WOMAD

Charles Zawose & African Fire

From Tanzania

Biography by Andy Morgan, July 2002:Charles Zawose is the nephew of the great Dr Hukwe Zawose, Tanzania’s most revered traditional musician and showman. He has accompanied his uncle to Europe on numerous tours and will already be familiar to WOMADers as the percussion playing, grass skirt wearing, and joyously hollering sidekick of the great Doctor. This time however Charles is coming over in his own right with 14 ace musicians from Tanzania’s Wagogo tribe in tow. Together they will dazzle you with a no-holds-barred performance of drumming, fertility rituals and fire dancing. Ten of the crew are actually members of the extended Zawose family who are all based in the Zawose clan compound in Bagamoyo north of Dar-Es-Salaam. Most of the show will be powered by a boggling array of different traditional instruments like the ilimba or monster thumb piano, the zeze or violin, the filimbi or flute and nguga ankle bells. For the last part of the show however, African Fire will welcome the great Congolese singer and Kwassa Kwassa pioneer Gendaeeka to the stage for a breathless finale. Don’t try any of this at home, apart from the wild and breathless dancing that is.