New album: “DANCE” out today on digital! LP/vinyl on September 3rd! /  by Leni Stern

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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!”

Afropop: interview /  by Leni Stern

Afropop.org

Leni Stern Talks Composing and Recording During the Pandemic

Leni Stern is a guitarist, singer/songwriter and band leader whose music spans jazz, folk, African, Latin and other global styles. She has been a presence in New York’s live music scene for many years and has toured the world, working with a huge assortment of artists, including Malian stars Salif Keita and Bassekou Kouyate. Afropop’s Banning Eyre has known and played with Leni for years, so their Zoom conversation about Leni’s 22nd CD Dance (out June 4, 2021) is as much a dialogue between old friends as a journalistic interview. Here it is!

Banning Eyre: Hey, Leni. How is life in the East Village these days?

Leni Stern: Very good.

It's coming back to life?

It never stopped. The East Village was always popping. Even during the pandemic.

It's pretty much the only place I went in New York in the last year. I went just once to play on the street in front of The Front on East 11th St. where I've seen you playing on YouTube.

Yes. Isn't that the best? All the Spanish people love us there. We've been very lucky here. I've just been studying music the whole time—all the things that I didn't have time for.

Such as?

Like John Coltrane's songbook. I really upgraded my percussion training with our percussionist, Alou [Alioune Faye from Senegal]. I had lots of time to practice. We were so restricted from the pandemic that you couldn't distract yourself. I had hours and hours to myself to practice music and to go over Alioune’s percussion calls. I actually tried to write them down. It's not easy to fit them into our metric system. Jamey Haddad did a great job writing down a lot of African rhythms. I studied with him, and he showed me some of them.

But you know, as a guitar player, drummers have a different way of writing, with several staffs for all of their drums. It's kind of hard for us to read. I was looking for a way to write for guitar players. Because in African music, we respond to the drums, or play in unison with the bass, or answer the bass. The drums call the bass, and we answer the bass. Or we embellish the bass parts. Everyone has their place. But to notate it all! To this day, I don't know if the sabar starts with “ra-ka-ta tin” or with “ta tin.” It's just whichever fits nicely onto the call that Alioune plays. It's an entirely musical decision always, so you can't write it like Western music and analyze it and have a receipt for it.

For the sake of our readers, introduce Alioune.

Eladji Alioune Faye is the middle son of Sing Sing Faye, who passed away one day before Doudou Ndiaye Rose. The two masters of sabar left together in August 2015.

Incredible.

And Alioune’s elder brother has taken Sing Sing’s place as the consultant and resident archive and griot master of Senegalese percussion. Alioune is the middle brother. He’s also a dancer. When Alioune was younger, he was as good a dancer as a percussionist. But he was the percussionist for the Royal National Ballet of Senegal for many years. And he toured with his father who was the first griot who brought Senegalese music to the University of Chicago. When we were in Chicago, I took the band to a steakhouse where we could have some real Chicago feeling, with a blues band and all, and he said, "I have been here before, when I was very young." He had come with his father.

You know, in sabar music, we have many different drums. And they are all different. It's like a European orchestra, everything has a function. And all of our sound engineers have to learn the sounds and the names of them all. There is the sabar drum; there is the tungune; there is the chol; there is the djembe… So you need one person to play each of the instruments. And Alioune and his brothers all come together like a little gang with their sticks to play sabar.

But Alioune lives in New York now. For how long?

A long time. He had a green card for many, many years. Now he's got a passport. He's an official American now. But he's still on Facebook with his entire family half of the day. We set up all the stuff for his family, to cook for his mother since he can't be there to supervise. He talks to the lady. “No, you do not eat two cakes for breakfast.” You know in Dakar, they have these French pastry shops.

Dangerous. I remember.

Dangerous, dangerous. “Not for breakfast, or for dessert in the afternoon. How about oranges?”

This photo and banner for this piece by Jonathan Mannion

So in addition to all that practicing and studying, you managed to record this album during the pandemic.

