# Live review & Photo album: Joachim Cooder made a welcome return at Blues Jazz Scenes 2024 Festival in Amsterdam: Videos

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2024/09/04/live-review-photo-album-joachim-cooder-made-a-welcome-return-at-blues-jazz-scenes-2024-festival-in-amsterdam-videos/
- Published: 2024-09-04T10:56:57+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**I was first introduced to Cooder’s music when he performed with Caitlin Canty 
in November 2023, so when it was announced that he’d be returning to NPT, I didn’t
hesitate at the chance to see him perform again.**

Expecting a couple hours of unique and beautiful acoustic music I was not disappointed.
But the evening also turned into a subtle plea for peace and justice as opening 
duo, West of Roan – Channing Showalter, Annie Schermer, asked for a moment of silence
to honor the people of Gaza and mourn the war victims.

![Joachim Cooder, Bham, 2-29-24](https://i0.wp.com/parklifedc.com/wp-content/uploads/
2024/03/DSC_3275-copywb.jpg?resize=1024%2C701&ssl=1)

Joachim took the stage shortly before 8pm, his mbira providing a stylistic counterpoint
to West of Roan’s. After Annie’s and Channing’s intimate, uplifting though tranquil
music, Cooder’s blues-based, uptempo melodies provided a welcome energetic contrast.

His set featured tunes from his 2020 release, Over That Road I’m Bound — The Songs
of Uncle Dave Macon. Though known as a percussionist, his mastery of electric mbira
produces unique, thrilling music. That mastery was enhanced by Rayna Gellert’s lovely
violin and backup vocals as Cooder sang songs about trees, New Orleans, cars, and
most importantly, family.

![Joachim Cooder, Bham, 2-29-24](https://i0.wp.com/parklifedc.com/wp-content/uploads/
2024/03/DSC_3253-copywb.jpg?resize=1024%2C725&ssl=1)

Blending traditional folk and blues with the mbira, a West African musical instrument,
produces a pleasing drone overlaid with a driving melody and an unmistakable backbeat.“
They consist of a wooden board (often fitted with a resonator) with attached staggered
metal tines, played by holding the instrument in the hands and plucking the tines
with the thumbs at minimum, the right forefinger – most mbira, and sometimes the
left forefinger.

Unlike stringed instruments or air-column instruments like flutes, the overtones
of a plucked lamella are inharmonic, giving the mbira a characteristic sound. The
inharmonic overtones are strongest in the attack and die out rather quickly, leaving
an almost pure tone. When a tine is plucked, the adjacent tines also create secondary
vibrations that increase the harmonic complexity of an individual note.”

![Joachim Cooder, Bham, 2-29-24](https://i0.wp.com/parklifedc.com/wp-content/uploads/
2024/03/DSC6363-copywb.jpg?resize=1024%2C684&ssl=1)

Cooder opened with Uncle Dave Macon’s, “Come Along Buddy,” the first of several 
tunes from Over That Road I’m Bound. Uncle Dave, known as the grandfather of country
music and the Grand Ole Opry’s first bona fide star, is widely considered the link
between 19th-century American folk and radio-based music of the early 20th-century.

The way Cooder performs these “old-timey” tunes on mbira revealed another, deeper
connection recalling the African origins of blues and gospel. One can still hear
echoes of Macon’s country twang but the mbira’s almost symphonic sound gave the 
songs an “international Americana” vibe.

**Watch Joachim perform “Come Along Buddy” with several very special guests on YouTube:**

Cooder reached back into his catalog for songs like “Throw Me Something Mister.”
Inspired by New Orleans’ Mardi Gras celebration, it had that spooky, bluesy vibe
one might associate with the Big Easy. That song, inspired by a family reunion, 
set a template for other songs performed this evening.

![Joachim Cooder, Bham, 2-29-24](https://i0.wp.com/parklifedc.com/wp-content/uploads/
2024/03/DSC6371-copywb.jpg?resize=1024%2C684&ssl=1)

“Sight and Sound,” about a fast (and loud) car, grew out of the time Cooder’s young
son remarked, “That engine made my heart move.” The show closer, Fuchsia Machu Picchu(
from his 2018 album of the same name), is about cultivating beauty after the Cooder
family realized the house they had bought was located at the former site of the 
town dump.

**_Watch Joachim Cooder perform “Fuchsia Machu Picchu” live in studio on YouTube._**

The encore, Steve Earle’s “Christmas in Washington,” closed the circle for the evening’s(
though unintentional) theme: peace and justice. A moving and many would say, timely,
song “Christmas…” recalls the spirit of Woody Guthrie and on this Leap Day night
reminded us how music, and especially live music, can be a spontaneous act of acknowledgement
and truth.

![Live Review: Joachim Cooder @ New Prospect Theatre (Bellingham, WA) — 2/29/24](
https://i0.wp.com/parklifedc.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/DSC6358-copywb2.jpg?
fit=768%2C502&ssl=1)

He was born in Santa Monica in 1976 and grew up surrounded by music alongside his
father, legendary guitarist Ry Cooder, who took his son on the road at an early 
age as a drummer.

Joachim has collaborated with iconic names like Johnny Cash, Ali Farka Touré, Mavis
Staples, Steve Earle, John Lee Hooker, Dr. John, Nick Lowe and Buena Vista Social
Club.

He released his most recent album Over That Road I’m Bound in 2020. The project 
is his interpretations of songs made famous by Appalachian banjoist Uncle Dave Macon.

In 2022 Joachim played drums and bass on his father and Taj Mahal’s Grammy-winning
tribute to Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee ‘Get on board.’

![Joachim Cooder, Bham, 2-29-24](https://i0.wp.com/parklifedc.com/wp-content/uploads/
2024/03/DSC6376-copywb.jpg?resize=1024%2C645&ssl=1)

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