Lionel Loueke is a soft voice and a virtuoso six snares. From Benin to the Big Apple, this guitarist beguiles his audiences with the eloquent plurality of his recitals, between jazz and West-African rhythms. He is a graduate from the American School of Music of Paris. In 1999, he received a grant to pursue his studies at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston. He later joined the Thelonius Monk Institute in Los Angeles, the perfect way to launch a career in New York. He then started playing with trumpet-player and film music composer Terence Blanchard, before joining the band of the pianist Herbie Hancock, a living legend of jazz and of improvized music. His latest album, with the evocative title “Virgin Forest” (a gem produced by Obliq Sound / Abeille), finally brings all the pieces of Lionel Loueke’s personal puzzle together. Lionel Loueke evokes Africa, its animal spirits and dense forests, through poetic fragments. But most and foremost, he expresses what is intimate to himself. The album also contains very short songs which capture unique moments through a combination of the Afro-Cuban spirit invented in Kinshasa fifty years ago and a touch of technical jazz. The “post-jazz man” will be performing at the Warehouse on Wednesday at 21h00.
2007-03-092024-04-23By Staff Reporter