Yes. As soon as we could open up a little bit, I formed a bubble with Alioune and Mamadou [Ba, the bass player] and we started rehearsing this new material. Because I thought it was very important not to let the pandemic run our lives. With all the fears and mistakes and Trump looming and mismanaging everything. And also, I felt like as a person who has traveled the world, the pandemic didn't seem like such a big deal. I've been in an area where there was ebola in Mali. So this whole thing about the vaccination to me is a mystery. I have the little yellow book that you record all your vaccinations and when you travel. I've been vaccinated for cholera, typhoid, yellow fever…

I hear you. What's the problem? Just get vaccinated. Then you don't worry.

And sometimes there's the big needle with the fluid going into it. But that little Covid prick? You can't even feel it. “Am I vaccinated? Yes or no?” [Laughs] And of course our generation, we still have friends who had polio.

Yes. I remember eating the little sugar cube when I was a kid.

I don't know how we got to a place where freedom is no mask. “How would you like a ventilator, sir? Bye-bye, vocal cords.”

So you formed this pod and started rehearsing…

And working on a new concept. You know, we have Leo Genovese [on piano] as a constant member now, so I was trying to stretch the harmonic content of the pentatonic scales.

I hear that. It sounds more like a jazz album than some of your previous releases.

Some people say that. Some people say it sounds more Latin. Some people say it sounds more like Weather Report.

And Return to Forever.

Yes. Joe Zawinul figured out how to play a pentatonic scale over everything. Michael Brecker also played pentatonic scales over "Giant Steps," only pentatonic scales. So with that knowledge of the modern jazz sound, I approached the African grooves differently. You know, it can sound really bad. You remember those Indian movie scores where they started putting harmonies to ragas? All of a sudden the tambura [drone] modulates? The electronic tambura? It is a tricky endeavor to combine different cultural traditions into a new tradition.

But with me, studying in Boston, idolizing the Third Stream guys, Gunther Schuller and all those guys, there is a language for that in classical music. That's why it's called Third Stream. There are rules. There are experiences. People have fallen on their face trying to do that before. But now there's a whole vocabulary on how you do that successfully. As a composer, this was fabulous, especially collaborating with Leo. Some of my favorite classical composers are Villa-Lobos and Leo Brouwer. You check out those guitar pieces that Brouwer wrote…

Yes. Leo Brouwer. I once tackled a couple of his pieces. They are intense.

You know whatever Fernando Sor did not give to my soul, Leo Brouwer did. Brouwer’s music had a groove in it, but it is also so sad.

You were talking about Leo Genovese, your piano player, who is awesome. Tell us about him.

Well, he is Argentine. You know, there are a lot of people of European descent in Argentina, especially a lot of Italian people. So he comes from Italian ancestry. I think it's a long time ago, his great-grandfather or someone—but not of that second world war generation. Much earlier. But he still has an Italian passport. Well, he had one. He has since become an American. But I know because when we toured together in Europe, that Italian passport came in very handy. It was much easier to handle than the Senegalese passports.

No doubt.

Yes, his name starts with El Hadj, but no, he is not a terrorist. The joys of world music and touring. I take my hat off to the World Music Institute here in New York for bringing so many artists here. They are heroes, brave people.

God bless them.

They know the passport agencies but—thank you, Trump—they could not bring in any artists from Muslim majority countries, no matter how well they played it. But coming back to Leo, he has that rich, South American harmonic sense, those Brazilian cadences that never end. It's a very modern sound. And then the drama of the Argentinian tango. That sensibility goes so well with the Senegalese sabar. When you look at both dances, they're both full of pride and tragedy. “You looked at my wife!”

That is so true. There's a kind of severe passion in both of them.

Seriously sensual. But Leo was always our special guest before, because he was very busy with Esperanza Spalding when she toured the world. You know, I was friends with Esperanza first. But actually, you know how I met Leo? Me and Esperanza and Leo went on a journey to save the Peruvian rainforest. It was a film that was made, and they wanted us to come and be sort of the public faces of that journey and talk about it. So we traveled the rain forest together for three weeks.

Photo by Sandrine Lee

Sounds wonderful.

That's how I really got to know Leo. We were in a little tiny boat going down the Madre de Dios River. The movie was about illegal gold mining in Peru. Gigi Hancock, Herbie’s wife was involved. And you know where I met those two? It was at the Festival in the Desert in Mali. That's how that Peruvian journey happened, because they're both very engaged in saving the rainforest, the lungs of our world. I'm always trying to engage myself, or lend my voice to that cause, or to create awareness to what the hell people are doing there. So that's how I got really tight with Leo, and I started inviting him to play. I think he's on volumes three and four with my current band.

