Concert Review: Sona Jobarteh / Heard @ Music Haven, 07/23/2023

“Sche-nec-ta-dy,” intoned Sona Jobarteh with exaggerated care onstage at Music Haven Sunday – after asking a front-row fan to teach her the word. Thereafter, whenever the Gambian kora master, singer, and activist wanted EVERYONE to sing, she addressed the crowd in the name of the town. It worked; it felt like the whole town joined her in song.

Sunday’s show – the second half of a wondrous-weather one-two with Nipperfest on Saturday – could be seen as a protracted encore since Jobarteh’s 2018 Proctors Passport series show, also presented by Music Haven. Fans still buzzed at the passion and power of that pre-pandemic Afro-beat blast. And despite concerns over an ailing voice on Sunday, she delivered, again; though she relied on her band to carry a joyous encore: 20 minutes of high-fun hijinks after a 100-minute set.

Andi McLean’s bass acted up at the start, so the band vamped during repairs – percussionist Mamadou Sarr, drummer Yuval Weiler and guitarist Eric Appapoulay. Then Jobarteh, who knows how to make an entrance, swept onstage in an eye-popping print dress, fastened her kora into a harness at her hips, and sent crystalline treble notes out over the packed crowd. 

The love song “Jarabi” opened in happy riff uplift but Jobarteh soon invited the audience into actively co-creating the song. Here, she learned to say Schenectady, then challenged, “I tried, now you try.” Warmed by Heard’s earlier audience participation numbers, galvanized by Jobarteh’s charisma and the happy force of her music, everybody did try. 

The sound was dense, Weiler’s drumming all up top on hi-hat and cymbals like a 70s soul shuffle, Sarr slamming congas hard, McLean playing the pulse between them. Jobarteh stepped away from the mic to accompany Appapoulay as he soloed, very much of and in her band. But she traced wide borders around the band, bringing us inside, so soon the space between the stage and seats filled, and not just with photographers.

Jobarteh spoke of the once all-male kora mastery part of Gambia’s griot tradition; afterward at the merch table, her tour manager George told me she’d built her 21-string kora herself, and it looked less rustic than others I’ve seen, using gleaming metal guitar tuning machines rather than friction-fit wooden tuners. Its sound is perfect for fast runs, shimmering treble tones with little sustain as if the notes ring and then move along fast so new ones can join the dance. The effect is of great forward momentum, as in “Jarabi,” or of tender reflection, as in “Mama Musa,” her next tune, dedicated to her grandmother who’d encouraged her to burst gender bonds and become the artist we marveled at on Sunday.

A similar feminism powered “Musolou,” encouraging women to claim their place in the world and especially urging young ones into their power. This launched from thoughtful kora musings but took flight as a groove carried the song away; an exuberant guitar solo pushing the message. Jobarteh again enlisted the audience, in full, to sing, to wave hands; and the band surged into more emphatic playing, lifted by the audience.

Jobarteh again spotlighted Appapoulay’s guitar (and his singing, in the Creole French of his native Mauritius) in “Dunoo,” urging artists to take responsibility for the content of their work, suggesting a positivity we could hear in their playing.

As she introduced “Gambia” to her homeland, Jobarteh was delighted to discover young fans from her homeland down front, clad in bright, shiny print garb whose glow she spotted from the stage. Just as Ukrainians in the audience had uplifted DakhaBrakha (playing Lark Hall this Wednesday), Jobarteh responded to their presence with an infectious joy. She built “Gambia” from gentle riffing into a surging song of home and, of course, got everyone singing and clapping like one big orchestra of feelings.

Returning for an encore, things got loose, in a good way, with Sarr engaging the audience in a conversation of claps and conga riffs, Jobarteh Mclean and Appapoulay standing together in a tight trio that played as a section for a time, then stopped abruptly and detoured down another melodic path.

Meanwhile, underneath, the groove flowed with constant agile force, addressing strong “shake-it” messages to the feet as the strings carried the melody up top. Up front a few feet away, near the brightly clad Gambians, there was Elizabeth Woodbury Kasius of Heard, dancing and smiling at this enveloping, inspiring sound.

Opening the show, local heroes Heard served up a tasting menu of jazz-fied world-beat sounds before Jobarteh’s main course of West African liberation and love songs. Heard’s membership flexes some, but its core players – keyboardist Elizabeth Woodbury Kasius and percussionists Zorkie Nelson and Brian Melick – surround themselves with peer talents in a collective spirit of exploration. Sunday, Heard featured Nelson’s dancing and singing grown children Augustina and Fosino, soprano saxophonist Laura Andrea Laguia and bassist Jason Emmond in for Bobby Kendall. 

Early on, they played and sang “Calabash” and “Market Song” in straight-ahead jazz style, but busy percussion highlighted African and Caribbean influences. With “O Feche,” things started opening up as the younger Nelsons danced up a storm, and Fosino invited everyone to echo his moves, his steps, his claps, and his waving arms.

Photo Gallery by Stan Johnson