2023-07-31 17:35:18
On the vast stage of Jazz in Marciac, a woman turns behind a mask, a wooden-colored circle, whose eyes and mouth are circled in white, and topped by two thin horns. Fixed gaze and moving body, she sings like a griot, carried by four instrumentalists to African rhythms. This scene is the last outburst of Fatoumata Diawara, singer and composer of Malian origin, on this evening of July 30. An evocation of her roots, of a heritage that she has transcended to truly find herself.
The live performance is a perpetual reappraisal of the link between the artists and their public and, that evening, it did not break despite the artifice to which the interpreter had to engage. After a concert “in the rain” in Germany two days earlier, Fatoumata Diawara’s voice was not there and a soundtrack compensated for this weakness during certain passages. But a burning desire for communion transformed the show.
Constrained to restraint but firm in her commitments, the usually radiant diva delivered her messages through courageous melodies: for African women, against excision, for a tradition renewed by borrowing from other cultures, other sounds, other rhythms.
Jazz, land of female conquest
She herself fled a suffocating family environment and an attempted forced marriage. Between his continent of origin and Europe, cinema and music have opened doors for him, especially towards his inner world. Singing carried and embodied his emancipation.
Jazz, in all its hybridizations, is moreover a land of feminine, even feminist conquest. Fatoumata Diawara concluded on Sunday a sequence opened the day before by two other artists driven by the same momentum of self-affirmation.
A gifted double bass player, the American Endea Owens entitled one of her compositions revenge. She had to chart her course in a world that was still very masculine, find the resources to believe in herself, translate her inspiration onto a staff and form a band – excellent! Its impetus is nourished by a lively spiritual current in certain American Protestant churches, which encourages self-fulfillment and fraternal sharing.
The torments of an individualistic society
Selah Sue, who succeeded him in the second part of the concert, Saturday July 29, is part of a more demanding register. Born in Belgium, singing in English, she expresses the torments of a society ruled by individualism and an unfathomable melancholy. The music and the shows give him the energy of a flamboyant, percussive optimism. Her stage character combines femininity and virility, intimacy and extroversion, affectivity and fighting posture. His latest album is a poetic rewriting of his journey during recent psychotherapy, an attempt to“embrace all facets of (at) personality “. ” Not easy ! », she winces. His compositions oscillate between the delicate arpeggio of an acoustic guitar and the saturated sounds of his unleashed orchestra.
Other women took center stage at this Marciac festival, which is celebrating its forty-fifth edition this year: percussionist Anne Pacéo, singers Lizz Wright, Norah Jones, Samara Joy, Suzanne Vega, Robin McKelle and Cecile McLorin Salvant. But parity remains a struggle: they represent less than a third of the shows and the orchestras remain largely male.
Roberto Fonseca, a shimmering spectacle
Succeeding Fatoumata Diawara on Sunday, Cuban pianist Roberto Fonseca continued the celebration with a moment of dance, grace and humor. At the crossroads of jazz and Latin rhythms, eight men offered a shimmering show until the middle of the night, gathered during an astonishing scene around a low table decorated with large candles which gave their group the dimension of a spiritual community.
The highlight was a tribute from Roberto Fonseca to his mother, Mercedes, symbol of all those who believed in him and helped him on his journey. At the piano, delicately accompanied by his percussionist accomplice Andrés Coayo, he plunged the huge marquee into a moment of deep tenderness, and found himself overwhelmed by the shared emotion. Woman and man, each, ultimately, is looking for himself.
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The Jazz in Marciac festival
The festival opened on July 20 and will end on Sunday August 6. In particular, singers Dhafer Youssef, Gregory Porter and Gilberto Gil, singers Robin McKelle and Cécile McLorin Salvant, trumpeters Wynton Marsalis and Raynald Colom, pianist Goran Bregovic and saxophonist Femi Kuti will be performing under the marquee.
The L’Astrada concert hall, in the heart of Marciac, also offers a rich program with in particular the trio of trumpeter Yoann Loustalot, guitarist Yamandu Costa, and singer Gabi Hartmann.
Finally, orchestras follow one another every day on a stage set up in the square of the Gers villagefor free concerts.
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