Dance – finds Stern again leading her polyglot New York quartet with Argentine keyboardist Leo Genovese and the Senegalese rhythm duo of bassist Mamadou Ba and percussionist Eladji Alioune Faye
“A genre-defying adventurer.” — Guitar Player on Leni Stern
In these pandemic times, we have been mostly bound inside our domiciles, unable to dance in mixed company, footloose and carefree. But we can still sway, swing and shake it on our own or within our pods, given the right soundtrack – and Dance, the new album from border-bounding guitarist, vocalist and producer Leni Stern, fits the bill perfectly. Dance sees Stern again fronting her cross-cultural New York quartet, featuring brilliant Argentine keyboardist Leo Genovese and the bone-deep rhythm duo of bassist Mamadou Ba and percussionist Eladji Alioune Faye, both originally from Senegal. This set of hook-heavy, multilingual songs – colored with a blend of international rhythms, richly harmonized vocals and Stern’s jazzy six-string lyricism – makes for one of the most irresistible albums of her long, fruitful career, brimming as it does with rhythmic joie de vivre and hum-along melody. To be released on vinyl and digitally on June 4, 2021 (via Leni Stern Recordings), Dance will be preceded by multiple singles, with the first – the swaying, prayer-like “Yah Rakhman” – dropping on February 15.
Dance was written and rehearsed in summer and autumn 2020 and then recorded, under safe conditions, at Shelter Island Sound in December, with Leni producing. Along with Genovese, Ba and Faye, the album features one of Leni’s confreres from her days playing in Salif Keita’s band, Haruna Samake, who added his harp-like kamele n’goni to three tracks from afar and co-wrote one song with Leni, the buoyant “Kono” (“Bird”). Along with “Yah Rakhman,” co-written by Leni and Faye, other highlights of Dance include the freshly arranged, richly harmonized traditional West African griot tune “Daouda Saane” and the hard-grooving, Genovese-penned “Kani” (“Spicy Pepper”), which features some characteristically piquant solos by the pianist. The track list also includes Ba’s atmospheric “Maba” (an homage to his great-great-great grandfather, a heroic figure in Senegalese history), Faye’s hopping, skipping instrumental “Hale” (“Children”) and Leni’s tuneful vocalise “Adjouma” (“Friday,” a tribute to multicultural New York City).
About the new album, Leni says: “The music we made is so bouncy – the rhythms just took over! You can’t keep still, playing or listening – that’s why I titled the record Dance. Honestly, it felt special just to be in the studio. Simply getting together to make music is something to cherish, now more than ever – you can’t take anything for granted. Some of these conditions, though, I’m used to… I’ve worked a lot in Africa over the years, and health precautions are just a part of being there, taking care not to catch malaria or dengue fever. That’s a reality of African life. Trying to make the best of things during a lockdown has also been part of my experience. I made my album Smoke, No Fire in Mali during the military coup there in 2012, with curfews and all the anxiety. When the world around you is threatened, it creates a sense of urgency and focus. We made Dance like that, but trying to invoke a spirit of joy – and resilience.”
Leni has been on an evolutionary road over the past decade-plus, fusing her long-honed contemporary jazz sound with a deeply felt exploration of West African styles. She traveled and studied in Mali and Senegal, performing with the likes of iconic singer-songwriter Salif Keita and other African notables. The Munich-born New Yorker’s trans-Atlantic journeys have yielded a fresh, personal idiom, one where progressive virtuosity blends seamlessly with age-old folk traditions. Leni’s trio with the kindred-spirit rhythm section of Mamadou Ba and Alioune Faye released the albums 3 in 2018 and Jelell in 2013; the bassist and percussionist also figured into the expansive cast of her Dakar Suite of 2016. The trio became a quartet with the addition of Leo Genovese, a highly regarded keyboard talent on the New York scene as both a leader and as a collaborator with the likes of Esperanza Spalding and Jack DeJohnette. Genovese’s improvisational fire and natural South American lyricism are an ideal complement to the crystalline guitar, West African rhythms and multilingual songs that listeners have grown to expect from Leni, Ba and Faye.
As Leni explains, the band has gone from strength to strength. “It has been a real love affair between the keyboards and the rhythm section! The guys love Leo and all his fire. They always say, ‘Leo is so baaad!’ The West African rhythmic vocabulary – as well as its sense of form and call-and-response – can be challenging for any musician who isn’t native to the music, but Leo seems to relish that, finding it to be a fun way of connecting to the African roots of his South American heritage. And, of course, there are lots of European classical influences on South American music. The richness of Leo’s harmonic approach and his modern jazz idiom really add to the music, which you can hear on his new tune, ‘Kani’.”
Regarding the band’s rhythm section, Leni says: “Mamadou, Alioune and I have developed together an authentic African rhythmic feel, stark and highly syncopated. Mamadou and Alioune are like brothers in their common understanding of rhythm. Mamadou is also a specialist at evoking traditional West African instruments, like the n’goni, on the electric bass. Along with their deep roots in traditional music, the two of them played together in a rock band in Dakar. So, they also know how to write a chorus with a rock feel, even with lyrics in West African languages.”
Having been raised in Germany, Leni grew up on Bach and Mozart, “so the harmonic structures of Western classical music are second nature to me,” she says. “With the music of 4, and now Dance, I wanted to incorporate more harmonic movement into my music again, to go along with its West African and South American rhythms. There’s even a bit of India in there, too. Inspired by John McLaughlin, I went to Mumbai in 2001 to study classical Indian vocal music and its science of ornamental melody, to help give my guitar playing a more liquid, vocal quality. Then, of course, there is the call-and-response from African music and American blues in our music. There are a lot of different sounds within our sound.”
Leni and company played a regular masked, socially distanced outdoor gig in her neighborhood of New York’s East Village over the past summer, when restrictions were loosened somewhat. It helped the band gel further as a quartet, getting the four of them excited to write and record again. And Leni notes that because they recorded Dance in December, post-election, they were buoyed spiritually by President Biden’s win “over the dark forces of the previous administration,” she says. “Some of the joy in the performances on this album comes from a sense that, politically and in terms of the pandemic, better times are surely ahead… It has been easy to resign ourselves to doom and gloom over the past year, but a message of positivity is vital. Listening back to the tracks after the recording session, the energy seemed so upbeat and uplifting. I really want to share that feeling with people!”