Friday, 11th December / G.B.C. Club House / 7 pm / Admission Free!
On 11th of Dec. 2009 Ebo Taylor will launch his new, thirteen piece band “Bonze Konkoma” and their first 10-track CD. The launching will take place at the G.B.C. Club House, starting at 7 pm.
Guest artists will be Ray Allen, saxophone, Osei Tutu, trumpet, and C.K. Mann, vocal.
Warm-Up by The Bigshots (Legon University Band)
Taylor was on a six week recording project in Germany recently (supported by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Center for World Music, University of Hildesheim/Germany) where he recorded a CD of his Highlife & Afrobeat-compositions with the German band Poets of Rhythm. He also played two concerts, in Paris and Frankfurt where he impressed contemporaries like Tony Allen.
Taylor’s career as an outstanding Ghanaian guitarist, composer and arranger spans over 50 years. His music and style have shaped Ghanaian popular music over the last five decades substantially. He has recorded twelve albums, once led several well-known bands, among them the Uhuru Dance Band, was the musical director for Essiebons, Gapophone and Polygram, and composed and arranged numerous songs, also for other great musicians like C.K. Mann, Pat Thomas, Jewel Ackah, Papa Yankson and others. His classic Highlife- and Afrobeat compositions include “Sika Enyiber”, “Odo Ye Wu”, “Ghana Be Ye Yie”, “Dofo”, “Twer Nyame”, “Heaven”, and “Come Along”.
Two years ago, with the support of Essiebons Music in Accra, Taylor started a new band called “Bonze Konkoma”. The band features talented young musicians from around the area of Saltpond in the Central Region where Taylor lives, as well as music graduates from the University of Ghana, where he has been teaching Highlife & Jazz Guitar for the last seven years.
Having researched into Fante Akan music extensively over the last years, with Bonze Konkoma Taylor draws on musical traditions like Adowa, Asafo, Osode, and Adzewa (a Fante dance music form traditionally mainly played by women) which he creatively reinterprets into a new Ghanaian musical form strongly shaped by Taylors own musical style: a unique blend of Highlife, Jazz, and Afrobeat. The use of a Konkoma drum ensemble alongside guitars, bass, keyboard, brass section, and a prime emphasis on vocal music, to transpose Taylor’s compositions and arrangements into a modern band idiom presents the Bonze Konkoma as a highly interesting and unique project in contemporary Ghanaian music.
The CD will be released by Essiebons Music.
The band
- Ebo Taylor – guitar, vocals
- Fish – bass
- Kofi Doamapor – guitar
- Henry Taylor – keyboards
- Possible Prempeh - bass drum (Konkoma Drum Ensemble)
- Kwame Takyi – tenor drum
- Atta Electric – snearl drum
- Ebo Koree – konkon
- Mame Ekua - vocals
- Aba Tawiah – vocals
- Sarah Esi Baawa - vocals
- Eli - trombone
- Joana - trumpet
Guest artists:
- Ray Allen – sax
- Osei Tutu - trumpet
Supported by
German Embassy in Accra; Center for World Music, University of Hildesheim/Germany; Essiebons Music Ltd.; Coconut Grove Hotels, Ghana; Ghana Broadcasting Corporation; Uniq FM.
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