I was shy and nervous at first because I've never played with any of these people before, and my last full-on-suck performance at l'Endroit, from right before I left for the States, was still lingering in my mind. But of course, Suck Fear*™ is something unknown to the Senegalese. As is shyness. So, before too long their welcoming and friendly attitude melted the shyness and the Suck Fear away and I was able to play and truly enjoy myself.
*(™Pucktone. BTW, "Suck Fear™" has now made it into at least one Senegalese's lexicon - Bambi now knows what it means and is able to use it in conversation.)
The group consists of: Sano on alto and soprano sax, Laye on keyboards, Bado on bass, Serge on auxillary percussion, and Ola on drums / vocals. Plus Omar the sound technician.
Laye has a huge headfull of dreads which he keeps tame under a cap with a large, bulbous dread-stuffing area. It looks kind of like he has the body of an octopus on top of his head. But in a cool way. He also has the world's highest cheekbones and in my opinion would look beautiful in drag but I haven't told him so.
Ola has the world's second-highest cheekbones and is from, I believe, Sierra Leone. He has a very buttery voice, despite being an avid smoker, and he loves singing in English.
Bado also has a headfull of dreads but he shows his off in a ponytail. He has little charms hanging from some of the dreads, like a mini-Africa with his initials in it, for instance. He carries his cigarettes (hand-rolled) in a little case in which he's taped the words "fumer tue" (smoking kills). He smokes as much as any good Senegalese, and I told him I thought it was funny, the label. He said he put it there to try to discourage himself from smoking too much, but I don't think its working.
Serge is the band elder (actually, I'm not sure who's older out of him or Ola, but the rest are younger) and has a brilliant, snappy wit. And, I think I mentioned before, he rivals Mark Weiger for the puns. He adds a sort of Afro-Cuban sound to the band, with claves and cowbells and various other cool textures including a drumhead attachment whose tension you adjust via a wheel, so you can wind the pitch up and down - it works well for mimicking the tama, a talking drum which you hold under your arm and squeeze in and out to adjust the tension of the drumheads and therefore change the pitch. You hear the tama a lot in Senegalese music, and many musicians have perfected mimicking its sound on various other instruments. Jeannot, of Milim, for example, has figured out how to make his guitar sound like one. Here's a picture of a tama:
Zal's not in the band, he just guest-subs occasionally.
Sano is quite tall and is missing one of his top front teeth. He has an incredibly deep and gravelly voice and, were he to sing, would probably resemble a black Tom Waits, or an even deeper, grittier version of Momo Wandel Soumah (a Guinean, also a saxophonist! Check him out): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqMuix2ji50
Anyway, Sano's very laid back (even for here) and he just told me, "Don't think, just play." A simple suggestion, but for me a very good one. I've always felt that not being able to think and play at the same time was a major handicap of mine, a kind of dyslexia of sorts, or a sign of the lack of a functioning corpus callosum. But Sano reminded me that there's something to be said for shutting the brain up and letting the horn take over. So, suck it, brain! And, suck it, Suck Fear™!
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