Waking from a well-deserved nap I was surprised to find the entire band hanging out in the garden, turned golden in the slanting rays of the tropical Saturday afternoon sun. Monique explained they were there to get paid – she hadn’t had time to take care of this detail the previous night, which had been a long one.

From my somewhat myopic perspective as musical director, the show at the CCESCA went much better than our debut. There was only one structural mishap, a minor one. And we had completely eliminated the dead intervals between songs.


I even got some very pleasant surprises. To give herself more time for a costume change, Monique had strategically inserted short percussion and bass solos. Unlike Jimmy, our always-on drummer, Dô and Fefy are quiet types. They showed up for the first rehearsal, played perfectly and from then on, like gravity, went largely unnoticed. Dô’s role especially is quite basic, often just shaking a tambourine. This is pop music, after all. I hadn’t realized what a great player he was until Friday night when I heard his conga solo, a jewel of understated precision.

Fefy, too, shown. In a context like ours, bass solos are essentially exhibitions of prowess and are therefore to my mind largely a waste of notes. But given that, Fefy’s showcase was truly impressive, stringing together in a coherent way the entire repertoire of dazzling technical tricks that define today’s hotshot players. Best of all were the Malagasy touches: beautiful melodies and impenetrably complex rhythms based on marovany playing – all the more amazing on bass. In the same traditional style, Miary’s extended guitar intro to Ravola (another costume-change moment), showed what an artist he really is, despite his problem with booze.

The only disconcerting aspect, and one that kept me from fully enjoying the performance, were the many empty seats. After all that media coverage? I found later out what the deal was. The mezzanine, which I couldn’t make out from my deep-stage vantage point, was full. These were the cheap seats, around $3.60. The much larger section of orchestra seats below was for the narrow top of the social pyramid, those who could cough up the princely sum of $5.35. With annual per capita income barely reaching $400, getting big in Madagascar is one thing, getting rich another.

* * *

Packing up our instruments after the final encore, we rushed over to the after-party at the Karibotel (not the Caribou Hotel as I had originally heard it – the nearest specimen of that ungulate being half a world away). Quickly setting up in a cramped corner we ran through some of our repertoire. Warmed up, with no pressure and fuelled by beer and samosas, it was a lot of fun. Even funner was the jam session that followed, where our players really showed off their chops. (Representing the home team, I did my best to be credible.) They were joined by a cavalcade of Malagasy musicians, including a couple performing this curiosity based on traditional operetta (bassists take note).

When things finally wound down and I should have been slumping off home to bed, I instead gave in to the nieces’ entreaties to make the scene at Mojo (see March 12). Hence the Saturday afternoon siesta.

At Mojo

* * *

What started as payday soon became a party, as beer was sent for. It was a nice way to finish off several intense weeks of work. Those who stayed on as night fell – Jimmy, Nicholas and Joël – enjoyed a wild barbecue/dance party animated by the nieces, their numbers swollen by a gaggle of cousins, a girlfriend or two thrown in for good measure. Ten youngsters in all. 

At home

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