Tuesday, April 22, 2014

The Train to Paris - Sebastian Hampson

In a railway café on the Spanish border a mopey Kiwi student, a refugee of a disappointing holiday experience, falls under the spell of an older, more sophisticated femme fatale.  She's French, married and carefree - and later, we discover, care-less! 

So begins Sebastian Hampson's modern, antipodean version of a Betty Blue classic love-noir.  Their relationship is unlikely, impetuous and just a little cinematic.  Hampson shows, no doubt watched every great movie from Last Tango in Paris to La Dolce Vita to find snippets of inspiration in his particular 'Kiwi' take on this genre.

Interesting is the 'Kiwi' lens, too.  Most of our books are about the New Zealander trapped in themselves, encased in the metaphoric and realistic landscape.  This time Hampson acknowledges the view, loves and aspirations of a naïve young man on his OE.  It's refreshing to see someone writing in instead of out of the Country, as Hampson views New Zealand from a distance, as a compass point not a state of origin.   

In falling for the woman at the station our young hero becomes 'The Other Woman", vulnerable to her whims, always seeking her love, while trying to remain aloof and unaffected.  There are many scenes in this literary movie where he is seduced by her playful girlishness and her womanly over - she is Lolita and Mrs Robinson represented by Lauren Bacall.  It's bound to all end in tears - or is it? and for whom I cannot reveal.  You must read that for yourself!

Lynda La Plante - Wrongful Death


The Woman behind 'Silent Witness' is back!

La Plante's latest Police drama is a complicated, multi-stop journey into the multiple lens-approach of crime solving.  It principally follows the obsessive, narcissistic DCI Anna Travis as she's attempts to re-investigate the seemingly innocuous suicide of a seedy soho club owner.  As the clues are painstakingly (as much for the reader as for Travis) collected our hero is ambushed by equally narcissistic administrators and high ranking officials, an FBI trainer and a serial killing matriarch.  The plot seems to climb up endless ladders only to high dive into shallow pools of irrelevance as La Plante creates a series of undercurrent plots for uptake in future books.  Bu they just don't work.  You get the feeling she was paid by the word on this one, as there's just so much extra pointless content.  For instance, Travis is accepted to the Portico FBI training centre in the US.  Travis is an English small city London Copper so this is a big deal for her career.  A number of elongated incidents occur while she's out there. One: she strikes up a relationship with her trainer, a romantic distraction that seems to just fizzle out half way through the book. But not before she solves one of the Trainer's investigations. His only value in return is a couple of connections and a friendly ear while Travis pieces together the plot scenario.  In essence that whole penny-dropping revelation and insight of the crime at hand could have been a conversation with a garage owner.  She didn't need to go all the way to the states for that piece of guidance - any local character would have done.  The undertaking of that little subplot has no bearing or relation on the main plot and des nothing to enhance this story, aside from a wasted distraction.  Second is an entire side story involving one of the minor characters, Travis' boss, who goes on a rough mission with the FBI to bring in a notorious drug dealer.  This two is unrelated to the main plot.  The third is a long winded backstory involving bad blood between Travis' superiors.  This does have limited use as a vehicle of mistrust dispersed on Travis when she dares to suspect key witnesses in the club owner's suicide were conspiring his actual murder.  One by one Travis challenges witnesses and defames their characters and bloodline, untangling a highly complicated web of unintended incest and intentional murder, led by the cleanest and most minor of supporting cast members. Isn't all ways the quiet ones, the perfect ones or the most outstanding who end up accused in the end?

Creating ample annoyance is one Jess Dewar, an FBI psychiatrist profiler on secondment.  She dares to challenge the wisdom of the UK police in the first instance, opening up the case and casting full aspersions on the original verdict of suicide.  However, she's a clichéd American - obnoxious, loud, and right despite all.  Travis is her alter ego - quiet but always right!  Between them they should have contributed to an all out cat fight over the solving of this case.  Yet the constant onslaught of distracting subplots just weakens that opportunity.  Sadly watering down the impacts.

