Bona/Midon Duala Malambo Project

The Duwala Malambo Project

Featuring Richard Bona and Raul Midón

Two of Music’s Most Inventive Talents Team Up

for a Collaboration That Acknowledges

No Creative, Spiritual or Musical Boundaries

Richard Bona and Raul Midón are two of modern music’s most unique artists. Both possess a strong musical persona that’s instantly recognizable from the first note of any performance.

Midón is known for his unique, high-energy acoustic guitar technique, sonorous voice and intelligent songwriting. “Most songs tend to be about love, which is fine, but I want to be more poetic and bring in more complex emotional elements in my writing. I want to get past the ‘meet you in the club and dance all night long’ stuff.” By combining flamenco flourishes, folk strums, hammer ons and pull offs and jazzy comped chords, Midón’s guitar often sounds like a small acoustic combo. His improvisations on faux trumpet, generated by blowing notes through his closed lips, add to this illusion, producing a sound Miles would be proud of.

“Years ago, I played acoustic sets at a rowdy West Village bar,” Midón says. “The room was hostile, full of hard-core drinkers, so I took on this warrior approach to guitar. I knew I had to do something to make them listen. It nudged me into developing a percussive, high-energy way of playing. If I’d strummed sensitive songs, I would have been buried by the crowd.”

Midón’s energetic mix of soul, pop, jazz, folk, and Latin music was matchless. Arif Mardin (Norah Jones, Aretha Franklin) signed Midón to Manhattan Records. That led to his first national TV gig on The David Letterman Show.

“I saw Raul on Letterman,” Bona recalls. “He was wonderful. I couldn’t believe I’d never heard of him. A few weeks later, he sent me a beautiful email, so we met at my studio in New York. We played and it sounded good, but you never know how it’s going to go over live. When we played in Europe last year, we clicked and people loved it. We’re going out this spring with a small band to see how far we can go.”

Bona is known for his amazing electric bass work, but he’s also a talented vocalist, songwriter, arranger and bandleader. Since coming to New York in 1995, he’s played with Joe Zawinul and Pat Metheny, been musical director for Harry Belafonte and worked with the Brecker Brothers, Larry Coryell and Steve Gadd. “I get bored quickly,” Bona explains, laughing. “I don’t like to play the same arrangement every day. I have to go my own way.”

Adept at jazz, West African pop and folkloric music and rhythms from around the world, from samba to son and reggae to rai, Bona has created his own unique vision of jazz and world music. It’s a sound that strikes a chord with listeners, no matter what continent he’s on.

“Raul is a kindred soul,” Bona says. “When we played as a duo in Stockholm, we were looking good. We did some of his songs and some of my songs. We both have wide ranging, but different, musical interests. He can sing in Spanish and I can sing in French and Douala, so there is endless potential to reach out to different audiences.

“Raul plays from his heart and likes to work hard. My heart is always in the music. I don’t care if I break my foot or have a cold, as long as I’m playing, I’m OK. We both focus on the music, which will keep everything in balance.”

“This tour will be intense,” Midón says. “We’re rehearsing a bunch of tunes, Richard’s and mine, and the shows are going to be ambitious, not just jamming on a couple of tunes until the show is over. The combination of his African identity and my background in Latin, soul and jazz gives us a lot of possibilities. That’s why we chose Duwala Malambo for the project name. Douala is Richard’s tribe and native tongue and Malambo is a folkloric rhythm and dance from Argentina, my dad’s birthplace. We’re hoping to write some songs when we get together for the tour. If we find the right elements, a long time collaboration and an album aren’t out of the question.”

On the Duwala Malambo tour, Bona and Midón have chosen Lionel Cordew to play drums and percussion and Etienne Stadwijk for keyboard duties. “We like to improvise, so we want a small group. That will give us space to solo and explore the music,” Bona says. “Raul plays percussion and I’ll do anything on stage, so we have a lot of possibilities. We’d like to record in the future, and, if the opportunity to play together more often is there, I look forward to it.”

Richard Bona was born in Minta, a small village in Eastern Cameroon. “My grandfather was a storyteller, what Americans call a griot and a percussionist,” Bona recalls. “My mother and uncles were traditional singers and musicians. I got a balafon (African marimba) when I was four. At five, I was playing organ at the church and moving from instrument to instrument. I have perfect pitch, although I didn’t know what to call it when I was young. If I hear a piece of music, I can play it back for you.”

