Local guitar soloist Paul Prince will kick-off an evening of international sounds tonight at the WOW Hall. Tarika, a quintet from Madagascar, headlines the show.
Prince recalls recently tuning into KLCC’s “Tropical Beat” — a Friday evening program featuring world music — while driving his car. A song came on the air with a compelling and distinct sound which tempted Prince to call the station and ask who it was.
It was Tarika.
“It stood out in the set,” Prince said. Specifically the arrangement, the melodies and “the overall high level of interaction among the musicians.”
Prince first encountered Tarika at the 1998 Seattle-area WOMAD Festival where he was performing with “the Lion of Zimbabwe” Thomas Mapfumo. He describes Tarika’s sound as “a unique blend of influences: African, Polynesian, Filipino and more. It’s very unique and bright. It has a lot of depth to it.”
The band plays primarily original music written and arranged by lead singer and songwriter Hanitra (interestingly pronounced Ansch) Rasoanaivo. She sings, dances and plays percussion along with her sister Noro. In addition to guitar and bass, the group’s unique sound is supported by a variety of traditional Malagasy instruments including the marovany (box zither), valiha (bamboo zither), kabosy (small Malagasy guitar) and jejy voatavo (gour dulcimer).
“I write songs that are in my head,” Rasoanaivo said. “It may depend on all different inspirations, circumstances and situations. Anything that hits me hard I write about. There are millions of messages in my music: everyday life, people’s attitudes towards situations, traditions, ceremonies, gender questions, women’s roles, etc. I talk about quite a lot.”
The band’s latest CD entitled “D,” stands for dihy, which simply means dance in the Malagasy language. An appropriate title considering this CD “is a compilation of all different sorts of dance music from Madagascar,” where every one of the island’s 18 tribes has its own unique style of dance.
Rasoanaivo objects to the notion of Madagascar music and culture resulting from outside influences.
“Madagascar is one country that doesn’t have outside influences,” Rasoanaivo said, stating that her island home is completely cut off from the rest of the world. And although the first settlers, some 2,000 years ago, were from Southeast Asia and Indonesia, soon joined by Arab traders, Indian traders and African slaves, she believes that the culture has developed more as a transformation and an amalgamation.
“The word ‘influence’ annoys me,” she said. “To me, when you have been influenced you had something and somebody else’s thing has covered your thing, i.e. person, identities, cultures, traditions, etc. We all evolve, things develop.
“It’s almost like a parallel life, rather than one is dead and the other lives, and that is why I don’t like the word influence.
“What I call traditional music of Madagascar, that I play today, is what we played 500 years ago. But it has evolved across the centuries we are passing through and that is very important for people to know. It’s not re-dug from centuries ago. It’s not that. It’s a living tradition.”
Tarika’s current tour has taken them from Los Angeles, to Berkeley, to Santa Cruz, to Victoria, Canada, to Eugene and then to Seattle. After Seattle’s performance the band will return to Madagascar.
On the home front, Prince is in the process of putting the finishing touches on a solo CD tentatively titled, “Ocean Bells,” which is expected to be released in mid-September.
Prince, who has accompanied Mapfumo on three tours to date, blends Zimbabwean influences with Hawaiian slack-key techniques, creating a distinct and melodic cultural blend.
Prince, who attended a performance of Hawaiian legend Ray Kane’s at Good Times approximately five years ago and then opened for Hapa at the WOW Hall about that same time, said these two influences “opened my eyes.”
Prince describes slack-key, which is the traditional guitar style of Hawaii, as “rhythmic and melodic at the same time with a timeless quality.”
“It is possible to be creative within that style and create your own style. I try to do that with harmonies. It creates a rhythmic framework. It ties in with the Zimbabwe music, which is extremely rhythmic, too,” Prince said. “There is a connection there.”