I remember seeing him play with you at Iridium some years back. I was blown away. It sounds like for this album, you co-composed with Leo. Is that right? How did you go about writing these songs?

We co-composed, but we arranged really. We started from cells of compositions and then arranged and co-composed together. Mamadou and Alioune both brought in some history. The song “Maba” is named for Mamadou’s great-great-grandfather, the griot sage, Maba. That's a song Mamadou wrote for him. It's funny. When you look the grandfather up on Wikipedia, they call him "the original jihadist,” which of course he is not. He was a Sufi saint.

Mamadou takes an amazing bass solo on that song.

Yes he does. That's what matters, right? You know, as a white girl with the guitar, I was so honored to be given that song. I felt very privileged to be asked to arrange that kind of music. “Maba” came spreading Islam in Senegal. I think he kicked the French asses too. The French were there very early.

Before we go into more of the songs, why did you call the album Dance?

Because I would like to think that you can't sit still while listening.

That's a good answer. Leni, I'm just amazed at how prolific you are. Do we even know how many CDs you've made? I can't keep count.

22.

Amazing. And you're still young.

I had to list them on my website. That's how I know.

You mentioned that people hear Latin influence in this record. I hear that too, but specifically Brazilian. I hear a lot of Brazil here. Am I crazy?

Well, you know, my first world music outing was Brazilian music. My first guitar teacher was from Argentina. That was when I was a child. He used to say, "I cannot teach you the tango, because you do not know what is like to be heartbroken." I replied that my mom wouldn't let me have a puppy.

I doubt that impressed him. Argentines and tango; that's deep.

But he played a lot of Brazilian music. Because as my Brazilian friend said, "All Argentinians secretly wish they were Brazilians." Don't tell Leo I said that. But I love Milton Nascimento and so much Brazilian music, especially their harmonies. You know, it's a music that is so guitaristic. As a guitar player, you can understand it. All of jazz is based around the piano and the saxophone. Now Brazilian music, it's guitar.

And it's combining jazz harmony with those wonderful samba and bossa nova rhythms.

Yes. This is our turf. It comes easily. You don't have the range of the piano. You have six strings instead of 88 keys. That was my first foray into rhythms that are very highly syncopated. Before, I played funk. And then I played Brazilian music. Because when we were young, you had Stan Getz and all of that.

Sure. It was the bossa nova moment.

Bossa nova was a worldwide phenomenon. Everyone had to play at least two or three versions of that rhythm. And then came the Cuban wave and all that. I was very, very much into Cuban composers. Pablo Milanes, the songwriter.

Yes. Beautiful.

It was all to get that extra rhythm into the bass. The same in Jamaican music. The bass is not just a timekeeper, not just another instrument. It's melodic. That always fascinated me. All these voices going every which way. And it's very difficult. Because it can sound awful. It's a hazardous enterprise to mix all of that.

The other reason I think of Brazil when I hear this is that you do a lot of scat singing right along with your guitar, and it reminds me of Flora Purim.

Yes. I love that band. I think Brazilians started scatting in a way that I didn't think was corny. It's like another instrument. And you know, Mike [Stern, Leni’s husband] and I, when we write songs… Mike always writes songs in a mezzo-tenor range, which is not the human voice range, and he always gets a sore throat from singing his own melodies. I say, "Why are you singing in a tenor range? It's not your range.” But singing with the guitar is such an organic thing. I'm glad you like that scatting. I love what it does to the sound of the guitar to have it accompanied by the voice.

Speaking of Mike, I saw that video of you and him playing one of your compositions, “The Cat Stole the Moon.”

That was during quarantine. We were alone together. They filmed it, but it never got broadcast because something happened… Oh yes. George Floyd got killed. And we said, "This is way too happy a song for these times." Then they put it out later. But that was great. I got to play with Mike a lot, and I learned a ton from him.

I bet you did.

He is such a treasure trove of wisdom about the guitar. We played "Giant Steps” and all of those Coltrane songs. He has transcribed everybody, Sonny Rollins, so many... I've done some of that too, but I don't keep it alive the same way he does. And we just went back into our Boston days and the bebop moves, and the time of Herbie and Wayne and all those songs. We basically played guitar together for a year.

