Munia: The Tale (2003) — Richard Bona

Listening

To listen to this album for free, visit Munia @ Last.fm. To play a song, click the round play button next to its name.

Nitty Gritty (Reference Section)

Recorded 2003. Musicians on this album include Richard Bona (a bassist and vocalist who also plays guitar, percussion, synth, and keyboards here), Kenny Garrett (soprano saxophone on Painting A Wish), Salif Keita (additional vocals on Kalabancoro), and a host of other musicians. The songs vary from solo efforts to larger ensembles. For a full line-up, see Munia @ Discogs.com.

Personal Connections

This is an album and artist that I know little about. It came to me as part of a bundle of jazz album recommendations from friends.

You’ll notice that this album is, in many ways, outside the scope of my usual jazz appreciation. Most obviously, it was recorded and released in 2003, long after most of the jazz I listen to. A lot happened in jazz between the ’60s and 2000s, and I know little about most of it. I do feel that I have something of the ears to listen to this album despite this. There is a lot on the album that I can easily associate with—specifically influences from older jazz, hip-hop, pop, and “world” music. Also, although he is a multi-instrumentalist, Bona is first-and-foremost a bassist. His familiar approach to the instrument makes the music immediately accessible to me. In fact, one of his clearest influences on the instrument is Jaco Pastorius—a voice I am more than familiar with.

The Music: A Dissection of Influences

Much more than the periods in jazz that I usually concern myself with, contemporary jazz is about blending different existing genres and jazz sub-genres in interesting ways. Bona has had great exposure to a large number of different musical styles. It is hard to say whether he is so successful as a jazz artist right now because jazz is interested in these sorts of melting pots, or whether he pursues the melting pot that he pursues because this is the direction that contemporary jazz is in right now. The chicken or the egg, I suppose. It’s easy to say that Bona just plays the music that is in him, but the truth is that what Bona’s music would’ve been like if he was born 60 years earlier is a valid question.

This album covers a huge amount of territory. This is both because Bona is comfortable in a number of different styles, and in part because Bona hadn’t yet found a cohesive artistic voice with this album. This doesn’t come across as a fault, though. Rather, each new style revealed feels like a little gift. In terms of style or voice, the element that unifies this music is the extreme joy centering around music-making for Bona and his musicians. In my mind, there is a lot that Bona “gets away with” on this album on account of how charming and joyful he is, but some of it is material that I suspect I otherwise wouldn’t put up with.

When I listen to this album, I can’t help but be reminded of John Mayer (and it isn’t just because of Balemba Na Bwemba, which sounds like him outright). More generally, both Mayer and Bona are eager, young, and extremely technically proficient musicians with a diverse array of influences. At times, they each choose less-than-impressive influences to draw from, making the easy, uninspired, or cliche musical choice. With Bona (I, admittedly, haven’t given Mayer much of a chance), I tend to forgive him, distracted as I am by the more exciting and impressive moments in the music.

When Bona draws clearly on a more self-consciously “jazz” texture in Muto Bye Bye (for a piano solo from 2:19 to 3:35), it sounds like the beautiful musical portraits that Joni Mitchell makes (with Jaco on bass, not surprisingly) on albums like Hejira. To my ears, this fares much better than the similar passages on Painting A Wish (a tribute to Miles Davis), which draws on the less-interesting side of commercial and smooth jazz. He demonstrates, though, that this distinction is not related to his Jaco-like bass-playing, which is a constant in both of the tunes in question. Is it simply the use of soprano saxophone that transforms the bright sound that I like in Muto Bye Bye to the one I like less in Painting A Wish? I hope not! And the soprano saxophone in Playground doesn’t bother me (maybe because of the extent to which it feels like a duet with the bass there). Food for thought…

I am similarly divided when it comes to what I hear as a French influence in his music (he lived and studied, for a time, in Paris). On Bona Petit (a much-appreciated play on words), he makes some downright silly choices (and I can’t say that I know enough about French music to be able to point with confidence to that as the source). One example is the whispered “ecoute” that he uses at 1:57 and other places in the song. Is this really necessary? The speaking during the section beginning at 2:35 hits me in a similar way. I hear the artist Manu Chau here, and I suspect that he’s drawing on other influences that I’m unable to identify. I do like Manu Chau, but it’s just that Bona seems a bit indiscriminate when it comes to what he took from Chau and what he left behind. The song Bona Petit is redeemed by beautiful sounds, a great groove, and a few really thoughtfully-constructed moments (for instance, the section beginning at 4:03).

Bona also brings a clear hip-hop influence to this music. Like the influences above, Bona draws on hip-hop both in strong positive ways and also in some disappointing ways. His most explicit reference to hip-hop is on Kalabancoro in the section from 1:45 to 2:55. For me, this section is rather disappointing. The electronic drums here sound out of place throughout. The transitions into and out of this section (the loud Michael Jackson-esque bursts) might work for a different artist or in a different context, but Bona really doesn’t merit or need it here. The whole thing sounds forced.

That said, some of the best parts of the album also represent a hip-hop influence. Bona’s attention to detail when choosing instrumentation and instrumental colors are definitely a highlight of the album for me. These colors vary from those created using synthesizers to novel combinations of live instruments. A favorite use of synthesizer (I can’t tell, to be technical, whether this is a synthesized voice or a vocoder) is in Sona Mama, beginning at 0:18 (I also hear an African influence in this, as the sound is not unlike that of a talking-drum). In Kalabancoro, Bona creates a similar sound at 2:43, here combining flute and voice by having them sound in unison. A similar effect is created in Balemba Na Bwemba at 2:03 (and again at 3:02), where the voice and keyboards are in a stunning unison. Another example is between a guitar-like keyboard and voice in Bona Petit at 3:28. By combining voices in this way, Bona freshens up even the most commonplace unison, as in Engingilaye from 2:08-2:15.

What I take to be the West African influence on the album is by far the strongest to my ears. Bona was born in Cameroon (see map below), and grew up there.

Bona was a professional musician in Cameroon for years before discovering jazz (although this was also at a very young age), and to my ears, the music he grew up with is very much part of his style.

So, what do you hear as the African influences in this music? For me, I can point to it in a few different places. Most obvious are technical details: many of his lyrics are (I believe) in the Douala language, and he uses African-sounding percussion instruments, some of which I’m unfamiliar with (what the hell is the quiet, fascinating rubbing sound throughout Bona Petit? If you can’t hear it, listen during the break at 4:02). He also makes use of beautiful, catchy, sung melodies that I associate with his African roots as well. Some examples of this are in Playground at 3:04, Couscous at 2:37, Sona Mama at 0:47, Dina Lam at 3:45, and throughout Bonatology.

Personally, the most exciting way in which this album seems to be influenced by African music is the hypnotic pacing and structure of the songs. Unlike in most jazz and popular music, the sections of the songs seem to fade into one another. The music slowly evolves more often than it changes. This is what gives much of the music (Playground or Couscous, for instance) its trancelike quality.

In Closing

I hope that you enjoyed this album as much as I did, and that my efforts were useful in picking apart the music and understanding where some of it may come from.

Thanks again for reading!
Dan