🇬🇧 After three years of absence on the English side of the Channel, AfuriKo is finally back in Britain this month! We’ll be on a mini-tour of three shows, with stops in Southampton (SMJC), Cardiff (Flute and Tankard Jazz), and Sheffield (Jazz at the Lescar). Don’t miss us if you’re in one of these areas: we look forward to sharing some new music with you, hanging out, and catching up!
Tomek’s Ear Condition 601 (Love And Tensor Algebra) – 2023.02.10, complete playlist:
1. DAVID FIUCZYNSKI – Radio Is The Enemy — Black Cherry Acid Lab CD
2. DUB INC. – Même Si — Afrikya CD
3. AFURIKO – Oleleko — Tao DL
4. HIBIST TIRUNEH – Yene Astemari (የኔአስተማሪ) — ሕብስት ጥሩነህይቅርታ CD
5. HOFFMANN-HOOCK & WÖSTHEINRICH – Phased Realities — Conundrum CD
6. RADICAL DANCE – Sabre Dance — Sometimes God Smiles V/A CD
7. เคน ดาเหลา (KEN DALAAO) – ลำสัตว์อยากเป็นนาย (Lam Sat Yaak Bpen Naay) — ลำสัตว์อยากเป็นนาย / ลำล่องรำพันธุ์ 7“
8. ROBERT JÜRJENDAL – Ja Meie Silmad Tegid Silla / And Our Eyes Made A Bridge — Rõõmu Allikas / Source Of Joy CD
9. SBB – 3rd Reanimation — Follow My Dream CD
10. PANZERBALLETT – Der Saxdiktator — Breaking Brain LP
11. TANGO TRANSIT – The Curtain — Blut CD
12. ZA! – Kuckuck Kuckuck — Discorporate Festival 2013 V/A DL
13. ทวนทอง เทพอุทัย (TUANTHONG THEP’UTHAI) – สาวเชียงใหม่ (Saao Chiang Mai) — เชียงบัวด่าสาว / สาวเชียงใหม่ 7“
🇬🇧 Join AfuriKo at ZumEck in Basel (Switzerland) for an evening of African infused jazz. The venue is a market/bar/café with regular live music offerings located right by the Rhine river. With Nino Wenger (saxophones), Akiko Horii (percussion), Jim Funnell (piano, keyboards). We hope to see you there!
🇫🇷/🇨🇭 Rejoins AfuriKo à ZumEck à Bâle (Suisse) pour une soirée jazz aux accents africains. Le lieu est un marché/bar/café offrant une programmation musicale variée, le tout à deux pas du Rhin. Avec Nino Wenger (saxophones), Akiko Horii (percussions), Jim Funnell (piano, claviers). Nous espérons t’y retrouver !
🇩🇪/🇨🇭 Besuche AfuriKo im ZumEck in Basel (Schweiz) für einen Abend mit afrikanisch angehauchtem Jazz. Der Veranstaltungsort ist ein Markt/Bar/Café mit regelmäßigen Live-Musik-Angeboten direkt am Rhein. Mit Nino Wenger (Saxophone), Akiko Horii (Percussion), Jim Funnell (Piano, Keyboards). Wir hoffen, dich dort zu sehen!
AfuriKo’s third livestream from Saintines (Hauts-de-France). After our recent trip to Bulgaria, we decided to revisit “Sedi Donka” (from our album Style) and “Trace of Peach” (from Tao), and perform them for you algonside a newer arrangement: “Pismo ti e doshlo” (unreleased so far). We hope you enjoy this selection of African infused Bulgarian tunes!
Streamed on October 22, 2022 at 2PM CEST
Program:
🎵 Trace of Peach (Slivenska rūchenitsa) (traditional, arr. by AfuriKo)
🎵 Sedi Donka (traditional, arr. by AfuriKo)
🎵 Pismo ti e doshlo (traditional, arr. by AfuriKo)
The city has been good to Akiko and I. We’ve certainly lived through a lot over these past four years. And now it’s time to move on. AfuriKo is packing up and getting ready for a new adventure: we’re flying off to Reykjavik, Iceland on Monday!
To say goodbye, kick off the year, and celebrate the beginning of this new chapter, we’re playing two sets from our home in Sunnyside, Queens, today at 3PM and 8PM EST. You can watch them live and/or replay them later on YouTube. Just click on the videos below!