I hear some of that in this album. It has more jazz in it than some of the earlier work.

Maybe. Maybe that did creep in. You're right. All those chromatic bebop things that I love so much. And then of course Leo is the master of that. And Mamadou and Alioune, they can hold the sound. You know, sometimes when you do these jazz tunes, everybody goes bananas, and then the audience feels left out. Everybody's having fun except them. I get that feeling when I listen to a piece sometimes. “Yo ho! I’m here!” But with Alioune and Mamadou, they cannot budge from the groove. They also have ears this wide. When Leo does these rhythmic escapades in the solos, Alioune hears everything.

Let's talk about some of the songs. You start right out with a prayer, “Ya Rahman.”

You know, that was basically a “fuck you” to president Trump. It started with the Muslim prayer. I put the Lord's Prayer in there too. It’s just a “fuck you” to everyone who thinks that narrow mindedly. At some point, I couldn't take it anymore. You know, that's one of the most beautiful things in the Muslim faith. The Senegalese are Sufis, so they have the poetic part, not the scientists, but the art and expressive side. They have 100 names for God. This is like poetry. They have poetry in their religion. I knew some of those names, ya rahman, diarabi. Diarabi really means “darling.”

Yes, like the famous Malian song.

In Bambara, they say diarabi, but it’s an Arabic word that means "beloved." It's in the Muslim prayers, the prayers in the Koran. So I just listed as you would in a Muslim prayer, the many names of God.

That's what all those lyrics are.

All those lyrics. And it ends with the phrase "you are the one,” which is like a traditional way of ending those lists of names. And then I thought that since I am not Senegalese and not a Muslim, the Lord's Prayer is really the best we came up with. It has some pretty good poetry. So I just took a part of the Lord's Prayer and put it in there. It's just a deeply felt statement that I needed to make. I have seen the discrimination that my Muslim friends suffer. I felt like getting in people's faces with my black belt, but that doesn't really accomplish anything. Because the injustice remains. So I have this need to say something publicly about it and to prove how beautiful it is. “You don't even know what it is that you’re banning.” Islam is one of the newest religions that came after Christianity. They made everybody a prophet. What else do you want? I was just so beside myself about it so I wrote this song.

I hear also in the scales that Leo is playing an Arabic sensibility. Let's talk about “Aljouma.” This is one where I really felt Brazil.

Aljouma. It means Friday in Wolof, and Friday is Sunday in Islam. On a Friday afternoon, everyone goes to the mosque. It's the day of prayer. Everyone gets dressed up to go to the mosque. Nothing happens on Friday. That's because it's Sunday. Nothing happens in the West on Sunday either. “You're calling me on a Sunday?" I hear that from my publicist. So that’s Aljouma. It's that celebration.

You have a lovely guitar solo on that one.

Thank you. You say it sounds like Brazilian music, but of course Brazilian music comes from Africa.

Of course. But when I hear something that sounds Latin, my first instinct is to try to think—is it more in the Brazil rhythmic family or the Cuba rhythmic family. Of course there are others, but you can start there. This felt more in the Brazilian side. Especially with that wordless vocal.

Do they have a name for that in Brazil?

I imagine they do. I just call it Flora.

Flora. I can live with that.


We spoke about “Maba.” What about “Kani?”

It means hot pepper. That is Leo's song. You know in Senegal they give you that sauce with the tieboudienne [jollof rice and fish]. It's just a squished hot African pepper with a little bit of vinegar and oil in there. It's a deadly thing that will kill anything that's not good for you. That is kani. I love kani.

The song is quite rhythmically playful. That makes sense now. And then there’s “Khale” or “Children.” It starts out sounding lie a swing song, but then it shifts into an Afro- Latin groove.

It starts out like a swing song, but it was not a swing song. It's a composition by Alioune, and Leo reharmonized it. He just started playing those chords. It started out as a song in the key of D. D. Nothing else. And then Leo started playing those chords. And Alioune said, “Do that!” And then it goes into those more modern chords. But it's still a deep groove. That's kind of the collaboration that we do. Somebody comes in with a song and then it changes. Mamadou is great with forms. "Let's wait eight bars. Let's let it breathe.” That's how that intro happened. On Mamadou’s song “Maba,” Leo also reharmonized that.

