mwenzele – Nyere…
On the eve of our very first field recording trip….. Story
…Winyo: He’s the current new star from the Ketebul stable. He sang back up for Samba and when he came on he said he was humbled by the extraordinary talent in the room. 50 years of East African music, the hand-off of one generation to the next. Massive respect for each others talent and an amazing evening that only Tabu could pull off. Amazing voice: We recorded video and used the mobile recording studio to record most of the concert. We’ll post t…
Global song released to support SWP News
…Abubilla Music have released a truly global remix of an original song from their first album Six Months of Saturdays – it’s called 71 Hours to Monday and combines musicians and vocalists from Sao Paulo in Brazil, Nairobi and London. All profits from the sale of the track will be donated to The Abubilla Music Foundation to support the The Singing Wells Project. Take a look and find out the story behind the song and the SWP: …
What we learned from the pilot phase News
…recorders and all performed well. The Team: The Ketebul team were amazing and Andy did a great job of training folks quickly. The three sound engineers are all very experienced in the studio and quickly got up to speed with outside recording and the new equipment (hard ware and software). Pato and Winyo did a great job on video and photography and we realised how important the visual archiving will be for the project. Finally, Deche, who was in c…
Testing the mobile recording equipment News
…ir progress: Quick report from Sao Paulo Next stop, Kenya. In March, Jimmy and Andy are taking the recording equipment to Nairobi, teaming up with Ketebul Music to fully test everything in the field in advance of the village tour in November. Tabu Osusa is putting together the itinerary and the plan is to travel to the coast, near Mombasa, to record the music of the Mijikenda – a Bantu tribe made up of 9 sub-tribes, the most well known being the G…