Streamed on January 2, 2021 at 3PM EST
Streamed on January 2, 2021 at 8PM EST
Program (both sets):
🎵 In B Town (AfuriKo) – inspired by Bamaya, a traditional Dagomba rhythm from northern Ghana
🎵 Up in the Air (AfuriKo) – inspired by Agahu, a traditional Ewe rhythm from Ketonu in Benin
🎵 Pismo ti e doshlo (traditional, arr. by AfuriKo) – folk tune from Bulgaria
🎵 Kotedjuga (AfuriKo) – inspired by Kotedjuga, a traditional Malinke rhythm from the border area between Guinea and Mali
🎵 Kassai (Ou Yoshida, Taiji Nakamura, arr. by AfuriKo) – solo section set to Kassa Soro, a traditional Malinke rhythm from Eastern Guinea
Back in 2019 (May through November) and then again more recently in July and August of 2020, AfuriKo had the pleasure to invite both Corey A. Wallace (on trombone) and Alex Busby Smith (electric bass) as guest artists as part of our monthly residency at Tomi Jazz (a Japanese bar & grill in Midtown Manhattan that features nightly live jazz). The shows in both trio formats were a blast, and Igneous Alloy, a composition of mine first recorded on Spirit of the Snail (2015), was one of the tunes we played almost every time. So we decided to record a quartet version of it (this time with both Alex and Corey featured on the same track!) to document these good times and make a little something available to those of you who weren’t able to make it out to Tomi’s. The arrangement was refined to suit this particular instrumentation, including trombone melodies, synth counterlines, and a new bass line/riff to support Akiko’s percussion solo. Our friend Laure Lang from the Hauts-de-France region added her grain of salt with a magical mix and crafty video editing. Enjoy!
💽 Support us by getting your digital track on Bandcamp 🙂
Corey A. Wallace – trombone
Alex Busby Smith – electric bass
Akiko Horii – percussion
Jim Funnell – keyboards
Laure Lang – mixing, mastering, and video editing
Recorded in New York, NY in August and September 2020.
Mixed and mastered in Betz, FR in September 2020.
The track “Oleleko” from AfuriKo’s album Tao was featured on SoundCellar 2013, a Spotify playlist put together by the South West England venue for their 10-year anniversary. SoundCellar is “a haven for fans of non mainstream music in the atmospheric setting of the Blue Boar cellar bar in Poole, Dorset.” The playlist highlights bands and artists that have visited the venue during the year 2013.
Tracks from AfuriKo’s latest album Tao (2019) were aired on Radio Robert on April 27 and May 22, 2020. The Parisian station, created during the COVID-19 pandemic and operated by the team at 59 Rivoli (a venue known for its exhibitions, performances, and artists-in-residence programs) offers playlists and podcasts. Their daily jazz show “Jazz non scientifiquement prouvé, la playlist du Pr Raoult” airs at 7PM GMT+2.
Tracks from two AfuriKo concerts (both recorded in early 2020) were featured on The Jazz Hole Live with Linus, a show offering live sets by different artists each month and aired on BTRtoday.
Jazz a la Calle is an international cultural movement that culminates in a festival held each year in Mercedes, Uruguay, and boasts artists from all over South America and beyond.
Jazz At The Lescar is a weekly jazz night in Sheffield, England, ran by Jez Matthews and his team (Jazz Promoter of the Year in the 2018 Parliamentary Jazz Awards).
BTRtoday‘s mission is to inform and impact their audience in a positive way by identifying artists and cultural trends on the rise and contextualizing them alongside those that may be more established.
The Jazz Hole, hosted by sought-after New York City clarinetist and saxophonist Linus Wyrsch, presents the music of new talents from inside and outside of the New York circuit, and every once in a while, Linus is able to sneak in a major jazz artist, sometimes accompanied with a short interview (John Clayton, Lew Tabackin, Fred Hersch, Sue Mingus, Steve Gadd, Jojo Mayer, Gerald Clayton, Javon Jackson, the President of Resonance Records George Klabin, Sofia Rei, Sharel Cassity, Mark Sherman, Harvie S, Jean-Michel Pilc, Dafnis Prieto, Randy Johnston, Helen Sung, Gregorio Uribe and many others).
(For access to all BTRtoday shows that feature AfuriKo, click here to view AfuriKo’s artist page on their website.)