It sounds like he's playing a Fender Rhodes on that one.

That's right. We recorded at Shelter Sound on 27th Street. We rehearse in there. It's on the sixth floor of that building. There are some good acoustic guitars there, and the microphones, those old Neumanns. They’re like lungs. And they record fabulously. Studio recording was cool during a pandemic, because sound carries on air, so you have to isolate. Of course when I sang in the vocal booth I took the mask off. And actually, there was no hanging out in the room. We listened on our headphones. But it was totally doable. I felt so lucky that this was actually possible. You know, it's kind of a solitary thing to begin with. You sit by yourself and you practice and compose and you write. We are creatures who need solitude to do what we do. It's only in French novels that people write in a café.

Apparently James Joyce was quite good at doing it over the shouting of his children. But that's a special case.

Yes. I think it helps that my band is from the third world, so they are used to difficult situations with their music. Recording in South America or Africa does not happen under the posh circumstances that we have here. And I've played for the last 15 years under those circumstances. I played through whatever amplifier. Nowadays I have a solid-state head that I travel with, but in the past, in Africa, I played through so many Roland Jazz Choruses.

Ah yes. The favorite amplifier of the griot guitarist, and many African guitarists. Tell me about the song “Kono” or “Bird.” I hear what sounds like kamele ngoni there.

That’s Harouna Samake. That was a pandemic digital synch recording with him in Mali. His agent in Europe made it very easy. I sent a finished recording and he recorded over it. But we wrote the song together in Mali much earlier, Harouna and I, at the old Sofitel Hotel in Bamako. It's by the river. It's kind of a high-rise. But there are these birds that come in flocks every morning and every night. They do that swarming bird dance. And they come very close to the windows of that weird high-rise. And I was sitting there with Harouna and we were reminiscing about our times with Salif [Keita] and life in general. You know, we've been friends for a long, long time. I saw those birds and I wrote a song about them and I showed it to Harouna like we used to do on the album Sabani. I played a riff, and then he played the answer to that riff, and that's how that song came about. I had the English lyrics about very small blackbirds in the early morning, and he came in with Bambara words. We spent a long time trying to figure out how to say “window” in Bambara. There is no word for window, because they didn't used to have them. So he just went with "outside my house."

So then I brought it to my band and they actually put a sabar rhythm to it. I sent it to Harouna to see what he thought, and he said it was like the two sabar players in Toumani Diabate’s band. You know, Toumani was the first one in Mali to do that, to bring in two sabar players into Mande music. The Symmetric Orchestra sometimes has two sabar players. I think Toumani's mother is Senegalese. Anyway, according to Harouna, Toumani is half Senegalese.By the way, Leo made a video of “Kono.” He's one of those South American guys who's great at everything artistic.

So then there’s “Daouda Sane.” This one feels more on the Cuban side. Very hot song.

That's a traditional Wolof song that Alioiune arranged. I didn't sing the Wolof lyrics. They ended up on the cutting room floor. Also there was a [Leo] Genovese attack on that song. It started in one key, and then went into many keys. I think it modulates three times.

And then the last song, “Fonio,” which is a grain I remember eating in Mali. I think that's the one song on this album that is in 6/8 time.

You know how in Mali you are all around the same plate, and you all eat with your hand. It has that community feeling. It's about eating together, with the hands, and you talk about this and that. It's the ultimate community experience. Also, our friend Pierre Thiam is a Senegalese chef.

Of course. And he has that wonderful restaurant at the Africa Center.

Yes, before the pandemic, we used to have our CD release parties at his restaurant because it was the best Senegalese food in New York. But the song is just about that experience of eating together.

Well, congratulations on producing something so rich during the pandemic. What is the official release date?

June 4th. Thank you very much for doing this.

My pleasure. And I look forward to seeing you playing soon. We’re coming out of this thing. It's happening!

Review: Downbeat (8/2020) /  by Leni Stern

“4 stars”

https://downbeat.com/reviews/detail/four2

Leni Stern’s fourth album with bassist Mamadou Ba and percussionist Alioune Faye continues an unlikely winning streak for this fusion guitarist who’s created her own brand of music. If you love the wail of Youssou N’Dour and the jangle of Franco Luambo, but also have a soft spot for música popular brasileira, this multilingual, crisply produced, infectiously melodic and rhythmically percolating album is for you.

