The Kora Band @ the Royal Lounge
- March 25 · 8:00 PM
Did you miss them at Jazz Alley? Don't fret...Check them out Monday Nite Jazz @ the Royal Lounge!
$5 suggested Donation. Sponsored by Olympia Jazz Central www.olympiajazzcentral.com
In 2007 Portland, OR-based pianist Andrew Oliver was participating in the U.S. State Department’s Rhythm Road program which sends 10 bands abroad each year as cultural ambassadors of the U.S. While setting up in Dakar, Senegal, he encountered a musician with a kora, a traditional 21-string harp of the West African Mandinka people. Much to his surprise, this instrument blended very well into a jazz context and the unexpected success of this collaboration caused Andrew to dive deeper into the relationship between jazz and West African music upon his return to the U.S., along with Mark DiFlorio, the drummer from that tour. His exploration eventually led to the founding of the Kora Band, featuring atypical instrumentation that highlights American kora player Kane Mathis. Kane is one of the most accomplished American Kora players, having studied with the famous Jobarteh (Diabate) family in Gambia, in the same compound that produced three generations of the country’s most famous musicians. The group wass rounded out with Seattle trumpeter Chad McCullough and bassist Brady Millard-Kish.
The band performs original compositions by Oliver and Mathis as well as covers of traditional and contemporary west African repertoire, providing uplifting and unique music that reflects the increasing globalization of today’s world. Rather than adding the kora on top of a traditional jazz context as an exotic flavor, the group works to truly integrate the instrument’s timbre and idiomatic style into the band, creating a new soundscape reflective of both traditions but forging new territory in its scope and concept. The music is contemporary but doesn’t lose sight of groove and accessibility, retaining the strong pulse characteristic of much of West African music and the improvisational aesthetic of contemporary jazz.
Listen to the band and read more at http://andrewoliver.net/kora/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=PRe9I0iorbs
Suggested 5$ Donation. Music starts @ 8 Pm
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Lorree Gardener
What a fantastic show! Such a delightful cultural mix/combination of musical styles and this band is so locked together that they make complicated and intricate stuff sound easy. All of us lucky enough to be there enjoyed it to the max. I am curious, though, why attendance was not standing room only?
1 · March 26
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Susan Tuzzolino
yeah, john and i were wondering the same thing: we thought the place would have been packed! we loved every minute of it!
1 · March 26
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Susan Tuzzolino
fascinating syncopation from the band;
fast fingers on keys and strings,
hands on hollowed and holy gourd,
long necks and loose arms,
a horn sounds out another layer
in all the different dynamics
and i wondered where i was;
perhaps another land where
all of life is fuzed with jazz:
yes, i was in the land of
The Royal surrounded
by the community i love
listening and feeling
fascination syncopation from the band.2 · March 26
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13 attended
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Ron Smith +1
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Greater Olympia Dixieland Jazz Society
A non-profit organization dedicated to promoting live Dixieland Jazz.
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