AMBALABA,...a maurician song

[Jean Pierre]

So my friends, I continue my virtual journeys in my attic home studio

back to Mauritius (yes, a while ago I made a foray there with a song by Michel Bavajee aka Zulu...), this time with a song by Claudio Veeraragoo, covered in French by Maxime Leforestier
Claudio Veeraragoo is a Mauritian sega singer.
Sega is the major musical genre of the Mascarene Islands: Mauritius, Reunion and Rodrigues, as well as the Seychelles, Agaléga, Saint-Brandon, the Chagos Islands and other Indian Ocean islands.
I had a lot of trouble making this song, because the rhythm is not easy to "catch" (ternary rhythm with passages in binary).

for the instruments I used a few plug ins (free) that a friend advised me to use

- for the bass VSTi Ample Bass P lite from Ample Sound

- for the Titanic 200 GM-GS bandoneon, a soundfont bank

- for the Numa player electric piano
https://www.studiologic-music.com/products/numaplayer/


- for the Melodica, I didn't use my real Melodica but an excellent soudfont Melodica soundfont from Musical Artifact
https://musical-artifacts.com/artifacts?tags=melodica
this soundfont sounds just like my real Melodica (minus the breath, though...), but you can play it on a midi keyboard, which is more practical.

remember, all these plus ins are...free!

..only my Nylon Takamine Hirade guitar is a "real" instrument (..and voices, of course 

PS
the song is in Mauritian Creole I'll put the lyrics up tomorrow

PS2 Ambalaba is a town on the island of madagascar? we'll ask Ted for confirmation.

[the physics teacher]

This swings big time. JP

[Jean Pierre]

UP DATE WITH VIDEO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GytlpyW1FcU

this cover is a tribute to

-the Mauritian Sega singer Claudio Veeraragoo
Sega is the major musical genre of the Mascarene Islands: Mauritius, Reunion and Rodrigues, as well as the Seychelles, Agaléga, Saint-Brandon, the Chagos Islands and others in the Indian Ocean.

- the mauritian painter Jacque Baissac alias VACO
the clip's illustrations are taken from his large-scale fresco "Anbalaba" by Mauritian painter VACO, in Baie du Cap.
Vaco is died fevrier 2023

if you want to know more about vaco's painting here
https://kreolmagazine.com/culture/art/vaco-la-veritable-peinture-mauricienne/

[StephenM]

this is fun... great stuff... and really making me dance.

[Groundy]

Nice one, JP, thank you for the message my friend.

[Pete C]

This sounds fantastic and very professional. Just reminds me of the type of African-influenced music you hear on holiday in France. I can just imagine myself sat at a cafe with a glass of pastis !

Pete

[Jean Pierre]

thank you guys

I can just imagine myself sat at a cafe with a glass of pastis !

yes Pete, it's almost spring and pastis will once again be filling the glasses on café terraces, in the sunshine, hmmm...welcome back to france!

[Mike_S]

Lovely JP... I can see that the tempo is a tricky one, but you seem to have the feel perfectly. It's a kind of strange (but beautiful) start / stop feel. Excellent work on a genre we don't hear much

Mike

[Ted]

Where are those lyrics that you promised?

Simply listening to this, I never would have guessed that this is a Mauritian song. It sounds very Latin American to me – Cuban or maybe Brazilian.

Mauritius is a fascinating place. Have you been there? I've been twice – it's a nearby neighbor. A flight to Mauritius costs about as much as a short domestic flight to, say Nosy Boraha (a.k.a. Ile Sainte Marie). Most people speak Kreol, French, or English seemingly interchangeably. It's very developed, compared to every other African country I've every visited (and I've visited a few).

In spite of its small size, there are distinct cultures on the island. The southern is more Sub-Saharan African (especially Malagasy) descendants of enslaved people. The northern part is more South Asian and Hindu descendants of indentured laborers who were conned into coming after slavery was abolished by the British. Mauritius was used as a laboratory to create a technically-not-slavery form of entrapping cheap labor to work on plantations.

Anyway: Keep exploring the music of Mauritius.

I've been meaning to write something – a song, an essay, both – about my visit to Aapravasi Ghat - UNESCO World Heritage Centre in Mauritius. Part of me died that day – the part that still believed unchecked capitalism didn't inevitably turn the rich into monsters.

[thetworegs]

This got me up and running this morning excellent