Particularly fetching is the ballad featuring thumb piano, “Chartwell”—named for Thomas Mapfumo’s longtime mbira player, Chartwell Dutiro—on which Stern sings wordlessly and plays guitar with lyrical joy. “Habib” is also a standout, with composer Ba contributing a Jaco-like electric bass solo and Stern’s husband Mike soaring lyrically on reverbed guitar. On this track and others, the band creates tension with polymetric lines that are as tricky as the overall production is spare, a unique combination that gives Stern’s albums their unique flavor. You can taste it right from the start, as the hefty “Lambar” roars in like Weather Report in a poppish mood.

“Serrer” hits hard, too, with burbling keys and slapping percussion, while Nigerian jùjú music inspires the dark feel of “Miu.” Stern turns tender on the elegiac “Amadeus” and the gorgeously falling melody of “Zamba 264,” one of two tunes by keyboardist Leo Genovese; his other contribution being the deliciously sinuous “Japalema.” Genovese, a frequent Stern collaborator, is a highlight throughout, on both acoustic and electric.

At just under 39 minutes, 4 is a short trip, but it covers a crazy quilt of musical and linguistic territory.

Leni Stern

By Paul de Barros  |   Published August 2020

  

****

4: Lambar; Amadeus; Serrer; Miu; Japalema; Chartwell; Habib; Zamba 264. (38:45)
Personnel: Leni Stern, vocals, guitar, n’goni; Mike Stern (7), guitar; Leo Genovese, keyboards; Mamadou Ba, bass; Alioune Faye, percussion.

Review: Glide Magazine (2/2020) /  by Leni Stern

Guitarist/vocalist Leni Stern gives us more reason to celebrate immigration and the power of multi-cultural music. For the past decade-plus Stern, hailed as one of the world’s top guitarists (her guitarist husband, Mike Stern, isn’t shabby either), has fused a contemporary jazz approach with West African folkloric elements. She has 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 transatlantic journeys have yielded a fresh, personal idiom. Leni’s trio of bassist Mamadou Ba and percussionist Alioune Faye, both natives of Senegal – released the albums 3 in 2018 and Jelell in 2013, along with figuring into the expansive cast of her Dakar Suite of 2016. So, “4” represents both the fourth time they have worked together and the addition of Argentinian keyboardist Leo Genovese, a highly regarded talent on the New York scene as both a leader and as a collaborator with the likes of Esperanza Spalding and Jack DeJohnette.

Genovese adds improvisational spark and hints of South American lyricism further spice the multi-cultural stew. There are five new compositions by Leni (including the beautiful, lullaby-like gem “Chartwell”), two by Genovese (the standout acoustic piano-driven “Japalema”  and one by Ba (“Habib,” which includes a guest solo from Mike Stern). Ever adventurous, this album, her 22nd album since 1986, is filled with melody, grooves, animated voices, provocative interplay and ultimately, a joyous feeling.Leni plays not only guitar on the record but also the n’goni, a banjo-like West African string instrument. “I often imitate the sound of the n’goni on my guitar, too – the guitar being such a chameleonic instrument,” Leni explains. “I’ve always been drawn to the sound of the n’goni, as well as to the kora, the harp-like West African instrument. I love the warm, plucking quality to their untempered sound and the gently driving rhythm they can provide. Originally, it was the pentatonic melodies in West African music that I fell for – they called out to me. And they really stick in your ear.” 

Having grown up in Germany with a classical background, (she titled the second track “Amadeus”) Leni also builds more harmonic movement into her music here along with West African and South American Rhythms. If that’s not enough, there’s some Indian music too, tracing to Leni’s trip to India in 2001, inspired by John Mclaughlin’s love of Indian vocal music. She feels that this gives her guitar a more liquid, vocal quality. You’ll also hear the call-and-response common to African music and American blues (heard on “Habib” especially in husband’s solo).

