Daniel Nebiat
Gladstone Hotel (Melody Bar). Friday, April 1, 2011.
Launching its third year in the Gladstone Hotel's Melody Bar, Batuki Music's annual World Concert Series faced a bad news/good news scenario, with scheduled headliner Mel M'rabet forced to cancel due to illness. Luckily, with such an abundance of talent at hand, programmer Nadine McNulty had no problem finding a last-minute fill-in, who turned out to be Daniel Nebiat.
Maybe these things shouldn't matter when we evaluate the music, but it counts for a lot that besides his musical gifts, Danny Nebiat is a truly warm and openhearted guy. While the band were soundchecking, a youngster, whose family was having dinner at one of the nearby tables, walked over to take a picture. Spotting him, Nebiat immediately hammed it up for the kid, even moving aside the microphone stand he was setting up to allow for a better picture of the whole band. Similarly, Nebiat is an excellent ambassador for his music, patiently introducing crowds to the krar (an Eritrean lyre) and otherwise always willing to talk about his music, whether engaging in bar-room musicology or acting as a dialect coach.1
He was also bringing a slightly different sound from when I saw him before, with Samuel, a guitarist, sitting in for the duration of the set. Although he was new to the band, he showed great technique and knew his stuff. Mostly playing as one more rhythmic element, he largely doubled Nebiat's krar with quick, staccato picks. At a few points, I saw him intently peering at the other musicians to see where he fit in before catching the song and throwing in little double-time nibbles. Tasty, tasty licks. Meanwhile, the backbone of the band is Naz Tana's Bass and Yared's keyboards — these guys play with unflashy professionalism, leaving plenty room for Nebiat to be a showman.
Eritrean music (which overlaps with the styles of neighbouring northern Ethiopia) has two dominant modes, tigrigna and the kicking guayla beat — the latter, with its repeating ba-doom one-two rhythmic lurch, is an tasty gift from Eritrea to the world. The band gave a taste of both in the first of the forty-five minute sets, which included five lengthy jams.
In an effort to bring together different kinds of African arts, during the break there was a special presentation from the Jaivah Dance troupe, showing off their intensely physical moves. After the intermission, once the band was up to full speed again, Nebiat brought back Saba Sabina and the dance troupe back out. After impressing the crowd a bit in front of the stage, they quickly started pulling up members of the audience to dance with them, and were soon leading a dance parade around the room, a snake that kept getting longer with each circuit, until it was like a continuous Ouroboros loop. And from there, the rest of the set was more of a dance party, the songs expanding to match that, with four long tunes stretching out past forty-five minutes. And much to the crowd's delight, without missing a lick on the krar, Nebiat stepped down from the stage to dance along.
Listen to a couple songs from this set here.
As I've said many times before, I'm a big fan of these early Friday shows at the Gladstone — the folks there should be commended for continuing to program them.2 This was really good night, and I feel lucky to live in a city like this where we can see such talent. Remember folks: this isn't "world" music — it's local music. It's here in our city, and it doesn't take much to feel more a part of it.
1 Nebiat is also a busy working musician — when he's in town, most weekends he can be found playing somewhere on the Bloor/Ossington Ethiopian strip — worth seeking out!
2 The "other" African music series at the Gladstone (programmed by Afrofest's Music Africa) takes over the Melody Bar on Friday nights during February to celebrate Black History Month. First up (on February 3, 2012) is Fojeba, bringing some funky zouk. Recommended! Daniel Nebiat will return to the Gladstone as well during this series, appearing with the Kush Ensemble on February 17.
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