Under New York Neon: Toubab Krewe At S.O.B.’s

By: David Schultz

The compilation of the year end best-of lists rekindled a long running debate over the success of Vampire Weekend’s self-titled debut. While some were troubled by what they perceived as the Ivy League quartet’s lack of respect and glib appropriation of African rhythms into their educated brand of Afro-pop, many others found no quarrel with the band’s use of world beats. Although they also derive their inspiration from the Dark Continent, no such criticism hounds the Toubab Krewe. Having honed their craft in Mali, Guinea and the Ivory Coast, the quintet from Asheville, North Carolina nimbly incorporate West African music and instruments into their music, creating a heady, original brand of instrumental music while retaining a fine sense of traditionalism. This past week, Toubab Krewe kicked off a small east coast run of shows with an intimate performance at S.O.B.’s, one of the oldest world music venues still active in New York City.

Even before Toubab Krewe plays their first note, you realize you are in for something slightly of the beaten path. Seated at the front of the stage, Justin Perkins sits between two stately instruments that look like the type of artifacts little kids are told not to touch in someone’s house. Looking like large harps attached to halved gourds with a hacky sack exterior, Perkins plays the kamel ngoni and the much larger kora in the same manner that Robert Randolph works the pedal steel; instead of treating it with a reverence that borders on the sacrosanct, Perkins plucks away at the African instruments’ strings as if he’s a jazz bassist or flamenco guitarist.

As for the music, the Krewe won’t be mistaken for generic happy-go-lucky purveyors of tribal rhythms. Rather, Toubab Krewe are what Vampire Weekend would have sounded like if their parents took away their BMWs, dosed their white wine spritzers and locked them in Fela’s basement. (Let’s just all agree that whether or not you like Vampire Weekend, it’s perfectly acceptable to make fun of Ivy Leaguers). At S.O.B.’s, they went through some easy going paces, notably “Maliba,” with it’s blue-grass, Americana lilt, some uptempo, neo-psychedelic groove burners like the opener “51 Ft Ladder” and Link Wray era surf-rock “Buncombe To Badala” with Drew Heller’s guitar solos sounding ripped from the acid pop of the Sixties. Bassist David Pransky and drummer Teal Brown kept things anchored, at times steamrolling along with the simplicity of Johnny Cash or working a bit more eccentrically to allow percussionist Luke Quaranta, Heller and Perkins to create a wild olio of American electric jazz and its African analog.

The Krewe’s energy level only dipped when they backed off to provide support for the spoken word contributions of Umar Bin Hassan of The Last Poets. While the interludes work fantastically on the recently released Live At The Orange Peel, Hassan’s passionate delivery didn’t make up for the somewhat lackadaisical melodies the Krewe played behind him. A daring change of pace, the poetry breaks, which included a recitation of “Jimi’s Juju,” just didn’t flow extremely well with the rest of the set.

For Thursday night’s show, the only nod to tradition came during the encore. Rearranging the stage to accommodate the additional percussion, Pransky moved behind an enormous kettle drum that had until then remained dormant for “Petit Amadies,” a lengthy drum circle jam. Along with U-Melt and the Avett Brothers, Toubab Krewe fell into the group of bands that got passed over for New Groove of the Year when the Jammy Awards bypassed 2007. Whether they would have won or not, the Krewe’s inclusion of traditional West African instruments in decidedly nontraditional ways has resulted in a sound distinctly their own.