Amadou Suso and African Music and Culture in Melbourne
Last night Georgie and I went to a show at Bird’s Basement to see an African musician named Amadou Suso who I had never heard of before Wednesday last week when my friend Trinidad sent me a message that this show was on.
Even driving to the city I really had no idea who he was apart from a short promotional clip I had seen on the Bird’s Basement website. I didn’t even know his name. I didn’t know where he was from, where he was based, who the musicians were who played in the band. All I really knew was that he was an imposing looking African guy who played an West African instrument called a Kora which I had heard over the years on African records. A huge multi stringed instrument that is worn like an over sized baby with a strap attached to a carved piece of wood on the top of the instrument and again at the bottom. 22 nylon strings, tuned god knows how, but sounding like music played by very hip angels.
I went through a period in the early 90s listening to musicians like Salif Kieta and Yousou N’Dour mainly because this music had some sort of symbiosis with the fusion jazz that I loved so much back then, generally with a brooding beat that laid an amazing foundation to build the music, vocals and melody on.
We went to the gig with Trinidad and ended up getting a table that arguably could have been the best in the room. It had been a couple of years since I had been to Bird’s Basement in pre pandemic Melbourne. This was one of the few things that I mourned during the lockdown years.
Back to the artist and his music.
The band walked out on stage. A scruffy looking bunch of musicians, several whom looked like they stepped out of a time machine from the early 70s … keyboards, guitar, drums, electric bass, saxophone and trumpet. It was hard to get a feel of where these guys were from. They even had a Melbourne feel about them but this didn’t seem right because how could there be such a proficient Kora player gigging with a band of Melbourne musicians. Then the star of the night appeared on stage holding his imposing instrument, 6’4” and as skinny as a beautiful black whippet.
Bang. They started playing and I instantly became very aware that I was in for a good night of music. West African melodies, words, the Kora souring, backed up with an African influenced jazz fusion bed of funky sound.
Somewhere during the performance I looked across at the band and got a weird and wonderful concept that this is what makes being alive worthwhile.
Creative disciplined people doing what they love, in communication with each other and working together to create something worthwhile, amazing and uplifting.
Isn’t this what the human race is supposed to be doing, but rarely does. What would the world be like if we all operated like this. In that moment I felt incredibly appreciative to be alive and a shiver went down my spine.
Maybe just before the interval I realized that this amazing musician Amadou Suso might just live in Melbourne and that the musicians playing with him had probably all attended the VCA. It made sense. They may have been from Paris, New York, Berlin but no, they were from Melbourne. How could such an amazing band of musicians have been in my own city and I had never heard of them. Wonders will never cease.
Amadou Suso comes from Gambia in West Africa and is part of a Mandinka tribe that have been playing the Kora for centuries.
“My whole family are musical,” he says. “My grandmother, she was the one who taught me how to sing, she was a great singer and in the national ensemble for Gambia.”
It’s only after seeing the show that I’ve discovered that we have an incredibly rich African cultural and music scene in Melbourne. What have I been missing out on!