La Plante writes like a cop.  Matter of fact, short, sharp sentences.  She's not given to subtlety or embellishment - there's an economy in her prose, despite the abundance of ideas in the bank.

Overall, the plot is good.  The characters are ripe, juicy and more-ish.  But her execution is clunky and a bit overcooked.  Shame, too many cooks in this kitchen over egging the cake, alas.

Monday, April 14, 2014

Takuya Kuroda

Ascendant trumpeter and composer Takuya Kuroda is set to make his Blue Note debut with the February 18 release of Rising Son, which was produced by José James. Kuroda, who is best known for his inspired presence in James’ band, steps forth here to helm that remarkable band which features keyboardist Kris Bowers, electric bassist Solomon Dorsey, drummer Nate Smith, and trombonist Corey King. James mostly stayed on the other side of the glass in the producer’s chair except for a hypnotic version of the Roy Ayers classic “Everybody Loves The Sunshine” to which he lends his captivating baritone. The imaginative guitarist Lionel Loueke also contributes a bluesy, percussive solo to one of the album’s standout tracks “Afro Blues.”
In addition to anchoring James’ horn section for the past several years, the 33-year-old Japanese-born, Brooklyn-based Kuroda has been leading his own bands and has self-released and self-produced three previous albums. While on the road with James in support of the singer’s recent Blue Note debut No Beginning No End he let James listen to some of his newer material. James enjoyed it but wanted to hear more of Kuroda’s playing and so the idea developed to have James produce the next album.
“No one sounds like Takuya,” says James. “His tone, warmth and most of all his storytelling have inspired me for years. His writing is soulful, modern, and effortlessly bridges the gap between jazz and soul, and between history and tomorrow.”
Afrobeat rhythms play a crucial role throughout Rising Son, reflective of Kuroda’s six-year participation in the New York-based Afrobeat ensemble, Akoya. Afrobeat’s entrancing shuffle propels several of the album’s tracks including the tantalizing “Afro Blues,” one of the album’s six original tunes on which Kuroda’s spiky trumpet melody with urban swagger evokes Lee Morgan, one of Kuroda’s significant influences along with Clifford Brown and Miles Davis. The album also features two Roy Ayers’ gems – “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” and “Green & Gold.”
* * *
Kuroda and James’ partnership dates to a decade ago at the New School of Music in Manhattan. Kuroda was graduating during the time when James arrived at the school. Nevertheless, they performed on a mutual friend’s senior piano recital. James’ liked Kuroda’s playing and invited him to participate on his 2010 sophomore disc, BlackMagic. Kuroda made a memorable contribution on James’ composition “Promise In Love” from that album. James later recruited Kuroda for live shows and the recording sessions for No Beginning No End, on which Kuroda also wrote the horn arrangements.
Before Kuroda arrived in the U.S. in 2003, he grew up in Kobe, Japan and followed his older, trombone-playing brother’s footsteps by joining the junior high school jazz band. While in Japan, Kuroda played in jazz bands for 12 years, from junior high school through college jazz big band. But he says that he really got into jazz by playing on the local jazz scene with the smaller combos. “The big band was just playing music charts; it didn’t have much improvisation,” Kuroda explains, “I sat in with a lot of the elders on the local scene. They showed me so much love.”
Kuroda eventually came to the U.S. where at the Berklee College of Music he had his first formal jazz studies. “I never had a jazz music teacher in Japan. I took my first music theory, ear training and jazz ensemble classes for the first time in my life in English, which made it even crazier,” he says, “ But that made me want to come to New York.”
With his close association with James, Kuroda is primed to become a major voice on the 21st century modern soul-jazz scene with Rising Son signaling a new dawn.

