Preview

Now resident in the UK, Congolese master drummer and vocalist, Mukala Koko Kanyinda began his career as a professional musician at 14 after studying with Kadima, the greatest master drummer of the sixties. He soon moved to Kinshasa, the continent’s musical nerve centre in the 60s and 70s, and where he established his credentials working alongside the Congo’s finest stars, Docteur Nico, Papa Noel, Sam Mangwana and rumba bands, Cercul Jazz De Brazzavilleand Vox Africa.

Now one of the leading African percussionists and drum teachers in the UK, he is much in demand on the international circuit. In 1999 he was invited to join the ‘Master Drummers of Africa’, touring across the UK and in 2001 he joined the ‘African Jazz All Stars’ on a Europe wide tour. In September 2003 he was invited into the BBC Radio 3 studios as one of the featured artists on Andy Kershaw’s World music show.

In Soukous Koumbele, Koko has assembled the finest Congolese musicians and singers living in the UK. Their music takes influences and rhythms from across the African continent from Congolese rumba and soukous to Nigerian ju-ju, and Jamaican nabing’.

Review

The Cambria Arts crew, although as busy as ever, have spent a few relatively ashen-faced free weeks of late. However, 8.29pm on Friday night, and our faces were as ashen as any attached to people still on this side of the great divide; the band had not arrived! We had listened to several frantic telephone calls from a, by all accounts wreckage strewn M4, and knew that Koko and the boys were running late, but things were getting tight. Then, at 8.30pm, after eight and a half hours picking their way through the carnage of the Bank Holiday exodus from the south east, the band clambered exhausted from their van, but it was looking very unlikely that the now considerable crowd were going to get the jolly dance party that we had promised.

We shouldn't have worried. After a refreshing beer, the quickest set-up and (rough) soundcheck ever and the refusal of any rest at all ("We'd rather just go for it man," said Koko), the bandleader turned to the crowd and gave the order, "The time for talking is over, now it's the time for dancing!", and the band launched into almost two hours of some of the best dance music you're ever likely to hear. Great harmonies, intricate guitar work, driving bass and drums, underpinned by Koko's fabulous conga playing.

You may have noticed that this gig report avoids many of the usual niceties - line-up, names of musicians, titles of songs, descriptions of the stage show etc. Well it happens that the Caped Cruiser was having a rare night off, and this comes to you from the quivering quill of his substitute, who was as ashen-faced as anyone and a tad busy on PA duties to take many notes.

Suffice to say that we had a great night, with everybody agreeing that it was one of the best dance bands they'd seen at the Talbot. The boys then ate a hastily prepared chicken salad before getting an early (1.45am) night, because they had to negotiate the return journey through the M4 junkyard for a lunchtime gig in Croydon!

I think they're taking their holidays in Iraq this year....