Anbessa

Description

In December 2013, Alain Pilot and his "Bande Passante" on RFI celebrated Manu Dibango's 80th birthday by bringing together prestigious guests, including the ambassadors of Ethio-Jazz: Akalé Wubé, around the great master of African music. The group decided to perform live on air "African Pop Session" and "Ekedi" – both composed and recorded by the Cameroonian saxophonist in the early 70s – and were very quickly joined by Manu Dibango, armed with his saxophone. Two live recordings of these versions were taken from this unprecedented and improvised encounter. A great rapport quickly developed between them, and a few months later, Akalé Wubé invited Manu Dibango to feature on their track "Anbessa" (Lion in Amharic), specially composed in his honor. This new collaboration allowed them to share stages multiple times over the following years. It was then at Manu Dibango's initiative, and with the memory of that live session at RFI, that they returned to the studio together for Akalé Wubé to arrange and re-record with him 5 other little-known gems from his repertoire: "La Colère des Dieux," "Du Bush a Bush," "Gentlemen de Camp Yabassi," "Otetena Munja," and "Peaceful Homeland." Unfortunately, the Lion was unable to go to the Parisian group's studio in early 2020 to lay down his final solos, as fate had decided otherwise... Akalé Wubé now pays a strong and sincere tribute to this friendship through the album "Anbessa" – bringing together all the tracks written by or for Manu Dibango and performed by the group – on vinyl.