Afro-Jazz

Last night we attended the final night of the AfroJazz Festival sponsored by the Alliance Française  here in Accra. We all got dressed up and headed to the very large compound that the af owns.

There is a great open-air restaurant complete with chandelier hanging from the thatched roof. It was not cheap but we all had some great thin crust pizza and drinks before the show.

 There was also some amazing art installations about garbage and recycling. This is obviously a cultural hub.

There is a very large outdoor stage with banked seating, probably enough for 250 people. It was pretty full and so we wandered over after our meal to get seats while the opening act played. Wayne Eagles you would have LOVED him…Big Wellington, a great fusion guitarist, blending some African jazz and Chick Corea stylings.

The main act was a very cool jam of four different flutes, three from Ghana and one flautist from Paris. Sabine Boyer was here on a French music residency to collaborate with Dela Botri, one of Ghana’s best musicians, and a specialist on the atenteben, a bamboo flute.

His fantastic band, Hewale Sounds backed them up.  The flutes together were amazingly beautiful and versatile on terms of genres. The repertoire spanned everything from trad. Ghanaian to trad.  French and jazz, highlife etc. etc. It was a really great show that ended with everyone dancing. We really lucked out that the concert was this weekend. 
-Kathy