Afrocubism

AfroCubism is the long-awaited collaboration between Cuban and Malian musicians meant to take place when the Buena Vista Social Club was born, a "collaboration well worth the wait," says The New Yorker. The New York Times describes it as "a rich yet subtle fusion of African and Cuban sounds." The Guardian calls it "an elegant, gently exquisite album"; the Observer says it's "a delight." Includes the exclusive Nonesuch Store bonus track "Keme Bourama."

ELIADES OCHOA guitar and vocals (born Songo la Maya, Cuba, 1946)
With his trademark cowboy hat and penchant for wearing black, Eliades Ochoa has been dubbed "Cuba's Johnny Cash." There's more than a fashion statement in the comparison to America's greatest country singer, too, for Ochoa is a "guajiro" (from the countryside) and a champion of rural Cuban styles such as son and guararcha.
One of the younger members of the Buena Vista Social Club, he has since become something of an elder statesman himself and has been a professional musician for almost half a century. For many years he was a regular at Santiago's famous Casa de la Trova, and, in 1978, he took over the leadership of Cuarteto Patria, a Cuban institution, which, by then, had already been performing for almost 40 years. He recorded two albums with the group for the Mexican Corason label and in 1986 met the veteran singer Compay Segundo, who joined Cuarteto Patria for a time. While with the group Segundo recorded the album Chanchaneando, which featured the original version of "Chan Chan."
A decade after their first meeting, Ochoa and Segundo famously reunited to perform the song as the opening track on the Grammy-winning Buena Vista Social Club. To that album Eliades also contributed lead vocals on "El Cuarto de Tula" and his own guajira showcase on "El Carretero." Since Buena Vista, he has recorded several fine albums under his own name, including Cubafrica (1998) with the great Cameroonian saxophonist Manu Dibango, Sublime Ilusión (1999), Tributo a Cuarteto Patria (2000), and Estoy Como Nunca (2002). He continues to lead Grupo Patria and tours regularly around the world.
---
TOUMANI DIABATÉ kora (born Bamako, Mali, 1965)
One of the most significant musicians in Africa, Toumani Diabaté is the leading exponent of the West African harp known as the kora. Born in Bamako, he inherited his musical gifts from a long family lineage of kora masters. A child prodigy, he recorded his debut album, Kaira, in London in 1986, at the age of 21. With his playing bass, rhythm, and solo simultaneously on the instrument's 21 strings, Kaira was the first ever album of solo kora music and the start of a remarkable international career.
As an innovative and experimental collaborator, Diabaté recorded the two acclaimed Songhai fusion albums with the Spanish flamenco group Ketama and has worked with Damon Albarn, Björk, and the London Symphony Orchestra. His collaboration with Taj Mahal on 1999's Kulanjan explored the connections between West African music and the blues and was cited by Barack Obama as his favorite album during the 2008 Presidential election campaign.
In the more traditional vein, Diabaté has recorded widely with most of the greatest names in Malian music, both on his own albums and as a guest on releases by singers such as Salif Keita and Kasse Mady Diabaté. In recent years, he has recorded a series of thrillingly diverse releases for World Circuit/Nonesuch, including two albums of kora-guitar duets with Ali Farka Touré, including the Grammy-winning In the Heart of the Moon (2004), Boulevard de l'Indépendance (2005) with his groundbreaking Symmetric Orchestra, and the acoustic solo kora collection The Mandé Variations (2008).
---
BASSEKOU KOUYATE ngoni (born Garana, Mali, 1966)
Descended from a long line of griots, Bassekou Kouyate was born in the Segu region of Mali, where his mother was a famous singer and his father was a celebrated player of the ngoni ba (banjo-like lute) on the local wedding party circuit. At the age of 16, Bassekou took his father's place, and by the end of the 1980s he had joined Toumani Diabaté's Symmetric Orchestra.
