Angélique Kidjo and Yo-Yo Ma combined forces — mighty forces indeed! — for an appearance at Berkeley’s Greek Theatre on Saturday night. This extraordinary collaboration is part of the duo’s current “Sarabande Africaine” tour. The performance delivered on its promise to explore and illuminate the times and places where classical and African music intersected.
The “sarabande” that gives the tour its name is a lively dance that has Bedouin roots in northern Africa and later emerged in Central America in the 16th century. The dance became popular thereafter in Europe during the baroque era. As Ma told the audience on Saturday, “Bach chose the sarabande to put at the heart of each one of his cello suites.” He added, “I didn’t know that!” Now we all know. Illumination!
Fun fact: a Jesuit priest once wrote that the sarabande was “so loose in its words and so ugly in its motions that it is enough to excite bad emotions in even very decent people.” It was banned at one point in Spain, and Cervantes declared that Hell was the dance’s “birthplace and breeding place.” Perhaps that was for the best – as Ma said, “Do you know what happens when something is banned?!”
Other connections between African music and classical composition abound. Among those connections, Ma cited the Afro-Caribbean spirituals that inspired Dvořák’s New World Symphony and Gershwin’s classic “Summertime.”
Several of those connections were explored at the Greek. Bach’s solo cello works and Gershwin’s “Summertime” were among many songs in the 100-minute set on Saturday. The latter song began with call-and-response interplay between Kidjo, who hummed the melody, and Ma’s cello answering sweetly. Kidjo went on to sing the lyrics translated into Fon, her native West African language from Benin.
The call-and-response motif is, of course, a hallmark of both African music and its American gospel offspring, and its application here subtly alluded to the circular relationship between African music, jazz, and classical composition. In a similar vein, it is inescapably notable that African performers such as Kidjo, Miriam Makeba, and Fela Kuti have frequently drawn inspiration from jazz, funk, and other American musical styles which themselves have undeniable African roots. The circles are unbroken.
The evening began with a short African percussion ensemble number, after which Ma and Kidjo took the stage. During the evening, they played both with and without accompaniment. Pianist Thierry Vaton and percussionist David Donatien (both from Martinique) were on stage for most of the evening. Ma played solo on the aforementioned Bach sarabande cello piece. For the final four or five songs, Kidjo’s touring band added drums, bass, guitars, and horns. The drum ensemble returned for a few songs as well.
The seemingly odd but eminently brilliant collaboration between Kidjo and Ma began when the two met at an auspicious occasion, the centennial celebration marking the end of WWI at the Arc de Triomphe. During that solemn event, Ma performed one of those Bach sarabande solo cello compositions, and Kidjo sang “Blewu,” a song dedicated to the memory of African soldiers killed during the war. (Both pieces were performed on Saturday too.)
Between performances at the WWI event, as Ma told the audience at the Greek, “We had a lot of time to talk while waiting for the world leaders to speak.” He said that he and Kidjo “talked a lot about the transmission of music – music is easy! If you like it, you love it, it’s yours!” Finally, he said, “We also talked about how we might do something together – and this is the result.”
Ma was also effusive about his respect for Kidjo, telling her that, “I can’t figure out how you manage to give one hundred percent of yourself all the time!” She certainly appeared to be doing just that at the Greek. Her strong, rich alto was as resonant and pitch-perfect as the tones from Ma’s cello. (He too, of course, gave one hundred percent.)
Among the set list highlights was a version of Kidjo’s “Aisha,” which reinterprets Bach’s Keyboard Concerto No. 5 with lyrics in Yorùbá. The evening also included a song written for Kidjo by Philip Glass (the second piece from Ifé: Three Yorùbá Songs), Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Child (Slight Return),” and the Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime.” It isn’t hard to see how each of those selections have elements of African rhythms and roots enmeshed in their American classical, rock, and funk formats.
The biggest audience response of the night may have come for Kidjo’s own anthemic “Afrika,” which technically speaking was never a big hit but has become one of her most recognizable songs. Kidjo enticed the crowd to sing along on the refrain:
“Say hey mama, say hey mama Africa.”
I said enticed, but insisted might be a better word for it, or even required. Kidjo didn’t settle for less than one hundred percent from the audience. “Give me a little bit more of life,” she commanded. “When I ask you to sing with me, give me some juice!”
Juice was given. The crowd roared with juice. The circle was thus expanded to include the performers, the audience, and the breadth of musical forebearers who sought to combine new with old, classical with folk, Africa with Europe and America and Asia. May that circle be unbroken.
