diva Mina Agossi seduces London’s legendary 606 Club

2023-12-16 18:00:13

Mina Agossi does anything. Anything, but never any way. Joyful, naughty, excessive, funny; or so seriously, the Franco-Beninese sings as she plays, she plays as she lives, she lives as she sings, indifferent to what people say, but never, ever indifferent to the musicians: at the 606 Club de London (« jazz since 1976 ») Wednesday December 13, Eric Jacot, bassist, his stage companion for nineteen years, and the group AGE7 played this evening by Marc Charrière (synths and keyboards), in the absence of the guitarist, Fabien Miedzianowski. Which is present on the album Lonely Whales, whose vinyl version is a gem.

Read also (2007): Mina Agossi: freedom of voice and improvisation

The 606 Club is the club we like. Hoe-breaking staircase, well-spaced wooden tables, a room where you see and listen to what you see. Separated by three steps and an open door, a second room where you can hear without necessarily seeing – you can chat, kiss or knit with a fork, everyone is happy.

If gentlemen Archie Shepp and Ahmad Jamal made Mina Agossi, 51, an iconic companion of their bands – ten years with Archie, Ahmad Jamal writing for her Marseille, just before he died in April – there must be a few reasons. The main one being talent, of course, the evidence of talent. But ultimately, without irony, without the ability to turn everything upside down, talent is just a very meager habit.

A cappella and without microphone

What certainly retained them about Mina Agossi, Archie Shepp, Ahmad Jamal but also Ted Curson and the others was her voice, her very voices, her insane presence, what she transmitted to the public… It was also her class, her genius for making everything so easy, her mania for taking care of everything which makes her a more attentive diva than a perfectionist. But what they spotted, seen straight away, is what can only be seen from the point of view of the musicians.

Mina is not the singer in the orchestra. She is not either – dolled-up version – a musician among musicians… She has the strength of having developed the role of a woman in this world of men, who no longer has any questions to ask herself . She chooses, meets, circulates, opens the unconscious, likes to laugh and think, enters the scene and spends everything she can spend.

When she opens her mouth, she is not yet on stage, she comes from the audience, a cappella and without a microphone. In other words, completely naked under her African coat and sequined dress. She sings After You’ve Gonethe song by Turner Layton (1918) that everyone covered, following Bessie Smith, Sophie Tucker (both in 1927), or Louis Armstrong.

You have 45% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.