Madagascar Slim
Roadhouse Raag takes place on Sunday, October 11th at 8pm at the du Maurier Theatre Centre, 231 Queen's Quay West. Irshad Khan is an internationally renowned sitar player who loves blues and Madagascar Slim is a bluesman from, well, Madagascar. They both live here and want to show how the Indian Classical tradition and the folk music of Madagascar can come together in the spirit of the blues. Each ensemble will perform a set followed by a multi-cultural blues jam. The Update will give you some of the history of this event. World music authority Li Robbins talked to Madagascar Slim about what he will bring to the show. Listen to your favourite blues radio show and hear a sample of Malagasy Blues.
When you meet him he tells you to call him Ben. It's a good thing, because unless you speak Malagasy, the language of Madagascar, Randriamananjara Radofa Besata Jean Longin is an impossible mouthful. Neither name will adorn his debut CD, which he hopes to release this fall. That comes out under "Madagascar Slim", the monicker bestowed on him by local blues institution Steven C. back when he and Ben played a regular gig at Chicago's on Queen Street some ten years ago.
The two met a few years after Ben came to Canada from Madagascar in 1979. His parents sent him abroad to study accounting and finance, but his real ambition was to learn English so that he could not only sing the words to his favourite songs - songs by people like Jimmy Hendrix and B.B. King - but also understand what he was singing about.
Today Ben not only understands those lyrics, he also has a reputation as a good blues guitar player. And with the release of his as yet untitled CD, his abilities as a performer of Malagasy music will also come to light.
I spoke to Ben in August about his recording project. Here are some excerpts from that conversation.
Li: What will the new recording be like?
Ben: The whole thing is mostly electric. Only three songs will just be acoustic and vocals. On the album I have my cousin Rakotodrabe Yves on guitar, and my best friend Ramaromisa Andriamparany on bass. They came from France for the recording. These guys played with me before I left for Canada more than twenty years ago - we were in the same band in Madagascar. So I knew they could really play the songs and sing them. If I was doing just a blues album I could probably use a lot of musicians here in Toronto but because it's Malagasy music it's just a little different.
Li: Is there any straight ahead blues on the CD?
Ben: There's just one, the rest are Malagasy. The lead guitar on all the music is pretty bluesy though, because that's really what I love to play.
Li: What do you think the link between blues and Malagasy music is?
Ben: That's a hard one. For me the link would be the feel you get from it. If you listen to someone like the Malagasy guitar player D'Gary you just feel it. There's something, I don't really know if it's bluesy but it just gives off this feeling of sadness, and almost like a weeping type of music. Blues originated, as far as I know, from people suffering. And I guess that's what makes them connect.
Li: Is it difficult to blend blues and Malagasy music?
Ben: For me it does come naturally. I don't even think about it. I just hear the music and I play over it. And what comes out of my playing is a blues type of guitar lick, and sometimes it sounds more like Hendrix - I just play it, it's there. I'm not really thinking I'm going to play a bluesy kind of thing, it's just the way it sounds.
Li: What is it about Malagasy music that makes it so instantly recognizable?
Ben: Malagasy people tend to make the music that they play sound Malagasy because a lot of the music is a played in very fast 6/8 rhythm with an accent on the second beat. But it all depends on the people performing it. I think it's well known that when people are suffering or when they are in dire straits they tend to write beautiful music and perform it with a lot of soul. I think there's a lot of soul in the music from Madagascar.
Li: How would you describe the music on your new recording?
Ben: I will not pretend to say that it's pure Malagasy music. It's a mix of influences, the type of music I heard when I was young, and music I heard here in Canada.
Li: What do you hope to do with your music in the future?
Ben: One of my goals in playing music is to be able to help the poor children of Madagascar. I would like to do benefits for children. Also down the road I will probably play more blues, I might even try to go into jazz, just exploring. And having fun doing it, I think that's important too.
- Li Robbins