On the phone, from Pointe-à-Pitre, the economic capital of Guadeloupe, Klod Kiavué is relieved. “It takes place, it takes place, the Carnival! confirms the master percussionist, delighted, like the rest of the inhabitants of the island, to be able to party as he has not been able to do since the start of the pandemic. There too, we are deconfining, and we “tumble”, they say, drum orchestras taking the streets by storm. “Look at Akiyo, the biggest group in the country: they can tumble down to 600 musicians, huh! When it goes, it goes. That’s why we call it “tumble”, because the tempos are fast and they do this for hours, over several kilometers, with the cadence and the songs. It’s very powerful music. »
As is also the gwoka, although on a generally less frantic tempo. This is the subject of our conversation, Kiavué having spent more than forty years mastering the subtleties of traditional Guadeloupean drums, taking this musical heritage beyond geographical and musical borders. He has notably collaborated with American jazz saxophonist David Murray, Cuban pianist Omar Sosa, and today with trumpeter Jérôme Dupuis-Cloutier and drummer Jonathan Gagné, who form the Quebec electro-jazz duo Topium, which is launching the fruit of this “electro-gwoka” experience carried out in the studio in Pointe-à-Pitre.
The Haitians have the mizik racin, the Cubans the changüí, ancestor of sound. This is called mento in Jamaica, kaiso in Trinidad and Tobago and elsewhere in the Lesser Antilles; gwoka is the sound, the groove, the rhythm that connects these cultures to their African roots and which has survived four centuries of slavery and colonialism.
Thus, “gwoka and mizik racin are very close,” explains Kiavué. They are distinguished in the dance: the gwoka is danced individually, while the mizik racin is danced in groups. But musically, it’s the same system: free singing, a responding choir, drums playing different rhythms. Only, with us, there is only one rhythm, played by two drums. In Haiti, there are a lot of polyrhythms; with us, it’s monorhythmy”.
Happy coincidence: one month after the release of a compilation dedicated to innovations in gwoka (Léspri Ka: New Directions in Gwoka Music from Guadeloupe 1981-2010, edited by Séance Centre/Time Capsule) gwoka appears another albumshining the spotlight on this little-known genre. “I didn’t know anything about gwoka before being invited to Guadeloupe”, recognizes drummer Jonathan Gagné, who benefited from a creation residency with his colleague Jérôme Dupuis-Cloutier in 2019 with the aim of putting on a new show with Klod. Kiavué and keyboardist Jacques-Marie Basses, known as Djenmbi.
“It clicked right away,” says Gagné. Between us, it was not complicated. Klod says it well: this project is above all the meeting between four musicians who all have a good foundation in jazz. It was our common musical core. We were lucky to come across these two! » Klod Kiavué abounds in this direction: « These are not quite improvisations, because there were nevertheless some reflections behind, as it happens between good musicians. When we arrived in the studio, we didn’t need to talk too much: something happened in human relations. »
And as the compilation proves Spirit Ka, the gwoka lends itself perfectly to musical experimentation. On the quartet’s album, Guadeloupean rhythm, inscribed in the genetic code of zouk (think of Kassav’), blends quite naturally with house, set with the colorful playing of Kiavué and the sweet colors of Djenmbi’s synthesizers. “Unconsciously, it was he who gave the color to the album,” says Gagné. When Jérôme added his keyboard lines, he was inspired by the sounds of Djenmbi. »
Long banned by the settlers, the gwoka survived hidden in the countryside, until its rebirth in the 1970s, recalls Klod Kiavué, evoking the work of Gérard Lockel, who left “the metropolis” (France) to return in Guadeloupe at the end of the 1960s in order to establish the foundations of a modern gwoka scene, finding in jazz, funk and African music the breath necessary to regain its place.
Thus, the electro-gwoka is not against nature, says Kiavué: “Progressive, the gwoka? It is the people who are. It is the music of the people, it follows the movements of the people”, adds the musician, who has collaborated with the most illustrious figures of the genre, from the mystic Thibault “Freydy” Doressamy to the percussionist Guy Konkèt, “the great name of this music , the chosen one of the gwoka. He was the first to play this music on the Parisian stages, in the 1980s. And me, I am from this generation which was able to start traveling with the gwoka and make it known elsewhere. I think we speak a musical language that can be understood by everyone. »
Topium feat. Djenmbi & Klod Kiavué, by the collective of the same name, will be on sale on February 25 on the Disques Nuits d’Afrique label.
The compilation Lèspri Ka: New Directions in Gwoka Music from Guadeloupe 1981-2010, is now sold thanks to a collaboration between the Séance Center (Canada) and Time Capsule (UK) labels.
Topium will reinterpret, on February 24, the songs from the new album on stage during a free virtual concert presented as part of Black History Month by Productions Nuits d’Afrique. Entitled The new faces of Afro-jazz, the show will also feature Cuban-born Daymé Arocéna and Ivorian-born Donald Dogbo.