Since then, Kouyate has revolutionized the playing of the ngoni, adding extra strings to give him a wider melodic range and inventing new plucking methods to allow faster runs and more versatility. He also became the first ngoni player to use the instrument like a guitar, performing on his feet, instead of in the traditional seated position. As an accompanist, he went on to record with a wide variety of performers, including Taj Mahal and Ali Farka Touré, before forming the ngoni quartet Ngoni Ba and making his debut as a band leader on Segu Blue, which won the 2007 BBC Radio 3 Award for World Music as Best Album. He followed it in 2009 with a second album, I Speak Fula.
---
KASSÉ MADY DIABATÉ vocals (born Kangaba, Mali, 1949)
The veteran griot singer Kasse Mady Diabaté began performing with the Super Mandé orchestra in his early 20s. He went on to become lead vocalist with Las Maravillas de Mali (later known as National Badema du Mali), a band famous for reworking traditional Mandé songs into a Cuban dance-band format. He recorded his debut solo album, Fode, in Paris, in 1989. An electric, dance-based recording produced by Ibrahima Sylla, Fode was followed a year later with a contrasting album of acoustic griot songs, Kela Tradition (1990). Kasse Mady Diabaté also sang on the fusion album Songhai 2 (1995) with Ketama and Toumani Diabaté.
After a decade in Paris, he returned to Mali in 1998 and joined Taj Mahal, Toumani Diabaté, and Bassekou Kouyate on the recording of Kulanjan and became lead vocalist with Toumani's Symmetric Orchestra on the 2006 album Boulevard de l'Indépendance. AfroCubism is not the first time he has worked with Cuban musicians, for the late Buena Vista Social Club star Cachaíto López guested on his 2003 solo album, Kassi Kasse. His solo album Manden Djeli Kan appeared in 2009.
---
DJELIMADY TOUNKARA guitars, (born Kita, Mali, in 1947)
Arguably the finest guitarist in Africa, Djelimady Tounkara was born Kita and grew up playing drums and the xalam (lute). His parents wanted him to become an Islamic cleric but the plan was abandoned as soon as he saw and heard his first guitar. After early success playing in the Kita regional band, by the mid-1960s he had moved to Bamako, where he joined Misra Jazz, before he was promoted to join the state-sponsored Orchestre National as rhythm guitarist.
After the orchestra was disbanded, Tounkara joined the now legendary Rail Band on its formation in 1970, playing at the Buffet Hotel de la Gare, next to Bamako's train station, in a line up that included the singers Salif Keita and Mory Kante. He remained the Rail Band's arranger and lead guitarist throughout its glory years and in its later revival as the Super Rail Band, and continues to perform with them in Bamako to this day. In addition to appearing on all the Rail Band's recordings, he has also released the solo acoustic albums Sigui (2001) and Solon Kono (2006), as well as Big String Theory (2002) with his trio Bajourou.
---
FODE LASSANA DIABATÉ balafon (born Conakry, Guinea, 1971)
Born in Guinea into a family of virtuoso balafon players, Lassana Diabaté moved as a young man to Bamako in the early 1990s. He has since become fêted as Mali's most gifted player of the 22-key xylophone of the Mandé griots, appearing on albums by Salif Keita, Bassekou Kouyate, and Kasse Mady Diabaté, among others, and has been a long-standing member of Toumani Diabaté's Symmetric Orchestra. He also played on Kulanjan, Toumani's celebrated collaboration with the American bluesman Taj Mahal.
An innovator on his instrument, on AfroCubism, he can be heard playing two balafons tuned a semi-tone apart, extending the harmonic range of what is a fixed pitch instrument and allowing greater scope for improvisation.

