Day 4 (later): Recording for ‘Influences’ with the Birara Dancers Story
…one of their songs in our ‘hotel studio:’ They could not help dancing through the sessions – so lovely. Later, of course, we’ll post these performances on our Map of East African Music. But give us a little time. We are still in the field… The Singing Wells Team…
Kenya (Coast): Day 3 – our final recording day Story
…style (which is also the name of the wonderful percussion). It was our first ‘harvest dance’ (Mavuno), which celebrated the harvest and the arrival of the new baby. Lots of ‘props’ including a baby doll, hay stack and lots of bowls of water and spices. Some final shots at our last village. Enjoy…. Winyo and the kids… That’s enough for now. There’s 150 pictures more for every one we show, but the internet is too slow to keep posting Jimmy…
Day 1: The very first field recording day for Singing Wells Story
…dad join him and in traditional voice act as the girl’s father warning her of the danger of seduction. Winyo joined to continue the warnings of the father. A short simple song, but suddenly absolutely magic, unique, and only something Bado, from his village, with his background, with his love of his dad’s music could produce. We weren’t in LA anymore, but standing firmly in East Africa. We all agreed this was a big moment – of course, pictures don…
On the eve of our very first field recording trip….. Story
…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 this later. In the meantime, a couple of pictures: Winyo warms up with the Swiss Bone Guitar The Legendary Ayub Ogado …and his legendary…
Mufu Ndosi-Luvai – Crave Music News
…“I’m glad I came across Singing Wells. The production team goes all out to unearth East African traditional music, giving account of the people’s past and present through music. The recordings are a valuable treasure, since a lot of traditional African music often goes un-notated. Singing Wells is the much needed portal for ethnomusicology research in East Africa.” Publisher, Crave [music] Magazine. …
The Kalenjin & Kenya’s elite athletes News
…en. In 1911, when the British took Laikipia, his ancestors were chased out of the Rift Valley to the south of Kenya. In the 1920s they eventually made an agreement with the British to allow their cows to graze in the Rift Valley again. After World War II, the British allowed war veterans to buy land in the Rift Valley and the Maasai were pushed out again. In the 1960s, after Independence, Jackie’s father moved back to the Rift Valley once again. H…
Paul Kelemba – Chairman of Ketebul Music News
…Ketebul Music is continuing its documentation and archiving of East African music genres, both past and contemporary. We are now in a strong partnership with The Singing Wells Project (SWP) whose goals are similar to ours in the preservation of the region’s music heritage. …
May 2011 – Jimmy reports back on the pilot phase News
…wl) and the Ndema (metal rings). We have posted a set of very rough videos of each of the group’s performances on YouTube – please note these are from a single camera (we used 3) and are just a static shot. We will be doing much more interesting final videos for the DVD’s. With that warning, here is a video of The Konde Music club performing: Group 1: Mwenzele-Nyerere wa Konde Music Club We later recorded one of our first ‘Influences’ sess…
Reflections on the pilot phase by Pato News
…sleep we woke up to some lovely breakfast, I must say that, although some of the members of the team had an interesting night’s sleep, mine was good. Later I heard stories of broken down bathrooms and leaking toilets to malfunctioning AC (tee hee). Feeling energetic and full of excitement heading out for our first day of recording….aaaaah…..a flat on the V.I.P car and being the muscle of the team I was in charge of changing the tyre. A few minute…
Reflections on the pilot phase by Willie Bembe News
…countrymen and the whole world. This is history…..my history. The history of African communities is in the stories our grandfathers told us which got distorted over time. The safest way to store them was in the music which was passed down from generation to generation. Another five years and all this would be gone since the present generation is not really interested in learning there music. This is because it’s not packaged in a way that would i…
Discovering music roots with SWP News
…to cherish the end result. Jimmy and Andy are amazing. The latter’s grasp of African traditional music and how to digitally emblazon the stuff was remarkable considering that this young gentleman from the north of Britain was on his second visit to the African continent. Jimmy is a sheer professional. We irked him earlier on in Nairobi with our team turning up late for introductory sessions. And that’s one of the lessons we learnt; time and its m…
More Ketebul voices…Steve reports from the field News
…l for the pilot phase of the Singing Wells project. This was a culmination of months of planning and exchange of email correspondence between Abubilla Music and Ketebul Music. Day 1: The Briefing Jimmy and Andy from Abubilla Music, came to Ketebul Studios for a pre travel briefing and to go through the new equipment and software with Ketebul Music engineers on the afternoon of March 27th. They had flown into Nairobi from London the previous evenin…
What we learned from the pilot phase News
…n no case did they build off their own musical traditions even though each of them was proud of their parents’/grandparents’ performances. They just didn’t link these traditions to their own music. Second, we showed the power of bringing a contemporary artists into the villages and working on ‘fusion’, the blending of new music with musical traditions. Winyo performed in three villages and in each one the local groups worked with him effortlessly…
Ketebul Music website launched News
…decided the most pressing need was for a dynamic website which would show the work of the Ketebul artists in their full glory and we think we’ve succeeded in our goal. Take a good look around the site to see how Ketebul Music is working to combine the traditional sounds of East African tribal music with the best of contemporary artists. And through Bandcamp, listen to or download the inspirational music of Kenya from artists such as Ontiri Bikund…