Jean Bosco Mwende
Mountain Rec. Jean Bosco Mwende : Mwenda wa Bayeke
African Guitar Legend / The Studio Album (CO,1988)****
This is a reissue of the last recording of Jean Bosco Mwende, before sadly a car-accident ended his life. He is the best known African guitarist of his generation, and the CD is a very good starting point for those who havn’t heard any African acoustic guitarist, because on this late recording he plays quietly, relaxed and moodily. He had done most of his recordings, two decades earlier : between 1952 and 1962 he recorded some 150 titles which sold all over Africa. He continued touring, and did a European tour in 1982, and a South African tour in 1988, which ended in this, last recording. The songs have matured in a way over the years, and you can hear also clearly the details of the accompaniment.
The first African electric guitar styles often derived from interpreting the playing of the kalimba (or thumb piano), while the acoustic guitar was in its turn inspired by the electric guitar styles, developing the fingerpickings in a world on their own. Jean Bosco heard in Shaba the rising popularity of the kwela styles from South African rumba in Congo, beside other foreign influences, and of course the rising importance of the electric guitar. But he blended all those influences with local musical forms into a new style, that was going to be called the ‘Shaba Sound’ (people like Eduard Masengo and Losta Abelo are also mentioned in the booklet). The back of the album promotes him as “this master of the dry guitar”.
Most songs were in Swahili, a lingua franca that united, in language and understanding, several tribes which met in the cities. Swahili was spoken mostly in East and Central Africa. His popularity grew however over these borders. Some words and sometimes explanations make it also for an outsider (even us) often a bit more understandable what the songs more or less are about. The booklet provides also more detailed explanations. And although Jean Bosco Mwende is remembered as a guitarist, his songs matter, and he is in fact most often singer-songwriter music with guitar tunes adapted to it (with one instrumental).
The songs sound comfortable and very charming and sound very family-like, and almost are to be recognised as troubadour songs from some grandfather or uncle telling songs from far experiences, where the tunes and singing actually express it universally enough to be understood and appreciated, and hook a listener to this late night adventure in musical storytelling.
