Richard Bona may have discovered jazz – and the electric bass – when he was 14, but by then he was already a gifted singer, balafon player and dance band guitarist in his native Cameroon.
Those early influences still resonate in Bona’s music today, lending his style and songs a uniquely multi-hued flavour.
Bona’s current band, too, is a reflection of this diversity, with members hailing from Europe, Cuba and the US. Tightly focused and supremely polished, they rode the faster, fusion-oriented numbers on Friday night with palpable glee, but were just as persuasive on softly lilting ballads like Mut’Esukudu.
On electric bass, the leader displayed a dexterity and lightness of touch that often made the instrument sound more like a guitar or a second voice, supplying warm harmonies and deft contrapuntal melodies as often as it dug into a funky swagger. Teen Town showcased Bona’s bass jousting with the drums and trumpet in spirited mock duels, while the Afro-Latin O Sen Sen Sen inspired some exuberant audience participation.
However, Bona’s most eloquent instrument is his voice. The set’s highlights came when the band and the pulsating backbeat gave way to stripped-back simplicity. With lyrics in his native Douala, the exquisite beauty and expressiveness of his vocals shone on songs like Invocation and Samaouma, the latter a riveting solo number where Bona used a loops pedal and layered vocal lines that mimicked a violin, guitar, bass and percussion to construct a one-man vocal orchestra.
The world music vocalist reveals his remarkable singing skills in an evening of coaxing dance rhythms and exultant percussive clamour
For over two decades, the Cameroonian singer-songwriter Richard Bona’s gifts as a world music vocalist of enchanting grace, and his dazzling sideline as a great bass guitarist, have powered a unique fusion of west African music, pop, jazz, Cuban, Brazilian and Caribbean grooves. And somehow, he has continued to stir up the most rousingly communal music without ever seeming to hit anything hard or raise his remarkable voice.
Bona and his new Mandekan Cubano group – a sextet devoted to reappraising Africa’s influence on Cuban rhythms – did just that on the first of their two nights in London. A cruising Cuban chant was first invitingly warmed by gently goading trombone and trumpet riffs and the clatter of timbales. Dennis Hernandez’s muted trumpet line danced coaxingly around Bona’s falsetto on the ensuing ballad, and the first of a string of sparkling piano breaks from the superb Osmany Paredes opened in clipped jazz phrases and sly trills and built to percussive chords.
The group exuded the amiable understatement of an old-school Havana restaurant band on a bright groover built on tight brass counterpoint and brisker vocals of bustling accents and wild yodels. The radiantly smiling leader shared a jokey call-and-response with the audience before an exultant finale of horn hooks and percussion clamour. The only downside was that Bona tightly rationed his bass-playing firepower – but putting the vibe and meaning of music before any kind of grandstanding is always his guiding light.
RICHARD BONA – bass, vocals
CIRO MANNA – guitar
ALEX HERICHON – trumpet
MICA LECOQ – keyboards
NICOLAS VICCARO – drums
