Mali 70 - from desert blues to Afro-Cuban Jazz
This was one of my favourite interviews because Markus is a guy who really followed his dreams - somehow he managed to take an Afro-German band to Mali to film and for them to play with the famous guys of Malian music.
This interview was first published in The Prisma multicultural online paper on December 11th 2023. Here is the intro, the full interview can be found with pictures: https://theprisma.co.uk/2023/12/11/from-desert-blues-to-afro-cuban-jazz/
The story of a film begins in a bar in Berlin and leads to a trip taking a 14-piece band to Mali. They meet some of the famous Malian musicians who absorbed a Cuban influence and were left out of the mainstream history of World Music. Trust, collective consciousness, colonial history and cultural differences are key issues.
For lovers of World Music, Mali is synonymous with Ali Farka Touré and his tours with Ry Cooder. Malian traditional ‘desert blues’ guitar style is based on picking not strumming to make chords. What is much less known is the more modern style of larger Cuban-influenced jazz bands including brass sections using trumpet, saxophone and trombone.
In 2010 Nick Gold, who always understood the musical chemistry between the Malian and Cuban groups finally succeeded – despite personality clashes and previous logistical problems. During 4 days in Madrid the album AfroCubism happened and was nominated for a Grammy. Eliades Ochoa went on to record the album Cubafrica with the late great Cameroonian sax player Manu Dibango, while the late Buena Vista member Cachaito Lopez played double bass on Kasse Mady Diabate’s album Kassi Kasse in 2003. Maybe they just missed the peak of the wave and World Music moved on, but Mali70, available interactively online is possibly the great film that Wim Wenders might have made after Buena Vista Social Club if things had gone differently.
Markus C M Schmidt is a German film director and editor based in Berlin, where he came to know the Omniversal Earkestra which led to travelling with them - and all their instruments including a tuba - to Mali, and making a documentary film about the trip and the musicians who created this revolution in Malian music in the 1970s.
Their programme is chosen by a different member of the band each week, but one song has become very popular: their version of the great Fela Kuti’s Colonial Mentality.
The years of trust that Markus has built up with the musicians and his easy relationship with ordinary people in Mali has produced a riveting road movie that is also a historical document and a tribute to the crossover of African and Latino music.
I spent some time with Markus for The Prisma after Mali 70 was shown in Lisbon last year.