There was no music store in Minta, so Bona made his own guitar. By the time he was 14, he was playing well enough to start a jazz ensemble and land a regular gig at a club in Douala , Cameroon’s capital city. “I was transposing ‘Giant Steps’ by Miles Davis onto guitar and you don’t want to hear how it sounded,” Bona jokes. It was at that club that Bona heard a recording of Jaco Pastorius. “I never heard anything like it before, so I switched to eclectic bass. I had to find out how to play that way. I was only 16, but when you’re young, it’s easy. If I picked up a sax one day, the next day I was doing a gig.”

Bona went to Düsseldorf to study music, but soon relocated to France, where he could speak the language. Between his studies. he played clubs with Manu Dibango, Salif Keita, Jacques Higelin and Didier Lockwood. “I learned the names of chords, but you ask me to play a flatted five, I can’t do it. I play by ear. I know the chords, but I don’t know what to call them.”

In 1995, Bona moved to New York and, after playing with some of the top names in jazz, started a solo career, producing an eclectic body of work without musical or cultural limitations. Scenes From My Life (1999) blended jazz and the rhythms of Cameroon; Reverence (2001) added Latin, fusion and African pop elements; Munia: The Tale (2003) features Salif Keita and rhythms that incorporate funk, rock, African and Brazilian groves; Toto Bona Lokua (2004) explored world music, with lush densely layered vocals provided by Bona, Congolese singer and guitarist Lokua Kanza and singer/songwriter Gerald Toto from Martinique; Tiki (2005) brought in Indian elements to Bona’s evolving world jazz sound and Bona Makes You Sweat – Live (2008) showed Bona’s band in action playing jazz with African, Cuban, Brazilian and reggae influences.

The Ten Shades Of Blues (2009) was a slight departure, but Bona was able to incorporate bluegrass banjo, classical Indian scales, R&B and blues harmonica to implicitly connect the blues with the African music at the music’s root. It was Ten Shades of Blues that brought Bona to the attention of Raul Midón. “When I hear that album,” Midón says, “I knew I had to meet Richard.”

Raul Midón came to New York City to make it big in 2002. He was 35 years old. “It’s not a move I’d recommend to anyone,” Midon says, with his characteristic good humor. “At my age, the odds were against me. Nay, they were overwhelming. Most musicians make it in their 20s. All I had going for me was one self-released album called Blind To Reality and a development deal with Warner Chapel. The advance money paid for the move.”

Midón landed a gig at Arthur’s Tavern, a bar for serious drinkers in the Village. “I played acoustic sets when the blues band was taking their breaks. The place was noisy. I knew I had to do something to make them listen. It made me develop a style that would grab their attention.”

Midón moved on to a monthly date at Joe’s Pub, a showcase for live music at the famed Public Theater of New York. “I was a nobody,” Midón recalls. “No record deal or anything; I didn’t know how important Joe’s Pub was.” Midón was soon playing to crowds that included label executives, agents and bookers. “After a year in New York, producer Danny Kapilion invited me to play at Carnegie Hall on The Movie Music of Spike Lee show. It was only one tune, but it was still Carnegie Hall.”

Kapilion encouraged Midón to audition for the major labels. “Danny told me to go up to their offices and play - very old school. When I auditioned for Arif Mardin at Manhattan Records, he wanted to sign me, but his partner, Bruce Lundvall, was out of town.” Lundvall and Mardin came to hear Midón at Joe’s Pub and signed him. He made two well-received albums for the label, State of Mind and World Within a World. Critics loved his blend of pop, folk, jazz and world music. The albums led to collaborations with musical giants like Stevie Wonder and Herbie Hancock. Larry Klein (Joni Mitchell, Freddie Hubbard) produced Synthesis, his third album, with Vinnie Colaiuta, Dean Parks, Jamie Muhoberac, Larry Goldings and Paulihno Da Costa.

Hearing Bona’s Ten Shades of Blues in 2009 led to The Duwala Malambo Project, Midón’s current passion. “Richard has a strong personality, just like me, and he likes to rehearse, just like I do. Knowing each other’s music gives you the freedom to stretch on stage. You work in the frame, so you can step out of it. Both of us have an adventurous nature, so anything can happen with out one of us saying ‘What the hell are you doing?’ That level of collaboration takes a lot of trust and great musicianship.”