This tightly knit rhythm section delivers, according to Leni, a stark and highly syncopated feel which is difficult for many musicians to tap into it. Ba also has a unique electric bass sound that reflects traditional West African instruments like the n’goni. The two also play in a rock band so their choruses reflect that, with lyrics in the Wolof and Serer languages on this album. 

Speaking of which, you could access five of these eight tracks as singles – “Chartwell,” “Amadeus,” “Japalema,” “Habib,” and “Zamba 264.” She wants us to hear this uplifting music during these stay-at-home times, saying, “But this time can also enable us to take a break from the world, to have the time and space to delve into things and reflect. As we listen inside their homes, recordings can be vital for that. Music is such a source of beauty and strength for people all around the world. I would love for our new album to be a part of that.”

Together with Genovese on piano and synths along with Leni’s string work, this is unlike almost anything else you’ll hear. There’s jazz fusion, sweeping cinematic passages, contemplative, exploratory calming blends of jazz and world, along with vocals, some wordless, some in other languages. Check out the final cut, “Zamba 264” and you’ll hear all those aspects.

Although this writer covered husband Mike’s 2019 collaboration with Jeff Lorber, Eleven, it appears that Leni Stern’s work has not been covered previously on these pages. So, some background seems appropriate. Leni, along with Mike, helped foment the vibrant scene at the Greenwich Village club 55 Bar back in the early 1980s. Her debut album as a leader, Clairvoyant (Passport, 1986), featured her alongside two jazz icons, guitarist Bill Frisell and drummer Paul Motian. As mentioned previously she has an extensive discography that readers are welcome to search but her forays into African music began when she first performed at Mali’s Festival in the Desert in 2006. Leni appeared in the 2013 documentary about the festival, Last Song Before the War. She has played with Salif Keita and his band on multiple occasions, including when he pulled her onstage to play a solo during his Celebrate Brooklyn! concert in 2008. Two years later, she performed at Carnegie Hall with her original African mentors: Bassekou Kouyate and Ami Sacko. Leni played the U.S. Cultural Ambassador tour of Nicaragua in 2014, and she was artist-in-residence at Nepal’s Jazzmandu: The Kathmandu Jazz Festival in 2015. 

Review: Jazztrail (6/2020) /  by Leni Stern

LENI STERN - 4

June 16, 2020

Label: Leni Stern Recordings, 2020

Personnel - Leni Stern: vocals, guitar, ngoni; Leo Genovese: keys; Mamadou Ba: electric bass; Alioune Faye: percussion + guest Mike Stern: guitar.

For a few years now, German-born, New York-based guitarist/vocalist/composer Leni Stern has been exploring unparalleled world-jazz territories imbued with West African influences. On her new outing, 4, Stern’s trio with Senegalese musicians - bassist Mamadou Ba and percussionist Alioune Faye - is augmented with the addition of Argentine keyboardist Leo Genovese. In this manner, the group earns ampler harmonic and rhythmic magnitudes as well as a deeper improvisational perspective.

“Lambar” is a Malian rhythm that, in the case at hand, is adapted and hyped up with wafting electric bass articulations, n’goni and synth sounds. However, I was far more attracted to “Amadeus”, a gorgeous ambient-pop ballad with some bluesy piano details that would make Tom Waits happy. Both the voice and the piano are very melodically driven and there’s a soulful guitar solo that builds a special aura. Also balladic in nature, the breezy “Chartwell” exposes a three time feel that is extended to the inventive “Japalema”, a Genovese composition that intertwines melodies based on the Japanese pentatonic scale, the spirit of the blues and rich rhythms. Ba’s funkified bass lines are heard in the first half minute, but then the song takes us into places other than what had been suggested at a first glance. The experimental effusions from Genovese become the song’s irresistible attraction.

Featuring Leni’s husband - the iconic guitarist Mike Stern - as a guest soloist, “Habib” dives deep in the groove and African rhythm, detaching from the more tempered nature of “Miu”, which, carrying an appealing, sunny feel, appears as a tuneful confluence of styles with inspired Nigerian rhythms. Both “Amadeus” and “Miu” were written for and titled after Leni’s cats.

These eight songs, very picturesque in their in-depth eclecticism and peculiar instrumentation, provide a different listening experience. 

