African Brothers Dance Band (International)

African Brothers Dance Band

led by Paa Steel Ampadu 

Ewe drumming from Ghana

Music is a communal event in Ewe culture. Of the utmost importance is a musicians ability to relate to the other musicians he/she is playing with. No matter if you are a professional, or merely tapping out a rhythm on a glass bottle with friends. How much you understand about the concept of interdependence is what makes the music great and fulfilling in the eyes of the Ewe.
There is also a relationship between the musician and the listener. As the music is played it is important for the listener to keep their own time with the music. A listener must "feel" a pulse in the music even when it is not explicitly played by the instruments. With the understanding that the listener is mediating their own rhythm, the musicians are free to embellish, compliment, challenge, confuse, and amaze a listener. It's a relationship that's purely musical, but stems from how people in the community relate to each other. The societal structure is mirrored through the musical culture.

An important aspect of playing drums and dancing is style.  The music must always be moving forward, but must also be steady and have strength in repetition. In order to keep the music interesting, players are encouraged to give their own improvisations within the playing structure. It can be compared to devotional that is interjected into a Baptist service by a member of the church.  The music is organized to be open to the rhythmic interpretation a drummer, a listener, or a dancer wishes to contribute.  John Miller Chernoff quotes in his work African Rhythm and African Sensibility; "In one sense the deepest unities may be achieved when people relate through a better awareness of their differences".
Improvisation is about gaining knowledge and using that knowledge tactfully.
source

the soup which is sweet draws the chairs in closer

correct!

Kakraba Lobi-Xylophone Player from Ghana

In Ghana, Kakraba Lobi is considered to be the gyil’s spokesperson by virtue of being one of the only living virtuosi to have mastered the vast and difficult repertoire, and possibly the only to have gained international acclaim as a concert soloist.
He was born in Kalba Saru in the Lobi and Birifor area of Nothern Ghana in 1939. His father is a farmer who is also highly skilled in the art of xylophone making and playing, like his father before him. His brothers, too, make and play drums and xylophones. As a child, Kakraba watched and listened intently, and thus became involved in the family tradition.

When he was old enough, Kakraba traveled south to the city of Accra where he was invited by many people to perform, and even played out on the streets, earning more than most people with office jobs. He gave broadcasts for Radio Ghana, and in 1957 he was invited to give a concert at the University of Ghana, Legon, where Professor J.H. Kwabena Nketia offered him a teaching post in the Institute of African Studies.
From 1962 until 1987, Kakraba was a full-time member of the staff at the Institute. In addition to his own Lobi and Birifor music, he has learned much of the music of the Ga, Ashanti and Dagati peoples. His repertoire and technique have been studied by ethnomusicologists from around the world.

According to qualified opinion, Kakraba is the finest xylophonist in his Ghana homeland, though he is too modest to claim such a title. His art is deeply rooted in tradition, and by virtue of his personality and extraordinary life circumstances, he has evolved into a world class solo performer.
Kakraba plays a xylophone, Kogili, with fourteen wooden keys. The Kogili has spiritual significance for the Lobi and the Birifor, who believe that it acquires part of the soul of its maker and owner, whose skills are in turn attributable to spirit origin. In order to preserve this spiritual element, various objects may be added to the instrument, such as porcupine quills, ancestral carved figures, crosses cut into the tips of the keys or brass tacks inserted into them.

from this site

Kakraba Lobi passed away  in July 2007

a homage and his funeral can be "viewed" right here:
http://lobimusic.org/

Xylophone player 

& more 

I walk alone

I walk alone

this is Marijata can be found in osibisaba * salut friend wherever you are 

* 

Seprewa Kasa

Perhaps one of the most fascinating aspects of the relationship between popular and
traditional music in Ghana is the way in which the “highlife guitar” and the Akan harp called
seprewa are connected. With the introduction of the European guitar to Ghana, the very style
and technique of seprewa playing were “transferred” onto the guitar. In other words, as turn of
the century seprewa players began to interpret their own traditional music on the European
guitar, a uniquely Ghanaian guitarism emerged.

Similar to the well-known bridge harp kora of Mali and the Senegambia, the seprewa is
played against the torso, with both hands used to pluck two parallel sides of stacked strings.
These strings run from a bent piece of wood to a bridge sitting atop a wooden box with goatskin
stretched over the top . While the earliest constructions of the seprewa had only
six strings , newer varieties may have 8, 10, 12, or even more.

Osei Kwame Korankye, one of Ghana’s foremost seprewa players, has done a great deal
to re-popularize the seprewa by starting schools and teaching at the University of Ghana,
collaborating with highlife musicians, performing at national events, and doing academic
research. According to Osei and other scholars, the seprewa was captured by the Asante empire

in the 1700s as part of the spoils of war upon the defeat of Gyaaman, an Akan state in presentday Côte d’Ivoire. According to a story told by Osei, Asante soldiers discovered an injured man
with one leg clutching an unusual instrument, the seprewa. Upon hearing this instrument played,
the soldiers decided to bring the man back to the king of Asante, the Asantehene (Osei Tutu the
first). Osei Tutu enjoyed this instrument so much that the injured man was appointed a court
musician, and the seprewa became a royal instrument used to deliver appellations and praises.
This praise function relates to the meaning of the name “seprewa,” a composite of three Twi
words: Se (speak), Pre (touch), and Wa (small). In other words, “this small instrument can speak
when it is touched” (Osei Korankye, personal communication). Like the Asante atumpan drums,
the seprewa is literally able to speak by imitating the tonal contours of the Twi language.
Proverbs, praises, and appellations may be “spoken” in this way by the seprewa player. At the
same time, the seprewa player may also sing in a declamatory, quasi-recitative style as he
delivers praises or proverbs and recites appellations.

text
by William Matczynski


for many perfect summer evenings