 

About AfroCubism

ELIADES OCHOA guitar and vocals (born Songo la Maya, Cuba, 1946)
With his trademark cowboy hat and penchant for wearing black, Eliades Ochoa has been dubbed "Cuba's Johnny Cash." There's more than a fashion statement in the comparison to America's greatest country singer, too, for Ochoa is a "guajiro" (from the countryside) and a champion of rural Cuban styles such as son and guararcha.
One of the younger members of the Buena Vista Social Club, he has since become something of an elder statesman himself and has been a professional musician for almost half a century. For many years he was a regular at Santiago's famous Casa de la Trova, and, in 1978, he took over the leadership of Cuarteto Patria, a Cuban institution, which, by then, had already been performing for almost 40 years. He recorded two albums with the group for the Mexican Corason label and in 1986 met the veteran singer Compay Segundo, who joined Cuarteto Patria for a time. While with the group Segundo recorded the album Chanchaneando, which featured the original version of "Chan Chan."
A decade after their first meeting, Ochoa and Segundo famously reunited to perform the song as the opening track on the Grammy-winning Buena Vista Social Club. To that album Eliades also contributed lead vocals on "El Cuarto de Tula" and his own guajira showcase on "El Carretero." Since Buena Vista, he has recorded several fine albums under his own name, including Cubafrica (1998) with the great Cameroonian saxophonist Manu Dibango, Sublime Ilusión (1999), Tributo a Cuarteto Patria (2000), and Estoy Como Nunca (2002). He continues to lead Grupo Patria and tours regularly around the world.
---
TOUMANI DIABATÉ kora (born Bamako, Mali, 1965)
One of the most significant musicians in Africa, Toumani Diabaté is the leading exponent of the West African harp known as the kora. Born in Bamako, he inherited his musical gifts from a long family lineage of kora masters. A child prodigy, he recorded his debut album, Kaira, in London in 1986, at the age of 21. With his playing bass, rhythm, and solo simultaneously on the instrument's 21 strings, Kaira was the first ever album of solo kora music and the start of a remarkable international career.
As an innovative and experimental collaborator, Diabaté recorded the two acclaimed Songhai fusion albums with the Spanish flamenco group Ketama and has worked with Damon Albarn, Björk, and the London Symphony Orchestra. His collaboration with Taj Mahal on 1999's Kulanjan explored the connections between West African music and the blues and was cited by Barack Obama as his favorite album during the 2008 Presidential election campaign.
In the more traditional vein, Diabaté has recorded widely with most of the greatest names in Malian music, both on his own albums and as a guest on releases by singers such as Salif Keita and Kasse Mady Diabaté. In recent years, he has recorded a series of thrillingly diverse releases for World Circuit/Nonesuch, including two albums of kora-guitar duets with Ali Farka Touré, including the Grammy-winning In the Heart of the Moon (2004), Boulevard de l'Indépendance (2005) with his groundbreaking Symmetric Orchestra, and the acoustic solo kora collection The Mandé Variations (2008).
---
BASSEKOU KOUYATE ngoni (born Garana, Mali, 1966)
Descended from a long line of griots, Bassekou Kouyate was born in the Segu region of Mali, where his mother was a famous singer and his father was a celebrated player of the ngoni ba (banjo-like lute) on the local wedding party circuit. At the age of 16, Bassekou took his father's place, and by the end of the 1980s he had joined Toumani Diabaté's Symmetric Orchestra.
Since then, Kouyate has revolutionized the playing of the ngoni, adding extra strings to give him a wider melodic range and inventing new plucking methods to allow faster runs and more versatility. He also became the first ngoni player to use the instrument like a guitar, performing on his feet, instead of in the traditional seated position. As an accompanist, he went on to record with a wide variety of performers, including Taj Mahal and Ali Farka Touré, before forming the ngoni quartet Ngoni Ba and making his debut as a band leader on Segu Blue, which won the 2007 BBC Radio 3 Award for World Music as Best Album. He followed it in 2009 with a second album, I Speak Fula.
---
KASSÉ MADY DIABATÉ vocals (born Kangaba, Mali, 1949)