Review: All About Jazz (6/2020) /  by Leni Stern

Leni Stern
4
Leni Stern Recordings
2020

(https://www.allaboutjazz.com/global-fusions-and-african-connections)

If 3 (Leni Stern Recordings, 2018) was the sound of Leni Stern having gone practically native after many years of travels through Africa, 4 could almost represent her bringing plenty of souvenirs to redecorate back home. That's not to say that she's drifting away from those roots that have been central to her music for nine albums now, but just that this one has a bit more of a familiar electric-fusion feel than on its organic predecessor. Her finely-tuned working trio expands to a quartet with the addition of Leo Genovese (hence the title), expanding on his previous guest spot to add new layers of keyboard tones. From the fusion-synth sheen of the opening "Lambar," followed by dreamy piano on the following track and funky electric keys for the next, his presence only gives the others more and more of a boost.

With Alioune Faye and Mamadou Ba still providing a superbly textured rhythm section, Stern has a foundation just as unassumingly solid as her guitar work. The pieces are again full of groove and yet humble in evoking their respective themes; even while simple chants and tricky rhythms form the base, touches of Asian or South American melodies are as likely to pop up as communal vocal chants or juicy electric jams. Holding steady patterns or snappily trading solos, each of the four adds whatever will fit the whole without losing their collective grounding. Perhaps Stern's most expansive and free-spirited outing yet, 4 shows that the change in the band's balance is all for the better.

Downbeat Premiere: Zamba 264 /  by Leni Stern

https://downbeat.com/news/detail/premiere-leni-stern-zamba-264

There’s a vastness to the music that guitarist Leni Stern’s worked on since the 1980s.

It comes, in part, from an embrace of global music and ideas, as well as a tasteful approach to guitar. She continues her journey on 4, a disc set for release June 19 on her LSR imprint. A video for “Zamba 264,” a tune off the upcoming disc, premieres below.

In the August 2018 edition of DownBeat, Philip Freeman wrote the following about 3, the guitarist’s previous full-length: “She’s not a showboat; she never shreds, but the statements she makes have that much more impact for the restraint.”

That same idea’s applicable to 4 as well.

“‘Zamba 264’ features the rich South American harmonies that have fascinated me ever since I started playing guitar,” Stern wrote in an email, adding that the zamba rhythm here, has provenance in Argentina and roots in Africa. “With our newest band member, the brilliant pianist Leo Genovese came the beautiful musical heritage of South America. The melody lends itself [to] the wordless vocals that I started exploring on [3].”

With Genovese expanding the trio to a quartet, the band’s freed up a bit, with Mamadou Ba getting a sizable bass feature on the album opener, “Lamabar,” and Alioune Faye’s percussion figuring heavily into every moment of the recording. DB

New Album "4" coming out June 19th /  by Leni Stern

Leni Stern – 4

(Leni Stern Recordings/Megaforce/RED – vinyl and digital – June 2020)

Guitarist-vocalist Leni Stern – dubbed “a genre-defying adventurer” by Guitar Player magazine – 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. The Munich-born New Yorker’s transatlantic journey has yielded a fresh, personal idiom, one where progressive virtuosity blends seamlessly with age-old folk traditions. Leni’s trio – featuring the kindred-spirit rhythm section of bassist Mamadou Ba and percussionist Alioune Faye, both natives of Senegal – released the albums 3 in 2018 and Jelell in 2013, along with figuring into the expansive cast of her Dakar Suite of 2016. Now the trio has become a quartet with the addition of Argentinean keyboardist Leo Genovese, a highly regarded talent on the New York scene as both a leader and as a collaborator with the likes of Esperanza Spalding and Jack DeJohnette. Leni’s new album – aptly titled 4 – showcases the crystalline guitar, West African rhythms and multilingual songs that listeners know from her recent releases, with Leo’s improvisational fire and hints of South American lyricism added to the mix. The album comprises five new compositions by Leni (including the beautiful, lullaby-like gem “Chartwell”), two by Leo (“Japalema” being an album highlight) and one by Mamadou (“Habib,” which includes a guest solo by Leni’s husband, fusion guitar hero Mike Stern). Brimming with joyous melody and groove, 4 could be Leni Stern’s most irresistible album yet.

New Single: Chartwell /  by Leni Stern

Featuring Leo Genovese, Alioune Faye, and Mamadou Ba

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