Continued ...

... , trying to copy the guitar parts. One evening Pierre, a young guy from the village showed up at my house in Toma, with a guitar! He taught me a lot on the many visits which followed.

As I listened to the bands playing in the dance halls of Ouagadougou the desire to play this music myself became stronger and stronger. My wish was fulfilled, years afterwards, back in Europe, as I ran into musicians from Ghana, Congo and the Gambia. In one of the bands I ran into flautist and saxophone player Pieter de Mast, who became a good friend. Pieter studied at the conservatory and moved on to be an accomplished jazz musician. (www.pieterdemast.nl) I stuck to the day job, only playing with a Congolese-Dutch soukous band once in a while in the weekends.

Some years later, the desire to leave the beaten soukous track and “do it my own way” gave me the idea for the projects which resulted in the 12 tracks on this CD. Cheerful melodic instrumental tunes on groovin’ afro-latin beats. The melodies are mostly played on the flute, by Pieter, or on guitar, by me. The melodies are followed by vamps with flute and guitar solos. In some of the songs Pieter also plays the piccolo, alto flute and soprano saxophone. I’m very much indebted to Pieter for his work on this album. I hope you’ll enjoy listening to this music as much as I enjoyed making it!

Line-up

John Ligtenberg: Guitar, bass guitar, drum & percussion arrangements
Pieter de Mast: Flute, alto flute, piccolo, soprano saxophone

All songs written by John Ligtenberg
Recording and mixing by John Ligtenberg
Mastering by Wessel Oltheten (www.spoor14.nl )
Artwork by Marjolein Wallroth
Graphic design by Koen Verbeek

Thanks to Lea Jurida for her advice and the loop in Red Room, Harriët Kroon and Teun Theunissen for their feedback and patience, Koen Verbeek for the cover design, and Marjolein and Jesse for everything!