The veteran griot singer Kasse Mady Diabaté began performing with the Super Mandé orchestra in his early 20s. He went on to become lead vocalist with Las Maravillas de Mali (later known as National Badema du Mali), a band famous for reworking traditional Mandé songs into a Cuban dance-band format. He recorded his debut solo album, Fode, in Paris, in 1989. An electric, dance-based recording produced by Ibrahima Sylla, Fode was followed a year later with a contrasting album of acoustic griot songs, Kela Tradition (1990). Kasse Mady Diabaté also sang on the fusion album Songhai 2 (1995) with Ketama and Toumani Diabaté.
After a decade in Paris, he returned to Mali in 1998 and joined Taj Mahal, Toumani Diabaté, and Bassekou Kouyate on the recording of Kulanjan and became lead vocalist with Toumani's Symmetric Orchestra on the 2006 album Boulevard de l'Indépendance. AfroCubism is not the first time he has worked with Cuban musicians, for the late Buena Vista Social Club star Cachaíto López guested on his 2003 solo album, Kassi Kasse. His solo album Manden Djeli Kan appeared in 2009.
---
DJELIMADY TOUNKARA guitars, (born Kita, Mali, in 1947)
Arguably the finest guitarist in Africa, Djelimady Tounkara was born Kita and grew up playing drums and the xalam (lute). His parents wanted him to become an Islamic cleric but the plan was abandoned as soon as he saw and heard his first guitar. After early success playing in the Kita regional band, by the mid-1960s he had moved to Bamako, where he joined Misra Jazz, before he was promoted to join the state-sponsored Orchestre National as rhythm guitarist.
After the orchestra was disbanded, Tounkara joined the now legendary Rail Band on its formation in 1970, playing at the Buffet Hotel de la Gare, next to Bamako's train station, in a line up that included the singers Salif Keita and Mory Kante. He remained the Rail Band's arranger and lead guitarist throughout its glory years and in its later revival as the Super Rail Band, and continues to perform with them in Bamako to this day. In addition to appearing on all the Rail Band's recordings, he has also released the solo acoustic albums Sigui (2001) and Solon Kono (2006), as well as Big String Theory (2002) with his trio Bajourou.
---
FODE LASSANA DIABATÉ balafon (born Conakry, Guinea, 1971)
Born in Guinea into a family of virtuoso balafon players, Lassana Diabaté moved as a young man to Bamako in the early 1990s. He has since become fêted as Mali's most gifted player of the 22-key xylophone of the Mandé griots, appearing on albums by Salif Keita, Bassekou Kouyate, and Kasse Mady Diabaté, among others, and has been a long-standing member of Toumani Diabaté's Symmetric Orchestra. He also played on Kulanjan, Toumani's celebrated collaboration with the American bluesman Taj Mahal.
An innovator on his instrument, on AfroCubism, he can be heard playing two balafons tuned a semi-tone apart, extending the harmonic range of what is a fixed pitch instrument and allowing greater scope for improvisation.

The Train to Paris - Sebastian Hampson


‘This book will charm and engage.’ Books & Publishing

She entered the station, wearing a white leopard-print dress that was short enough to show off her legs. Her hair slid down the back of her neck in a curtain of gold, which shimmered as it passed t
hrough the updraught. There was a conspicuous ring on her finger. Her head turned and her eyes almost met with mine. I looked away.
After a disastrous holiday with his girlfriend in Madrid, Lawrence Williams takes the train back to Paris where he is studying art history. Lawrence is twenty years old and discovering how to see the world, which means he doesn’t mind too much when he gets stranded at the border.
That’s when Élodie Lavelle enters his field of vision. She might be twice his age but she’s amused by the boy’s earnest charm. She decides to entertain herself by educating him in the rules of her society, treating him to an unforgettable evening in Biarritz.
But Élodie has not counted on what Lawrence might teach her in return, or how much their unlikely encounter willmark them both. The Train to Paris is a surprising and compelling love story.


Read an interview with Booknotes Unbound.

Sebastian Hampson
Sebastian Hampson was born in 1992 in Auckland, New Zealand. He grew up in Wellington, has lived in Europe, and is currently studying art history and literature at Victoria University. The Train to Paris is his first novel.