FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM
"Mundo Muzak" and friends practicing at Junk Studios in Kaimuki. Clockwise from bottom -- Efoe Bedel on the conga, Seph-1 on vocals, Kevin Chang on the ukelele and Lindy Patterson on the gourd.
World music
The torch has been passed to a
group here led by a West African
Live world music was a regular attraction for years Thursday nights at Anna Bannanas when the North American Bush Band drew bodies to the dance floor.
Now the torch has been passed on to a quartet of like-minded musicians fronted by a charismatic fellow who hails from Togo, West Africa.
Mundo Muzak
Where: Anna Bannanas, 2440 S. Beretania St.
When: 9 p.m. Thursdays
Admission: $5 cover, 21 and over
Call: 222-5271
The genesis of Mundo Muzak began when singer-guitarist Efoe Bedal met local percussionist Lindy Patterson at one of the popular "First Thursday" poetry slams at the Studio 1 Art Gallery. Bedal was performing one of his regular gigs with One World Tribe at the nearby Garden Sports Bar on Nuuanu when, during a break, he spotted a drumming session through the gallery's picture windows.
"I found out that Lindy was very knowledgeable about African rhythms like Congolese and soukous (from Zaire)," he said.
After a month of Monday-night jam sessions at Junk Music studios with bassist Geoff Red and drummer and fellow world music enthusiast Babatunji Heath, Heath approached Anna's management with the idea of starting a weekly gig there.
They've performed two Thursday gigs so far, but tonight's show starts what they hope will be an occasional, expanded lineup of Mundo Muzak, featuring guest musicians and a deejay.
Guests include local Celtic troubadour James McCarthy; guitarist Kevin Hughes; Honolulu Theatre for Youth artistic director Mark Lutwak (who plays a mean accordion); Kevin Chang and Kelli Heath (no relation to Babatunji), of the Hawaiian underground band Kupa'aina; and MC Seph I, of the Microscopic Syllables contributing his word flow.
Daniel Warner will also keep things moving by spinning some of his favorite Congolese dance records. "For this third gig, we wanted to invite some guests to make it more fun," Babatunji Heath said. "So every third Thursday, we'll go with an expanded lineup." (Percussionist Jan Jeffries, originally with the Bush Band, sat in with Mundo Muzak last week.)
"All of this represents the first time I've played with other musicians on Oahu," Bedal said in his accented English (he also speaks a little Spanish, plus Mina, his country's native dialect, and French, a reflection of Togo's colonial past). "I do like it, the good vibes, and personally, I feel very fortunate that I have met these musicians. The teamwork is good, and we're on our way for a good journey."
BEDAL HIMSELF has made a long and circuitous journey to Hawaii, a place he briefly visited back in 1986 as a tourist on Maui. He left his home country in the summer of 1980 for New York, then a 22-year-old accompanied by a Peace Corps volunteer he made friends with, traveling to the United States for the first time, wanting to learn to speak English.
FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM
Kevin Hughes on guitar, Mark Lutwak on accordion and Babatunji Heath on the drums.
The two friends would travel down the East Coast to Florida, then wend their way to Denver. ("My friend is still a Peace Corps worker," he said, "and she's back at work, I think in Russia right now.")
From Denver to California, Bedal would continue to spend time between Colorado, California and Florida over the years, making his living as both a French tutor and a music teacher (which he still does to this day). He made his second, and current, visit to Hawaii several months ago.
He and the rest of Mundo Muzak are mostly doing covers of popular African, Caribbean reggae and ska, and American R&B songs during their sets, but it's Bedal hope that "over the next three or four months, we'll be doing more original music. The intentions of our music is reflected in our name, which translates into 'world music.' We want to embrace a worldly view and express it through an amalgam of sound."
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