CLASSICAL AND JAZZ: Ghanaian master-drummer Yacub Addy will perform at the Barbican on July 10
Ghanaian master-drummer Yacub Addy
Published: 5 July, 2012
BY SEBASTIAN TAYLOR
A jubilant, swinging and powerful celebration of the historic Congo Square site in New Orleans is taking place at the Barbican next Tuesday, opening a fortnight’s residency by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (JLCO) with trumpeter Wynton Marsalis.
Congo Square was the only location in America where African slaves were allowed to perform music from their motherland and it’s widely regarded as where the roots of American music were first established.
Wynton Marsalis and Ghanaian master-drummer Yacub Addy co-wrote the ground-breaking comoposition Congo Square, a blend of traditional African percussion and song with jazz forms from New Orleans.
Yacub Addy is playing at the concert.
The work was premiered in 2006 before an enthusiastic audience in Congo Square itself shortly after New Orleans had been devastated by hurricane Katrina.
Tuesday’s performance is the European premiere of the work – and it is followed by three other premieres being performed during JLCO’s residency.
Jazz history, from spirituals to hard bop, features in Abyssinian Mass being performed at the Barbican on Friday July 13, by a 100-voice gospel choir and the JLCO itself.
Connections between the American Big Band tradition and Afro-Cuban jazz are explored by the JLCO in the European premiere of Afro-Cuban Fiesta on Monday July 16.
Lastly, the UK premiere of Wynton Marsalis’s own Swing Symphony is being performed on July 25 and 26 by the JLCO and London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Simon Rattle.