The Jazz Foundation Presents: Boma Bango
February 26, 2025 5:00 pm - February 26, 2025 6:00 pm
Snug Harbor | Free
Boma Bango takes the hypnotic, reverb-drenched, tremolo-ed electric guitar heavy music from the 1960s in the Congo and reimagines it as if it came out of some humid outdoor bar in Southwest Louisiana.
Boma Bango formed after Daniel Coolik became infatuated with 1950s and 1960s Congolese Rumba. A music originally influenced by Cuban records from the 1930s and 40s and infused with melodies and instruments from the Congo. Boma Bango, by taking musical cues from Congolese luminaries as Franco Luambo & le TPOK Jazz, L'Orchestra African Fiesta with Docteur Nico and Tabu Ley Rochereau, and Le Grand Kallé et l'African Jazz, has strived to create their own kind of improvisational music based upon the sounds from this golden age. Currently the band consists of Daniel Coolik (electric guitar and electric mandolin), Trey Boudreaux (bass), Doug Garrison (drums), Cesar Bacaro (congas and percussion), Aurora Nealand (saxophone) and Megan Constantin (vocals). They reinvent old songs and write new ones in Louisiana French just as the Congolese wrote songs in Lingala. In the same way jazz musicians took the Great American Songbook in the 1940s and 50s and now take from popular music, Boma Bango has reworked these beautiful and almost forgotten melodies to create an alluring, tropical, and exciting new sound.